From Metaphorical to Literal Door-Openings in Children’s Literature… and Back

Abstract

Children's literature is often believed to open doors for their readers, in other words to potentially broaden their horizons. As Bishop has famously argued, children's books have a key-role to play in terms of multicultural literacy notably, whether they constitute metaphorical "windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange", or even "sliding glass doors" that readers "have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author" (1990: IX). For Bishop, all children would benefit from reading children's books that are windows and/or sliding glass doors. Socially privileged children need books "that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans", so that they do not grow up with "an exaggerated sense of their own importance and value in the world" (1990: X). Underprivileged children, among which nonwhite children, need books that are not only windows, but windows that are also mirrors-which, Bishop argues, happens "when lighting conditions are just right" (1990: IX)-for them to see themselves not distorted but "reflected in the books they read" (1990: X). While Bishop is aware that "literature, no matter how powerful, has its limits" (1990: XI), she calls for children's books that can From Metaphorical to Literal Door-Openings in Children's Literature… and Back ILCEA, 49 | 2023