Are we expecting enough from children’s books?

“Butterfly, butterfly, can’t you see?

None of these creatures looks like me!”

“You never told me she looked like you!”

“Of course I didn’t! I thought you knew!”

Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson

Because, of course, everyone should look like their mum. The book relies on a common understanding – a simple, universal truth, and readers need to buy into it for the book to work. Except it’s not universal, and it definitely isn’t simple.

In so many of our best-known, most-loved children’s books familial relationships are still portrayed through physical likeness. It’s an assumption that casts a long shadow: to belong in a family you will need to all look alike. I wonder what this says to children who are fostered or adopted, how it makes them feel, how they relate to the characters they see and more importantly how it makes them feel about themselves?

Seeing yourself in a book is validating. It makes you feel seen, understood, acknowledged. It’s being recognised, considered and (hopefully) accurately painted onto the page for everyone else to see too. That’s pretty crucial for everyone, but for children even more so, because they don’t yet write their own stories, and they’re still trying to work out how they fit in, where they belong, who they are and who their tribe is.

But it’s more dangerous than that, by materialising Monkey’s logic we validate it in some way, which is all the more alarming when alternatives are not being equally presented. How are these books experienced by children for whom the presented reality doesn’t apply, isn’t relevant, meaningful or true?

We know that books help develop understanding and empathy; that is more important than ever for those who are marginalised and, as a consequence, less acknowledged or considered by society as a whole. As we celebrate adoption this month, it’s a good opportunity to think about how that experience may be felt and seen by children with first-hand experience, and equally important, how the presentation of perceived norms makes them feel.

One feature of my own experience of adopting, was the frequent use of the term ‘real’ in relation to our daughter’s parentage. It’s an uncomfortable and, I fear, pretty common perception:

• Biological = real

• Non-biological = what?

Unreal, fake, temporary, false…all options are deeply troubling and misleading.

But sadly, they form part of the bedrock of our understanding of adoption. Being confronted with this universally accepted ‘logic’ time and time again is, as an adult, exhausting and uncomfortable; but in the case of adopted children for whom identity is potentially so contentious and complicated already, it’s far more potent. It makes the very simple act of picking up a book at bedtime a risky business…

What will be presented, how much will it contrast with our own family experience and, crucially, how will we explain that gulf in perception? It’s not enough that we see our daughter and recognise all that her life experience brings to her identity, she needs to recognise herself all around her to feel comfortable and at home in the reality that is hers. If portrayal and exploration of her identity is rare, atypical and elusive, Monkey’s logic remains unchecked, his simple, universal truths uncontested.

Building everyone’s identity into books – equally, realistically and with consideration – has the capacity to bring ‘real’ identities and experiences to life, not only so that we can all find ourselves, but so we can all find each other. Only then will we be able to really challenge the assumptions that Monkey makes.