Ten of the Best: Books to challenge what happened in the UK this August
“People haven’t started thinking like this overnight. For years our newspapers and TV. and our politicians have painted a picture of Muslims and immigrants…as the bad guys. It’s the headlines and the way politicians talk about us” (Eliyas Explains: What’s Going On in the UK?)
As early as August 12th, mere days after the start of the far-right-inspired riots, children’s author, Zanib Mian, with her trademark generosity, wrote and shared a free resource for children on social media, the title of which bolted straight to the point: ‘What’s Going on in the UK?’ The work of caring for children and answering their questions in the face of this violence is vast and complex; it can be sustained, channelled and boosted by books which dismantle harmful stereotypes, explore disinformation’s project, interrogate power and propaganda, enable children to spot fake news, discover their own voices- and resist. Fen Coles of Letterbox Library makes just ten book suggestions for primary aged children.
Dare
Lorna Gutierrez and Polly Noakes,Tiny Owl, 978-1910328422, £6.99 pbk
For the youngest of readers, a picture book which expands ‘daring’ out from small individual acts of courage, such as trying something for the first time, to bolder, transformative actions: seeing what others don’t, speaking when others won’t, joining a protest, placard brandished high. A wonderfully toddler-friendly text which cements the rights to have opinions and to express those freely.
Eliyas Explains: What’s Going On in the UK?
Zanib Mian (Muslim Children’s Books, August 2024)
A free PDF from Zanib Mian, an author who excels in busting racist myths with buoyancy and wit (see her series, Planet Omar and Meet the Maliks). For ages 8+ and told in Eliyas’ voice, this story takes place on August 7th, the day a second wave of rioting was predicted across the UK. Eliyas’ parents say that none of them can go outdoors that day. They carefully explain to their children the inexplicable – that there are people who wish them harm because of who they are. They describe how the ground had already been well laid by politicians’ and the media’s hateful rhetoric. Because this is Zanib’s work, there is also hope- from duas sure to make a demon’s plans flop to emboldening children with ways to counter hatred to citing real life role models such as Muslim chaplain Adam Kelwick who met the violence directed at his masjid by handing out burgers and chips.
Fight Back
A. M. Dassu, Scholastic, 978-0702315886, £7.99 pbk
Interest in Dassu’s middle grade novel resurged in August across social media. It describes the aftermath of a terrorist attack at a K-pop concert in the Midlands. Racism is stoked, false narratives peak, tensions simmer and ultimately spill over into the local community. A young British Muslim, Aaliyah, resolves to move forward against this tide, choosing to wear the hijab and drawing on a thoughtful activism which draws her friends into the fight. The racist and religious-based discrimination experienced by young people feels palpable and the might of their resistance is striking. A numbing swipe at racist tropes, Dassu also exposes assumptions about who makes up the far-right. [Shortlisted for the Little Rebels Award 2023].
The Fights That Make Us
Sarah Hagger-Holt, Usborne, 978-1801315791, £7.99 pbk
It’s perhaps no surprise for a list such as this to feature a third Little Rebels Award Winner (alongside Mian and Dassu). This novel tracks the violence of prejudice and the joy of pride across two very different generations. Parallel narratives describe two young women who fall in love in the 1980s against the backdrop of homophobic legislation (specifically Section 28) and, in the present, the discrimination experienced by two friends who identify as non-binary and pansexual. The stories speak to each other in a dance of solidarity, community and hope for the future. Above all, this is a celebration of how minorities have historically fought back with marches, direct action and, also very often, with playful irony.
A Hero Like Me
Angela Joy, Jen Reid and Leire Salaberria, Frances Lincoln, 978-0711270411, £7.99 pbk
A proudly political title, inspired by the infamous toppling of Edward Colston off his plinth in June 2020 and part authored by Bristol activist, Jen Reid. Included here because of the ways in which it celebrates children’s lively questions and then encourages them to keep thinking critically. The protagonist, a young girl, wanders through her neighbourhood, observing memorials and wondering who gets anointed as a ‘Hero’ and why. Her interrogation travels through to the backnotes which prompt the reader to, similarly, unpick who our culture reveres as role models. A warm invitation to young readers to resist dominant narratives and think independently. [Shortlisted for the Little Rebels Award 2024].
Killer Underwear Invasion!
Elise Gravel, Chronicle Books, 978-1797214917, £10.99 hbk
Canadian author Gravel’s website is devoted to equipping children with the knowledge they need to be ‘mindful of social justice’. Pitched at ages 6/7+, Killer Underwear uses wonderfully brash comic art to explain and uncover the pernicious functions of fake news before building a toolkit for crushing it at the source. Six tidy chapters explore the ubiquitousness of disinformation, its ideological occupations (from making money to accumulating power), how it endangers us all and devalues democracy. It ends with ten doable steps to partition off real news from fake news which include source checking and examining your own ‘confirmation bias’. Invaluably practical.
Mayor Bunny’s Chocolate Town
Elys Dolan, Oxford University Press, 978-0192746238, £6.99 pbk
Mr Bunny, supreme wielder of capitalism’s worst excesses, is back (see Mr Bunny’s Chocolate Factory). This time he is laser-focused on a new prize: the mayorship of Coop town. To seduce his chicken electorate, he unrolls a steady stream of audacious lies, chocolate-flavoured bribery and burst-with-a-pinprick policies. One of the most child-friendly and screamingly funny exposés of Trumpian-styled politics in picture books which also delivers smart, accessible points about fake news and fearmongering. [Shortlisted for the Little Rebels Award 2023].
No Country
Joe Brady and Patrice Aggs, David Fickling Books, 978-1788451833, £9.99 pbk
The best dystopian fiction always tiptoes closest to the boundaries of our present world. With this graphic novel for readers aged 9+, we see a country fractured and brought down by the terrifying conclusion of far-right ideologies, creeping authoritarianism and its servicing by a corrupt press, menacingly titled, ‘The Daily Truth’. This is a nightmarish but painfully legible vision which could easily be read as an acceleration of this summer’s riots. It also works powerfully as a parable which lays out how domestic terror could easily make a refugee of any of us; the author says he was inspired at the time of writing by the Syrian refugee crisis and the subsequent nativism that followed. [Shortlisted for the Little Rebels Award 2022].
Question Everything: an Investigator’s Toolkit
Susan Martineau and Vicky Barker, b small, 978-1912909353, £5.99 pbk
‘This book is good because it tells you not to trust everything on the Internet’. Praise indeed from one of Letterbox Library’s (11-year-old) reviewers and proof that the content executes precisely what it claims on the cover as a megaphone blares out ‘Fight Fake news!’ Accessible chunks of text, bold headers, emoticons and symbols lay bare our culture’s chaos of information and equips the reader with the resisting forces of fact extraction, fake-news spotting, research and independent critical literacy skills. Ideal for Key Stage 2 and well suited to reluctant readers, it ends with the vital manifesto, ‘The Rights of the Fake-news Fighter’.
Something, Someday
Amanda Gorman and Christian Robinson, Puffin Books, 978-0241535875, £12.99 hbk
Not so much a counter to disinformation as a rescue from drowning feelings of hopelessness, as well as a challenge to the lie children are so often told: that they cannot alter anything. The young child in this picture book is told there is not a problem to be seen, that in any case there is nothing they can fix, that – at best- they should just sit and wait for change. But this child is hopeful. They know the depths of their own resources and they’re confident in their mettle. Most of all, they know that people ‘have already waited too long’. Change blossoms, not as a dream, but as a time lived out in the present. A hymn to overcoming… someday.
Fen Coles is co-director of Letterbox Library.
