Racism

Various types of racism and racist behaviour are clearly explained in this very well produced book. It discusses why people are racist and how this behaviour manifests itself. It explains how racist attitudes are learned. The ‘My Story’ section allows for personal views of racist behaviour by children to others. It deals well with the damaging impact of name calling and other racist behaviours. It goes some way to explain the feelings and reactions of the victim to racist behaviour. There are some hints and strategies for coping with racism. However, I think a more appropriate choice for ‘My Story’ could have been a black or Asian child because they are the ones that are immediately visible and incidents against them occur more often.

Some thought could have been given to matching the photographs more sympathetically to the text in some instances. However, this is a good, easily accessible, well laid out book. It could be made available to the individual child or made the focus of classroom discussion for dealing with the sensitive issue of racism.