Talking about Corduroy brings tears to my eyes. He's really cute.
Corduroy is a bear missing a button, that wants to be purchased so he can leave the department store and find a home. His missing button on his green overalls is the reason why the mother in the story tells her daughter she should not buy him. At first, I thought maybe there is too strong a connection between consumerism and happiness present. It was hard for me to think that there were any underlying messages, but as I was reading about Corduroy and I found that apparently it was not mainstream to have one of the main characters, the girl who wants to buy him, be African-American in children books.
Maybe Don Freeman, the author, wanted people to value acceptance more. I find it interesting that we read all of these books just for fun, and now we can delve into them a bit more - what do you think? Are there any other messages?
I love Corduroy Bear; it was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. I agree that the message in the book is about acceptance, but I never made the connection about the main character being African- American, and the theme of acceptance. Every time I read the book, I noticed that she wasn't white, but I never really thought about it. After reading your post I wondered when the book was written, so I looked it up online. It was written in 1968, during the civil rights movement in America. This confirms my belief that the author purposely made the main character African-American, due to the time period.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the hidden message of acceptance, the author hit this idea with the power of family. But I never thought about Corduroy in a race lens before, about how the author included main ideas of the current culture into a children's book.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the picture of Coduroy on your blog, you were right, it did make me want to cry! He is just so darn cute! And I honestly can't say anything bad about this book because I clearly remember loving this book as a kid, so I don't care if there are any underlying messages in this one. I agree with you that we should take this as it was meant to be, a childrens book.
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