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How might we nurture the prizing of differences in race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and language? We must create for students democratic and critical spaces that foster meaningful and transformative learning. If we expect students to take social responsibility, they must explore ideas, topics, and viewpoints that not only reinforce but challenge their own. In an increasingly abrasive and polarized American society, social justice education has the potential to prepare citizens who are sophisticated in their understanding of diversity and group interaction, able to critically evaluate social institutions, and committed to working democratically with diverse others. Young adult literature provides a context for students to become conscious of their operating world view and to examine critically alternative ways of understanding the world and social relations. As Roderick McGillis suggests, "Teaching children to read for the ideological assumptions of any book is important if we believe in knowing how our culture works upon us ... it is important if we wish them to be informed and independent citizens" (128).
How do we evaluate books across cultures? How do we balance all the demands of literary quality and popular appeal, intellectual freedom, curriculum support, and multiculturalism? How do we make kids want to read? In Against Borders, Hazel Rochman says in promoting books for young people, "We have to resist the extremes: the mindless conformity to the political correctness of multiculturalism but also the backlash" (18). While it's insulting to say that a book is good because it's multicultural, it's also insulting not to consider other criteria for book selection. As Rochman says, "Racism dehumanizes, but a good story defeats the stereotype" (19). A good book can help to break down those barriers. According to Rochman, "Books can make a difference in dispelling prejudice and building community; not with role models and literal recipes, not with noble messages about the human family, but with enthralling stories that make us imagine the lives of others" (19). She tells us that a good story allows us to see people as individuals in all their complexity. Once we see someone as a person in all their humanity, then we've reached beyond the stereotype. Good books unsettle us, make us ask questions about what we thought was certain; they don't...