Confronting our Fear of Blackness

Black Dog by Levi Pinfold, recommended for ages 4 and up.

Pinfold has been praised and awarded for the illustrations in his book ‘Black Dog’. 'Black Dog' addresses the ingrained association between black and scary, black and evil, black and dangerous.

Here’s how the book starts – one day, a black dog comes to visit the Hope family. The father is the first to spot the black dog, he panics and calls the police at once. There is a black dog in front of my house, he is as big as a tiger, he exclaims. The police laughs and tells Mr Hope not to go out, before hanging up.

And the rest of the story adopts this witty pattern – each member spots the dog, panics and asks the others what they should do. Mr Hope advises Mrs Hope to turn the light off so the black dog (as big as an elephant) won’t know they are there. The parents advise Adeline Hope to pull the curtains so the black dog (now as big as Tyrannosaurus Rex) won’t see them. When Moritz Hope wakes up and spots the black dog (the size of a Big Jeffy), the others suggest they all hide under the covers.

Then, Small, the youngest member of the family, realising something is amiss, ventures out despite being warned about the Black Dog.

What Small encounters outside is a close-up of a black dog’s face, nostrils wide open, eyes fiery and bulging:

A game ensues between Small and the Black Dog – if you want to eat me, you first have to catch me, she calls out to the Black Dog, taunting him as she starts running. The dog becomes smaller and smaller with each of Small’s mocking chants, until she reaches back home and invites the dog to follow her in through the cat flap. By now, the Black Dog has shrunk to Small’s size. The Family is relieved to see Small and when asked about the Black Dog, she lifts the washing basket to reveal the small black creature. The anti-climactic end comes across as absurd – Mr Hope is the first to admit that now that he can properly see the Black Dog, it doesn’t look evil at all. The family acknowledges their silliness and praises Small for her courage. The SMALL black dog is no longer threatening.

I think my perspective would be different if all the characters in the book were black and the dog was white. Oops! But white is NEVER scary or evil, right? The idea of the book – creating a monster from our imagination and confronting it in order to overcome our fear – is indeed laudable. As it stands, I believe that the figure of the black dog (similar to Christine Nöstlinger’s Black Bogeyman) and all its connotations play into our prejudices about black being scary, evil and dangerous.

One might argue that the writer parodies people’s fear and association of black with evil and actually takes the reader through a process of questioning one’s prejudices, confronting them and recognising their absurdity.

The Black Dog must be tamed and domesticated before the White family can accept it and see that their fears were unwarranted. Even though the writer confronts the reader with her/his fear of Blackness, I was very uncomfortable with the first reading of this book and my immediate concern is that children and their malleable minds will simply absorb all the negative associations that make up more than three quarters of the book and miss the message that there is nothing to fear in Blackness, that the monsters and evil are simply in our heads and minds and imaginations.

For a more thorough reading of the book, see this post:https://www.slaphappylarry.com/picturebook-study-blackdog-by-levi-pinfold/

It's always astonishing to observe that for white writers, 'Black' rarely conjures up associations with skin colour or discrimination. It is just one of the many ressources they use to address a topic they want to focus on. But i think it's worth underlining its nefariousness and its ingrained tradition in literary and popular culture. We also need to address implicit biases if we want to foster respect and openness in our kids and societies.