Germany's template for diversity in children's books??

 Let's look at the text for this picture book that was originally published in French in 2003. The German translation was published in 2016 under the title 'Alles lief gut'. Author, Franck Prevot

                                                        Everything was going well...for whom?

Alles lief gut...

...als etwas sonderbares ankam!

es bewegte sich nicht, es blieb einfach da, es war anders! 

es kam näher, bedrohlich, bereit, unseren kleinen zu verschlingen. 

es sprach zu unserem kleinen. 

und unser kleiner lachte. komisch! 

Wirklich! komisch!!! 

Wir haben es irgendwo hingetan, wo es nicht störte. 

dann sind andere gekommen, fast gleiche 

eines tages kam es heraus.

wir haben es überwacht (the three small black buttons are in the centre of the circle of red scattered buttons)

und dann haben wir nicht mehr darauf geachtet. 

es ist gewachsen und alles lief gut, im grunde 

alles lief gut... (now the print is both red and black and the buttons are mixed around the page)

...als ETWAS sonderbares ankam! (the ETWAS is a black and silver button)

(END OF TEXT).

Summary of text

A homogeneous group of buttons are comfortable, safe and happy until a strange black button appears and threatens to disrupt their space. The red homogenous community of buttons is distrustful, suspicious and wary so they ignore and try to separate the black button(s) from the red buttons. This takes place after they see a small black button speaking to one of the small red buttons and the latter being receptive. Although they take pains to separate and keep watch on the black buttons, they soon let their guards down until it's too late..the black buttons have managed to mix in with the red buttons, disrupting their homogeneity. Nonetheless, everything was going well...until another STRANGE button (black with a grey centre) shows up. And the reader is left to imagine the same process of first shunning, being wary and suspicious, pysically trying to separate the intruder from the community until they somehow manage to slip out from the space they are restricted to..and mingle with the rest of the buttons.

For a white reader accustomed to these dominant representations of self (white, middle class) and other ('coloured', usually from a lower class so they are less threatening with no power or agency), it comes as no surprise that the book has been praised and eagerly introduced in preschools to teach acceptance and diversity. For a disempowered person or someone who rarely sees themselves represented in children's books, this picture book is disheartening, arrogant, pretentious and promotes the negative stereotypes and prejudices associated with being an outsider in any community.

It maddens me to see such words and images appearing in association with a newcomer (physical separation, suspicion, distrust, xenophobia) because it reinforces these feelings in the reader even though in the end, all turns out well. The damage is already clearly done and the minority is left without a voice, having all these negative representations piled on him/her.

I have seen too many books following this format...with its arrogant eurocentricity and power to stuff and stifle the representation of difference into a small place that is tolerated but left under suspicion and not completely trusted because after all, 'they are just too different and can never be like us'.. this paternalistic view is corroborated over and over in picture books - we (white, middle-class) are tolerant, accept the outsider and charitably welcome them and they in turn, know that their place is not really beside us, but under us, accepting our charity and goodwill.

In the following post, I will look at the renowned children and youth writer Paul Maar, known for his fantasty-full fictitious character Sams and see how he handles the refugee influx in Germany and in the school system. Another disappointing example that fits the 'alles lief gut' model!