Should We Read Racist Classics to Our Kids?

The beloved children's classic features some ugly stereotypes.A parent writing for The New York Times this weekend discussed his conundrum when reading an old Asterix the Gaul book to his child. The child asked, "Dad, why do the pirates have a gorilla?" referring to a grotesque caricature of a black African. A parent could do many things in this situation. The Times writer chose to say "I don't know why the pirates have a gorilla!", followed by a hasty page flip, which is something we all do as parents--or at least, something that I do--when confronted with a question that's difficult to give an age-appropriate answer to.

The Times piece offers an overview of children's classics with racist and colonialist content--famously Huckleberry Finn, Pippi Longstocking, Tintin, Babar--and discussed our various options as a culture: redacting the books to remove the racist material, not reading the books, reading the books and explaining to kids what's wrong with the stereotypes.

What do Shine readers think?