Cross
Cultural Children's Stories
My
decision to choose children's stories as the topic for my storybook project
was prompted by the birth of my daughter. I decided that I want to
use this project to create a guide for Mira. I hope to be able to
create something that will help her understand her world in a holistic
manner as she begins her early childhood development. I think it
is important for my story book to contain tales from a variety of cultures
in order to provide a broad basis of understanding. I hope to be
able to highlight both similarities and differences between several different
cultual groups. I want my daughter to understand and appreciate
human diversity. I also want her to realize certain universal truths
and beliefs. Many cultural differences also correspond to different
geographic locations, but there are also many different cultures found
in a single geographic location. I will use Native American cultures
to illustrate this point. I also hope to use folk tales to show how
each culture defines its own set of values and morals. For example,
in Japanese culture the elderly play a much more intricate role in daily
family life and are valued more than they are in the United States.
What I hope to bring across as the message of my storybook is that we are
all connected as part of the human race. The stories I choose should
provide Mira with the beginnings of a variety of explanations about her
world that will eventually help her to understand the fact that human existence
is made up of a sequence of choices all affecting one another, but each
act being an independent opportunity for change.
Here are the links
to my homepage
and the bibliography
for my storybook project.