By Liku Zelleke
“A Fine Dessert”, a children’s book by Emily Jenkins, is set to be one of the favorites to win the prestigious Caldecott Award. Published in January 2015, the story tells of “four families, in four cities, over four centuries” making blackberry fool – a dessert.
Among the four times and locations is that of Charleston in the year 1810, when the dessert is prepared by a slave mother and daughter for their white masters.
This particular part of the book has drawn criticism for “whitewashing slavery” and depicting the era as a pleasant time – as depicted by the smiling daughter’s pictures – and “erasing the tribulations of Blacks in American history.”
“Their minimized stories [serve] to placate White guilt,” writes Allison McGevna, the Managing Editor of HelloBeautiful.com. “These books, at best, do little to show the true, dark side of the truth. At worst, they reinforce the dangerous suggestion perpetuated by racists everywhere that Black people were, somehow, happy to be in chains.”
Even the saddest moments of the story are depicted as ones of joy for the mother and daughter:
After waiting table at supper – where the master and his family ate turtle soup, roast turkey, corn cakes and sweet potatoes – they spooned the blackberry fool into yellow dishes and served it. Later, the girl and her mother hid in the closet and licked the bowl clean together. Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Mmmmm. What a fine dessert!
Comments