Reviews: For Every Child: the Rights of the Child

This review was first published in Canadian Social Studies, Volume 39, Number 1, Fall 2004.

Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools. Teaching Human Rights in Elementary Classrooms: A Literary Approach

   The book I would recommend for all elementary classrooms is, For Every Child: The rights of the child in words and pictures, published in association with UNICEF, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu. It addresses fifteen of the rights articulated at the first UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It's a stunning example of the way rights can be powerfully described and illustrated with children and youths in mind. Each right is simply, yet poetically expressed in text by Caroline Castle. Each is interpreted in a double page illustration by an artist whose brief biography and photograph appears at the end of the book.

   The fifteen artists are from several continents and many artistic traditions, and are all award winning children's book illustrators. I immediately recognized John Burningham, who delighted many of my own students with Mr. Gumpy's Outing. The right he pictures is from Article 13, freedom of expression, interpreted here as, "Allow us to tell you what we are thinking or feeling. Whether our voices are big or small; whether we whisper or shout it, or paint draw, mime or sign it- listen to us and hear what we say." The watercolour sketch shows a boy leaning toward his father's ear while off to the side an alligator calmly chomps on the boy's bicycle.

   The illustrations are themselves lessons on diversity's worth. Right No. 3, ensuring protection and care, is a dreamy, surreal painting of a child sailing through stormy skies and about to land in a woman's arms, household objects floating all around. It's rendered in muted shades by Henriette Sauvant from Germany. In contrast, Rights No. 28 and 29, the rights to education and to its aims, are depicted by Satoshi Kitamura in a collage of cartoon-like characters engaged in games, telescope gazing, reading or making music. Young students will discover children involved in ten or more activities. The text reads in part: "Teach us all to read and write and teach us well so we grow up to be the best we can at whatever we wish to do." Right No.30, freedom of minority and indigenous peoples to enjoy their culture, is illustrated by Rabindra and Amrit K.D. Kaur Singh. Their tapestry echoes traditional Indian motifs and styles, but replaces classic figures with a colorful variety of international ones, each singing and dancing, "in the ways of our own people."

   One way to approach the book might be to take several related rights at a time and compare the various ways these are interpreted verbally and visually. Because the relevant convention articles appear at the back in their original form, teachers have the opportunity to examine rights in more depth and detail with their students. Illustrating their own versions of selected rights using different mediums and styles, could also engage students. A classroom mural would allow for collaborative and independent artistic endeavors. Older students might be asked to distill each right to its most elemental imperative, for example, Right No. 24, "Wrap us up against the cold and rain, and give us shade from the hot sun. Make sure we have enough to eat and drink and if we are sick, nurse and comfort us." Or upper elementary students could expand on the narrative that's presented, for example, what could the right to, "a land to call our own," mean for the three boys who are building a small sand village on a deserted beach?

   For Every Child is a treasure on its own, and as a general introduction to literature devoted to specific rights, such as the examples highlighted here.

Reviewed by Linda Farr Darling, University of British Columbia, Canada.

The following review was first published online.

   For Every Child is a really fine book, for several reasons. It’s serious stuff. Archbishop Desmond Tutu sets the tone in his foreword. We learn that the United Nations formally adopted 54 principles that make up the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. Can you name one of these rights? Probably not.

   To help all of us, children and adults, understand at least some of these pertinent principles, the U.N. text has been adapted into an easy-to-read text. Some of the words will break your heart, especially when you see them with superb drawings in double-page spreads by 15 world-acclaimed artists.

The universal child speaks in the various principles. For example:
Keep our families together, and if we have no family, look after us and love us just the same.
No one on earth has the right to hurt us.
If we are sick, nurse us and comfort us.
Teach us all to read and write.
In times of war, do not make us part of any battle.

   Think of the ways that a loving adult could talk with a child about what is meant by "haves" and "have-nots." Think how a teacher could use this book in the middle grades to awaken U.S. youngsters to the needs of others. A plus: $1.50 per book sold is donated to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Reviewed by Harriette Behringer.