Prompt Response - Week 7

From the article, “Why the Banning of ‘A Birthday Cake for George Washington’ Really Matters,” we get a glimpse into understanding what happens with children’s books, particularly how part of the process is done. By reading, we learn that many children’s books are created with an author writing the story and an artist who draws the images for the book. Based on information from the Author, Ramin Ganeshram, many people had gone for how they looked and that they took away their “status as a person of color and glossed over the fact that the illustrator and editor are both African American” (Bloom, 2016, para. 28).

Many people attacked the creator of the book for the art being too happy with the slaves smiling while working, and that it made the slaves look happy to be enslaved and to work for their master. The goal of the book was to try and show how although they were enslaved, there was status involved within the enslavement, and that the main character of the book, the historical figure Hercules, was one that was highly valued in the Washington estate, and that he was given more privileges then the average slave. This book was to give the readers the opportunity to look into the life of a historical figure, while also having more history at the end of the book to give people the opportunity to learn about the figure for the future.

References

Bloom, J. (2016, February 11). Why the banning of ‘a birthday cake for George Washington’ really matters. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-banning-a-birthday-cake-george-washington_b_9210992