Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | The Horn Book Magazine

Letters to the editor.

Article Excerpt
July/August Horn Book

Having read Julia Mickenberg's Learning from the Left, I am puzzled by Barbara Bader's review of it ("Red, White, and Blue?")--especially since I have long been an admirer of Ms. Bader's American Picture-books from Noah's Ark to the Beast Within. Have we read the same book?

For example, discussing Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps's Popo and Fifina, Bader writes, "Did the red star stand for the Red Army whose symbol it was? Mickenberg assumes so. In the new, 1993 edition of the book, Arnold Rampersad, Hughes's biographer, says maybe. Is there evidence that anyone at the time saw it that way? No." However, Mickenberg's book does not assume that the red star stands for the Red Army. Here is what it says: "red ... is associated with revolutionary strength, while yellow and green are associated with Pan-Africanism." Further, Mickenberg notes that "the book's politics are quite subtle," pointing out that this is its sole scene with any "revolutionary imagery." The second part of Bader's claim--that there is no "evidence that anyone at the time" saw the "Red Army" symbolism--presumably derives its support from Mickenberg's comment that "the scene apparently aroused no negative comment." I say "presumably" because although Mickenberg is a likely source, the claim of "no evidence" allows the reader to infer that Bader is drawing from her own considerable knowledge or research.

Indeed, I am particularly struck by Ms. Bader's tendency to take credit for Mickenberg's research when she agrees with...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!