If books are mirrors, where are our reflections?

By Candy Gourlay

I posted this on my Facebook Page on 2 March 2017

What happens if you’ve never seen yourself in a mirror and only ever gaze out a window?

We all say that books should be, not just windows to other worlds but mirrors reflecting the reader’s own experience. Yesterday, I was one of the featured authors in a teacher conference focused on the idea of books as mirrors – Reflecting Realities: British Values in Children’s Literature organised by the very excellent CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education).

I was astonished to see the word ‘Diversity’ carefully being avoided.

‘We chose “Reflecting Realities” instead,’ said Farrah Seroukh, CLPE’s learning programme leader, ‘because the word ‘Diversity’ presumes the notion of diversifying from a normative standard.’

One Immigrant's Story

By Candy Gourlay

Last week's referendum has revealed us to be a divided society here in Britain. Watching jubilant Leave voters on TV explaining that they wanted to rid the country of immigrants is not easy for someone who is exactly that.

Oddly enough, when I arrived in this country as a blushing bride twenty-seven long years ago, the thing that most astonished me about the UK was its incredible diversity.

We moved here from Manila, which at the time was pretty homogenous - my English husband and I suffered catcalls and rude comments because my fellowmen assumed that  any Filipina in the company of a Westerner had to be a prostitute. What a relief to move to multicultural North London where not an eyelash was batted at our two-tone relationship.

Having grown up in the Philippines where my only exposure to Brits was of the cinematic kind, I expected the UK's denizens to speak in round, well enunciated syllables ... the men pale and foppish like Michael York or dark and villainous like Oliver Reed, all the little children sweetly singing 'Whe-heh-heh-her is love?', and all the women twinkling like Vanessa Redgrave in Camelot.