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Johanna related artwork by painter Connie Minowa 

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Johanna related artwork by painter Connie Minowa 

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by Jane Yolen (1978)

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Further explore and become familiar with the stories and authors we discuss on the panel

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Provide your own examples of physical transformation in children's media and engage with one another

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Read the Adrienne Rich's poem "Power, " published in 1974, and connect the last line to "Johanna."

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Read the Adrienne Rich's poem "Power, " published in 1974, and connect the last line to "Johanna."

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Rich writes, "Her wounds came from the same source as her power." Explore how Johanna evolves as a character during her empowering transformation, even though her new body makes her vulnerable and leads to her death. What lessons about women's right does this line teach?

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Comments & analysis: Living in the earth-deposits of our history / Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling

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[HD] Brother Bear - Transformation (Inupiaq Lyrics)

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Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press)

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Why do fairy tales still hold such power today?

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Marina Warner looks back at the history of the fairy tale. She explores the cultural, social, and political influence of fairy tales using a number of classic and contemporary examples. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198718659.do © Oxford University Press

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Ask questions, either for the general panel or a specific speaker!

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Avina's Research (The Entangled relationship of children's literature and transformation)

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Angie's Research (Erasure of BIPoC Characters in Children's Media Through Transformation)

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Jared's Research (Anthropomorphism and its Use to Represent and Reflect Culture in Children's Literature)

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woodsj8@tcnj.edu

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tamayoa2@tcnj.edu

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Zoe's Research (Human Nature Through Things That
Are Not Human)

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Interview with Grace Lin, Author of "Mulan: Before the Sword" - LaughingPlace.com

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Newberry Honoree Grace Lin talks about her new book, "Mulan: Before the Sword," and the traditional Chinese characters Mulan encounters in this prequel to the new film.

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talbotz1@tcnj.edu

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sharma21@tcnj.edu

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Johanna related artwork by painter Connie Minowa 

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Johanna related artwork by painter Connie Minowa 

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More In-Depth Definition of Anthropomorphism and the Difference Between Anthropomorphism and Personification 

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More In-Depth Definition of Anthropomorphism and the Difference Between Anthropomorphism and Personification 

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Definition of Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is a literary device that can be defined as a technique in which a writer ascribes human traits, ambitions, emotions, or entire behaviors to animals, non-human beings, natural phenomena, or objects.

Difference Between Anthropomorphism and Personification

Anthropomorphism is also a type of personification that gives human characteristics to non-humans or objects, especially animals. However, there is a slight difference between these two. Personification is an act of giving human characteristics to animals or objects to create imagery, while anthropomorphism aims to make an animal or object behave and appear like it is a human being.

Pinocchio, the famous wooden doll, was anthropomorphized when he was given the ability to talk, walk, think, and feel like real boy. Fables and fairy tales usually have characters that can serve as anthropomorphism examples.

Examples of Anthropomorphism in Literature

Example #1: The Jaguar (By Ted Hughes)

"But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes

On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom -
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear -
He spins from the bars, but there's no cage to him

More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come."

This poem is based on a jaguar, a fierce animal. Hughes is showing the world to his readers through the eyes of a jaguar that is thinking like a human.

Example #2: Animal Farm (By George Orwell)

"Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you ... Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough."

Animal Farm is one of the perfect examples of anthropomorphism. In this excerpt, one of the pigs named Old Major is delivering a political speech to his fellows against the evils imposed by the human rulers. Here, Old Major is instigating them to rise to rebellion against a tyrant human. This entire use is a good example of anthropomorphism.

Example #3: A Dog's Tale (By Mark Twain)

"My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so much education ... When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but she comforted me as well as she could ..."

The protagonist of this story is a dog, which is describing his life as a puppy. The story is told from the loyal pet's perspective. The dog possesses human traits like emotions, shame, fear, anguish, happiness, and hopelessness.

Function of Anthropomorphism

There are various reasons for using anthropomorphism. The primary one is to make a wider appeal to the readers. With the use of objects or animals, the story can become visually appealing and non-threatening to readers. Hence, it could attract the attention of a wide audience (including children) by presenting animated characters in tales and animated movies. In literature, it serves as an effective tool for creating political and social satires. Hence, it has a wider scope than merely to entertain children.

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Anthropomorphism - Definition and Examples

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Definition, Usage and a list of Anthropomorphism Examples in common speech and literature. Anthropomorphism is a literary device that can be defined as a technique in which a writer ascribes human traits, ambitions, emotions or entire behavior to animals, non-human beings, natural phenomena or objects.

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courtney.polidori@tcnj.edu

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Three Factor Theory of Anthropomorphism 

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Date : March 10, 2019

Talking Animals: Anthropomorphism In Children's Literature

Have you ever wondered why so many books for kids choose to use talking animals, rather than people, as the central characters? Anthropomorphism in children's literature helps create charming, memorable protagonists, but it's also a powerful educational tool that's been used since the earliest people told stories.

If I could talk to the animals

Anthropomorphism is the name for the process of assigning human traits to non-human entities, and it has a long and lively presence in children's literature. From dancing dogs to wily wolves, cars to candelabras, popular texts for children rely heavily on non-human dialogue. The reasons for this are both historical and psychological.

Animal stories in history

Many ancient cultures generated their creation stories using the flora and fauna of their surroundings as touchstones. These were stories for all members of a community, however, not necessarily for children.

Printed books for children, in the British and European tradition, began to appear in the mid 1600s. According to the British Library, the first picture book with animals as characters is the 1659 title Orbis sensualium pictus . This uses animal references to encourage children to mimic animal sounds as a means of learning the alphabet - an early phonics textbook, if you like.

Fictional children's stories intended for amusement as well as education did not appear on the literary horizon until well into the 18 th century . This coincided with a general re-evaluation of what it meant to be a child, in line with the emergence of the first 'middle classes', compulsory primary education and a desire for people across all levels of society to enjoy 'leisure time'. These social developments opened the door for all kinds of new moral stories for children - and picture books were teaching opportunities.

The 18 th and 19 th centuries also saw a surge in naturalists avidly discovering and classifying new species of birds and animals from the colonial outposts. Children's books of the time reflect this keen interest in the 'personality' of animals.

So, while history delivered the perfect conditions for the inclusion of animals as lead characters in children's books, it was educational psychology that kept them there.

The psychology of animal stories

Children's books exist for several purposes: mainly literacy education, moral education and pleasure. The most popular are a smart combination of all three - offering the pleasure of an engaging story, with an adult-pleasing lesson or two, and an underlying benefit of literacy enhancement. May Gibbs' creative tales are a stellar example of this type of three-pronged impact.

Animals as characters, therefore, can bring silliness and incongruity, making a story more enjoyable. But they also add a degree of emotional distance for the reader, which is important when the story message is personal, painful or powerful.

"Having animals do the acting and mistake-making allows the face-saving emotional distance often needed to be able to join the conversation," say scholars Burke & Copenhaver . When the Three Little Pigs lose house after house, we roll along with the rhyme; the same situation involving homeless children is far less palatable. The Ugly Duckling draws gentle empathy, whilst 'The Ugly Child' would be frightening and confronting.

Many children's stories also use the trope of absent adults as a strategy. Disney tales include orphans a-plenty. Blyton sends The Famous Five off on camping adventures so they can learn from each other away from the gaze of moralising adults. This story device is balanced, however, by watchful animals. Disney's anthropomorphised woodland creatures follow their wards around, offering wisdom and comfort. Even the fab Five would have come unstuck without Timmy the dog by their sides!

Animals characters make life-lessons easier

If you're sharing stories with children, including the beautiful May Gibbs collection , the tradition of anthropomorphism in children's literature makes a terrific talking point. Children's books with animal characters are often deceptively simple in their nature, whilst in fact containing highly influential content. Unfortunately for well-meaning adults, a lesson delivered by a lively lizard may hit home with greater force than a parental teaching moment!

Contribution By Dr Lara
Dr Lara's PhD is in Australian Literature and she's a passionate advocate of bringing the best of Australian literary culture to the next generation.

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Date : March 10, 2019 Have you ever wondered why so many books for kids choose to use talking animals, rather than people, as the central characters? Anthropomorphism in children's literature helps create charming, memorable protagonists, but it's also a powerful educational tool that's been used since the earliest people told stories.

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"The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child's Bookshelf"

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The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child's Bookshelf | Grace Lin | TEDxNatick

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Fairy tale scholar Marina Warner's book Once Upon a Time (2014) helps readers understand the purpose of the story.

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Fairy tale scholar Marina Warner's book Once Upon a Time (2014) helps readers understand the purpose of the story.

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Warner argues that in the 1970s, women writers rebuilt fairy tales as lessons in feminism by re-imagining old stories and fleshing out female characters. Warner writes, "Re-envisioning the tales as scriptures for the women's revolution involved combining and recombining the elements to galvanize them into new life" (136). Once we understand this feminist project we can begin to see "Johanna" as a sort of feminist parable or allegory about women's choices.

Johanna begins as a submissive child who obeys her mother's commands to stay close to home and never venture into the woods. However, her mother's fear of the unknown and failure to protect other members of the family, who have been lost, suggests that her mother's worldview can no longer serve the women in the Chevril family and Johanna must adopt a new paradigm.

She chooses action and rebellion by taking off through the woods to seek the male doctor who she believes can help her ailing mother. Under the full moon, she experiences a powerful physical transformation from a meek 16-year-old human girl into a powerful, alert animal. Johanna's metamorphosis makes her feel fast, graceful, light, and confident. A feminist interpretation suggests that the experience awaken's Johanna's feminist consciousness. She is free from domestic responsibilities, and finds her higher purpose of saving her mother's life. Ecofeminists would notice the elements of the natural world that trigger the transformation, such as moonlight or the acorns Johanna has been eating - from enchanted oak trees?

Johanna's new powers allow her to find the elusive doctor in the village, but when she arrives in his yard she is unable to speak. Her transformation has come at a great cost. Unable to identify herself, with no voice of her own, Johanna looks like a regular deer. The doctor shoots her and the story ends abruptly. Astute readers will observe that the doctor most likely suspects that Johanna's family can shapeshift, but he kills her despite recognizing her humanity. The male doctor with his gun must signify the violent patriarchy and this ending suggests that even though Johanna has been reborn her situation is still hopeless.

Although Warner does not discuss "Johanna," she describes fractured fairy tales like this as "furious feminist protests of the Seventies" and discusses Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic (1979) and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber (1979), which were both written just a year after "Johanna" (Warner 142). In traditional fairy tales, Warner reminds us, the character who is transformed is almost always restored to their original form - or into a more superior body. But in Yolen's "furious feminist protest" she breaks the rules associated with fairy tales by killing off our heroine. What did Johanna do wrong? Rather than running toward the male rescuer, Yolen seems to warn, she should have stayed in the forest.

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The Princess and the Frog - Kiss the Frog

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The acronym, which stands for black, Indigenous and people of color, is suddenly everywhere. Is it doing its job?

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When I first saw the trailer for Pixar's Soul in theaters, I leaned forward in my seat, ready to give it a standing ovation. My 20-something Black and Puerto Rican self was thrilled that one of the top animation studios in the world was committing to a movie where an African-American man would be the lead character. But when the protagonist was transformed into a fuzzy blue...soul creature during the trailer, my excitement changed to disappointment. As I awkwardly slumped back into my seat, I realized that Soul had already taken something away from its audience.

To understand what Soul has taken, we need to look back at the American animated movies I've been given over the last three decades. When I was growing up in the '90s, there were a few major films that championed diversity onscreen: Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Mulan all featured characters of color in their lead roles. Their stories were creative, inspiring, and funny. Although they weren't overly concerned with accurate representation and storytelling (let's just say Pocahontas takes a generous detour from the history books), these diverse stories showed me how life might be for people that didn't look like me. They gave me a little more insight into cultures I hadn't seen depicted in the media before. Through their stories, I understood more about the world I lived in.

But even as I was singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" for the thousandth time, I couldn't help but wonder when it would be my turn. While Black characters like Frozone from The Incredibles were (wait for it) cool, they were frequently cast as side characters in someone else's story. When would I get to see someone like me take the lead in an animated role?

Disney promised to answer my question in 2009. The House of Mouse announced that an African-American woman named Tiana would star in a princess film. After waiting for nearly 20 years, I was finally going to see a Black person take the lead in a major studio cartoon on the big screen...

And then they turned her into a frog.

Any hopes I had that the transformation would be a short gag were dashed when I saw the film. A slimy kiss turns Tiana into a frog around 30 minutes into the movie. She hops around for almost an hour before she fully turns back into a human again. When you can consider that the movie runs at 138 minutes, including credits, and that it cuts away to several side plots, this means audiences spend less than half an hour with Tiana appearing as a Black woman.

When she delivers her signature number, " Almost There," it felt like a cruel joke-in Tiana's ballad, she sings about the patience and endurance she's needed to inch ever closer to her dreams. After waiting for almost twenty years, my wish to finally see a Black lead dominate the screen had almost come true. But the character's transformation blocked my view for far too much of the movie, delivering more of a tease than a triumph. I left the movie disappointed but hopeful. Although this movie was a letdown, surely Hollywood wouldn't do something like this again, right?

In 2019, Blue Sky Studios unveiled a Will Smith vehicle called Spies in Disguise. The trailer started by promising a cartoony thriller with a Black spy as the lead. But by the time the trailer ended, Smith's character had become...a pigeon. As an NYC native, there was truly no greater insult. Despite my hurt feelings, I trudged my way to the theater, curious to see how long it would take for his lame-duck transformation to occur.

In an eerie echo of The Princess and the Frog, Smith's character is turned into a pigeon at around the 30-minute mark. Thankfully it only takes him 43 minutes to become human again. This left audiences with a generous 45 minutes of screentime where he's a Black man. My use of the word "generous" isn't just sarcasm, here: If you step away from these few Black animated leads, you'll notice this trend toward transformation trend tends to hit characters of other races too...

The young Mexican musician Miguel in Pixar's pitch-perfect Coco starts transforming into a skeleton around 28 minutes in. He isn't fully human again until about an hour later. Disney's underrated The Emperor's New Groove sees the Incan prince Kuzco converted into a llama about 22 minutes in. He stays that way for 54 minutes. But it's Brother Bear that breaks all established records when an Inuit boy named Kenai turns into a bear at the 16-minute mark. After wandering the wild for 53 minutes, he chooses to become a bear permanently. All three characters represent populations and cultures that haven't been given many chances to even feature in-much less star in-animated stories. It was incredibly disheartening to see their faces obscured, every time, and realize that they weren't truly being given their time to be seen.

But time isn't the only thing that's lost when diverse characters undergo these full-body transformations. Once the characters assume their new forms, the film no longer has to deal with the individual issues and challenges tied to their identities. The Princess and the Frog may be one of the most frustrating examples of this: Tiana is a Black woman living in 1920s New Orleans, putting all of her considerable energy, hard work, and savings toward her dream of opening her own restaurant. During the first section of the movie, audiences see her struggle against sexism and racial prejudice. Investors aren't willing to back her solely because she's a Black woman. But the potential to do a deeper dive into how she navigates this world is abruptly pushed aside so we can see the transformed frog-Tiana watch a jazz-loving alligator play the trumpet.

Normally, I would be all about seeing a reptile riffing through some jazzy tunes. But it's hard to get behind this change in focus when it comes at such a high cost. Surely, some members of the film's audience have never experienced the challenges a character like Tiana faces-have never had their ambitions stalled and their careers hampered due to systemic racism or sexism. If they're presented with a movie that spends half of its runtime showing what that experience is like, driving home how real it is, they could gain a better understanding and appreciation of what a Black woman like Tiana is truly up against.

On the other hand, there are audience members who will take one look at Tiana's story and instantly draw parallels to their own. Seeing Tiana overcome all the barriers that stand in the way of her opening a restaurant may inspire them. It could also give them inspiration and ideas about how to confront and break down walls holding them back in their own lives. But instead of taking the opportunity to educate and enlighten the audience about different ways to beat a stacked system while telling their story, the film's writers chose to teach us about how much mucus frogs produce. When diverse characters lose their identities, the audience loses opportunities to absorb valuable lessons and insights.

Fortunately, there's been a few amazing animated movies in recent years that prove that filmmakers can invest in characters of color without caveats. Moana gave us a bold new Polynesian princess without ever changing a hair on her head; this in turn gave audiences plenty of time to learn about Moana's culture and become familiar with her beliefs. In 2020, the animated short Hair Love won an Oscar by focusing on the significance of hair within a Black family, as a father learns to do his young daughter's hair for the first time (if you haven't seen it, you can take a few minutes to watch it here). The only physical thing that changes about the characters throughout the story are their hairstyles. But arguably, the most significant contribution toward greater diversity in the medium occurred two years ago.

In 2018, Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse centers on a young man named Miles Morales. After Spider-Man dies, Miles is tasked with taking up the mantle of the famous hero. Before he learns how to leap across the city and take out villains, audiences have a chance to see what Miles' life is like as a young Black and Puerto Rican man growing up in New York. He effortlessly switches between English and Spanish at home while stealing a spoonful of rice in the kitchen or drawing in his sketchbook. We learn that Miles feels out of place after winning a spot at a specialized boarding school outside of his neighborhood. He's unsure if he can live up the expectations of his friends, family, and an entire city. While Miles is struggling with all of this, he gains spider-powers that enhance his physical abilities...but without changing his appearance.

Since his face and skin color remain unchanged, the writers are able to fully dive in, exploring the challenges that come with being biracial in society. They spend so much time establishing Miles and his world that when he puts on the Spider-Man mask, we still don't lose sight of who he is underneath. Even when he's surrounded in a room full of different Spider-people in costume, our eyes are constantly drawn back to Miles because his personality shines through the spandex.

It also helps that Miles is pretty reckless with his superhero identity. He almost compulsively takes off his mask every chance he gets. But outside of giving us more opportunities to see his face, the moments where Miles reveals his true identity are often the most impactful moments of the film.

One of the most powerful examples occurs late in the movie. When Miles is mistakenly accused of murder, he's held at gunpoint by a police officer and forced to put his hands up. To make matters worse, the officer is his father. Although Miles' father doesn't see his face, the audience does.

For me, the image of an unarmed biracial teenager with his arms up immediately evokes the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" chant. It's a phrase that some Black Lives Matters protestors are still using in 2020 to call out police brutality. But even if audience members don't make the same connection as I did, they can still recognize how unfair it is that Miles is held at gunpoint for something he didn't do, and how terrified he is in that moment. Whether viewers are aware of what real-world connections the scene evokes or not, they are still exposed to an important lesson. It's an image that simply wouldn't have carried the same weight if we didn't see Miles' true face.

I could go on forever about all the subtle touches that made the story of Miles Morales such a beacon of representation when it was released...but the film's many accolades speak for themselves. Into the Spider-verse won the Academy Award for Best Animated feature film. And it did so without turning Miles into a spider (or a verse, or anything else) in telling his story. Audiences watch him defeat supervillains and earn the respect of allies, seeing him as a biracial teenager for the movie's entire runtime. It's a sentence that bears repeating: Miles is himself the entire time.

I remember leaping up from my living room chair to celebrate the Academy Award win with tears in my eyes. Finally, an animated story told about someone who looked like me existed, without any caveats, or obfuscations, or excuses for hiding its biracial lead. And it had taken the film world's highest prize.

When it comes to representing people of color in animation, we need more and more stories like Moana and Hair Love and Into the Spider-Verse. These movies are shining examples of how to represent characters of color. Moreover, they all proved that you don't need to change the physical appearance of minority leads in order for audiences to embrace them. When you craft great animated stories about characters of color living in their worlds, people will support them. And maybe, just maybe, seeing these diverse characters in theaters will help audiences understand other realities, and other kinds of experiences, by seeing what someone who doesn't look like them goes through every day. In the divided world of 2020, we could all use more empathy and understanding.

That's why I'm not looking forward to seeing Joe turn into that generic blue blob around 30 minutes into Soul. Every second he spends transformed is a missed opportunity, as audiences get less and less time to understand what it's like to step into the shoes of a Black man. Unfortunately, with the movie completed and slated for release in November, the fact that Joe's face will disappear underneath a fuzzy blue layer is inevitable-but there's still time to prevent this transformation trend from creeping into future stories.

So if you're a writer, head of an animation company, or a rich producer that wants to fund my animated screenplays, I have one request: Let's leave the magical physical transformations out of the final draft of your script about that character of color. Because it's a trend that has hidden diverse faces, and held back real, meaningful progress when it comes to representation. It's a trend that has robbed audiences of opportunities to see how minorities face the world and connect with their experiences. It's a trend that left me waiting nearly 30 years to feel like I was fully seen in an animated story.

I don't want to have to wait that long again.

Andrew Tejada is an NYC native so there's a 90 percent chance this was written on the subway. When he's not writing or consuming movies/tv, he's pitching his Static Shock screenplay to anyone who'll listen. More of Andrew's projects and words can be found on Facebook at " Arete Writes Things."

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Representation Without Transformation: Can Hollywood Stop Changing Cartoon Characters of Color?

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When I first saw the trailer for Pixar's Soul in theaters, I leaned forward in my seat, ready to give it a standing ovation. My 20-something Black and Puerto Rican self was thrilled that one of the top animation studios in the world was committing to a movie where an African-American man would be the lead character.

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Johanna related artwork by painter Connie Minowa

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(PDF with annotations)

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Johanna.Controversial short story by Jane Yolen (7) (1)

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De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children

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Weeks later, there is a storm-and the two friends discover that "the falcon has gone with the squalls of rain and the wind." The next day, they go back to the lot "that belongs to no one, where no one comes."

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More than 100 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. When you find a book at this site, please purchase it here. Our titles are linked to Bookshop. A portion of your book purchase helps sustain our work. New Releases Activism and Organizing Africa Afro-Latinx American Indians Arabs […]

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China has its own versions of the femme fatale.

The idiom 红颜祸水 (hóngyán huòshuǐ) is used to describe them, literally meaning "dangerous beauties who will incur misfortunes". In a male-dominated society like ancient China, women, for various reasons, were often the scapegoat for public criticism for an empire's collapse.

It seemed that for those bigots or pedants, it was these lethally beautiful women, instead of those fatuous and incompetent rulers, that should be blamed. But that's how history goes - so without further ado, here are some of the most famous ancient women whose names were engraved in the history and people's minds for destroying empires with their beauty.
Moxi (妺喜)
No, it's not pronounced like moxie, but she had that in spades. Moxi, the imperial concubine of King Jie of the Xia Dynasty, was the first woman in history who was accused of leading an empire to its doom. It is said that Moxi had some odd hobbies, almost certainly fabricated or exaggerated with the passage of time.
It was said she was fond of watching people drinking in a wine pool which should be large enough for boating. In order to please her, King Jie built an extremely huge pool full of wine and ordered 3,000 people to drink inside it. Unsurprisingly some of them got so hammered they drowned. He even killed an official who tried to stop the ridiculous project.

Her second hobby was that she enjoyed hearing the sound of tearing apart silks. In that early time when silk textile production had just started out and silks were were very valuable, King Jie ordered people to move many bundles of silks and tore them apart in front of her, to make her smile. This insanely high amount of waste made King Jie the last ruler of the Xia Dynasty, which was then replaced by the Shang Dynasy.

Moxi was said to have died together with King Jie after the empire perished. Others say she colluded with the enemy and served as a spy to overthrow the Xia Dynasty.

Actually there were not many details in official history books about what Mo Xi did, but it couldn't prevent people from blaming her for the collapse of the Xia Dynasty, based on little more than anecdotes or even imagination.
Daji (妲己)
Daji, from the Shang Dynasty, might be the most famous evil woman in China because of the classic book Creation of the Gods. In Chinese people's minds, Daji was a temptress who seduced King Zhou and twisted him into a cruel and self-indulgent tyrant. It is said King Zhou built the Deer Gallery (鹿台) for Daji-a near 50-foot-tall pleasure tower adorned with marble, jade, and railings made of pearls and jewels.

Like Moxi she had a Wine Pool, but she upped the ante with a "meat forest" where cooked meat was hung on trees with many eunuchs and women frolicking for Daji and King Zhou's entertainment. There were even more terrible stories, such as a tale in which Daji liked watching The Bronze Toaster (炮烙)-a punishment Daji invented, whereby criminals were stripped and forced to run on a huge red hot pillar made of bronze under which burning charcoal was placed, until their "bones, flesh, and blood will turn into fetid smoke and disappear". And when Bigan, an upright official, protested, King Zhou took out his heart from his breast because Daji said she wanted to see whether a saint really had seven pores in his heart as the myth said. Unsurprisingly, the Shang Dynasty ended with King Zhou's reign overturned and Daji has been notorious since then.

But even though criticized for thousands of years, few know that most details about Daji were from literature works, with official history only said she was beautiful and favored by King Zhou. Maybe it's because that the myth about King Zhou and her was so influential that people regarded it as history. Some even suspected that Daji was just defamed by rulers of later dynasties for some political reasons.
Baosi (褒姒)
Baosi, favorite concubine of King You of West Zhou Dynasty, always mentioned along with those two above. The most widely-known story about her is summarized into a five-word term 烽火戏诸侯 (fēnghuǒ xì zhūhóu), literally meaning making fool of princes with beacon tower. It is said Baosi had breath-taking beauty but seldom smiled. So King You promised lots of money for an idea that could make her laugh. Then an official proposed using the beacon towers. At that time, only when enemies came to strike, the defenders would light fires on the beacon towers one by one at the foot of Lishan Mountain to make a smoke. Then the neighboring princes of the vassal states would see and send their troops to help. King You agreed to do that. So he ordered to light fire and sat on the top of Lishan Mountain, waiting for the troops. Quickly troops in every corner arrived, but only to be told that there were not enemies at all and the fire and smoke was just a joke. Baosi laughed after seeing all the troops come and return in such a hurry. King You was very glad and then did the same thing several times later. With more and more anger and resentment, the princes gradually refused to come. Finally, when enemies truly came, but the princes didn't believe it. King You was killed and West Zhou Dynasty died out. As for Baosi, some said she was killed together with King You, while some said she was captured.
Xishi (西施)
Xishi, from the Yue Kingdom in the late Spring and Autumn Period, ranks first among the renowned Four Beauties of Ancient China. Her extreme beauty was talked about for thousands of years. It is said that even fish felt stunned and sank away from the surface of the water when seeing Xishi washing yarn at the side of the river. But in wartime, Xishi's beauty was not only useful for dazing fish, but also an effective weapon to destroy enemies. At that time, the Yue Kingdom had become a tributary kingdom under the Wu Kingdom after a defeat in war. The king of the Yue Kingdom, Goujian, was planning to take revenge. Knowing that Fuchai, the king of the Wu Kingdom, was fond of beautiful women, Goujian ordered people to search for beautiful young women all around his kingdom. Then Fanli, a famous official in the Yue Kingdom, found Xishi, who at that time was just an ordinary girl who made a living selling yarns. He took her away from the village, trained her t0 sing, dance, and play all kinds of musical instruments and to learn the court etiquette, then sent her to Fuchai as a tribute. Unsurprisingly, Fuchai was totally fascinated by Xishi and gradually ignored state affairs. He spent days and nights having fun with Xishi, regardless of the exhortations from far-sighted officials like Wu Zixu, who pleaded with him to kill Goujian before the Yue Kingdom recovered and became strong again. In the end, the Yue Kingdom launched a strike and wiped out the army of the Wu Kingdom. Fuchai committed suicide.

Though Xishi's beauty also contributed to the collapse of a kingdom, her reputation was completely different from the others outlined above. Perhaps because she was a citizen of another kingdom, she was seen as a patriot, and serving as a concubine was respected in this instance. In legends, people tended to glamorize Xishi and her story. It is said she actually fell in love with Fanli, the official who found her, but they decided to put their love aside and dedicate themselves to their county. And after they finally succeeded, Fanli resigned from his position and took Xishi to live a retired life, and no one saw them again. Other tragic versions said Xishi eventually fell in love with Fuchai and died together with him, or people killed her after she went back to the Yue Kingdom, lest her beauty destroy that kingdom too.
Chen Yuanyuan (陈圆圆)
Chen Yuanyuan, a famous prostitute born in the late Ming Dynasty, changed the fate of a dynasty in a different way. She was raised in Suzhou but brought involuntarily to the capital Beijing by an official surnamed Tian, who was a relative of the royal family. And then Tian sent Chen as a gift to Wu Sangui, who was a famous military official.

Chen lived with Wu until the peasant uprising army led by Li Zicheng conquered Beijing, when the Ming Dynasty ended. In the chaos, a subordinate of Li kidnapped Chen from Wu's residence. But Wu, who was originally willing to cooperate with Li, was totally outraged. At that time Wu was the general of the defending troops against Manchu at Shanhaiguan, the most important pass in the great wall. Outraged with the goings on in the capital, he surrendered to the Manchu and aided the Manchu troops to enter the capital, which they promptly conquered. The Qing Dynasty was thus founded, and Li fled away and Wu found Chen amid the chaos of war. Since Wu had even committed treason for Chen, what he did was written in a poem, as: 冲冠一怒为红颜 (chōng guān yí nù wèi hóngyán)，meaning that a world-shaking outrage with hair standing on end is all for a beauty.

Master image depicts Diao Chan, another historical femme fatale, from the TV show Three Kingdoms, courtesy of sina.com.

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Dangerous Beauty: The Women Who Destroyed Empires | The World of Chinese

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China has its own versions of the femme fatale. The idiom 红颜祸水 (hóngyán huòshuǐ) is used to describe them, literally meaning "dangerous beauties who will incur misfortunes". In a male-dominated society like ancient China, women, for various reasons, were often the scapegoat for public criticism for an empire's collapse.

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Inspiration behind Katherine Applegate's novel The One and Only Ivan 

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Inspiration behind Katherine Applegate's novel The One and Only Ivan 

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Katherine Applegate tells the true story of Ivan in her new picture book

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Grace Lin reads from Mulan: Before the Sword

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Geerdets, Megan S. “(Un)Real Animals: Anthropomorphism and Early Learning About Animals.” Society for Research in Child Development .

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Geerdets, Megan S. “(Un)Real Animals: Anthropomorphism and Early Learning About Animals.” Society for Research in Child Development .

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Children’s Media through the Generations 

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Children’s Media through the Generations 

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Thank you to all the presenters; it was a great round table! Throughout all of your research, I saw a lot of media from my own childhood (Emperor’s New Groove & Brother Bear, loved when i was younger). Have you thought about analyzing children’s media throughout the generations? I’d be interested to see if anything has changed for more recent children’s literature that I’m not aware of. (Abby Bucci)

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I was thinking about the transformations in Brave (Felicia)

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Where do films such as "Brave Little Toaster" or "Lovebug" -- in which kitchen appliances and volkswagons become characters -- fit into your topic?

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Where do films such as "Brave Little Toaster" or "Lovebug" -- in which kitchen appliances and volkswagons become characters -- fit into your topic?

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Hearing about Angie's research on BIPoC erasure reminded me of what happened in the 70s (?) with Sesame Street! They added a character but his skin tone was not reflective of his race. They recently added two new characters with skin tones that reflect their race and that was where I learned about it. (Aahna)

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Reese, Debbie. “An Indigenous Critique of Whiteness in Children’s Literature.” Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children, Aug. 2019, pp. 3–11.

Chaudhri, Amina, and Nicole Schau. “Imaginary Indians: Representations of Native Americans in Scholastic Reading Club.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 47, no. 1, Mar. 2016, pp. 18–35.

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"When Animals Are Used as Stand-ins for Transgender Humans, People are Diminished | Essay"

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"When Animals Are Used as Stand-ins for Transgender Humans, People are Diminished | Essay"

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Parrish Turner

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Parrish Turner, a transgender sensitivity reader, is tired of the tropes surrounding animal stories, particularly those involving the wish to be a different animal. For Parrish, the longing to be a more authentic version of oneself is all too human.

As a transgender sensitivity reader, I have been noticing a troubling pattern; to tell the truth, I am tired of reading picture books about animals. Usually, these have some plot about an animal, say a bear, wanting to be another animal, say a tiger. I am not saying that these shouldn't be passed my way. They absolutely should. But even though animals have little to do with trans lives, readers will see trans lives there no matter what.

Being a sensitivity reader is rewarding work; I do these sorts of reads for books across the age spectrum, including picture books. Some books I get called in to look at, others I stumble upon on a bookshelf. While part of my job is flagging potentially offensive material, it's not the bulk of it. With my specialized knowledge of LGBTQ culture and history along with my personal experiences as a transgender man, my goal is to make a manuscript as nuanced and accurate as it can be.

I can give an editor information about transgender history, or strange legal conundrums that can make a story more complex and true to life. I rarely give a "do not publish" suggestion; I just want to flag anything potentially offensive and perhaps change the language a character uses, or cut back on discussions of surgeries, or suggest ways to complete plot lines.

Lulu is a Rhinoceros, by Allison and Jason Flom, is about a bulldog who believes she is a rhino, complete with a scene of the dog staring into a mirror and seeing a rhino staring back. Benny's True Colors by Norene Paulson is about a bat who transforms into a butterfly. Quackers by Liz Wong is a book about a cat who identifies more as a duck. Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima is about a unicorn raised by narwhals.

As Dana Simpson, author of the "Phoebe and her Unicorn," series, says, "Comparing being trans to wanting to be an animal is often the first thing transphobes online throw at us." This trope plays into dismissive attitudes about transgender people being out of touch or even mentally ill. It is a cliché I have experienced myself, when my coming out is met with the response, "Oh, and if I say I'm a dog, I guess we are all going to accept that now?" This implies that two such assertions are the same.

Yet, there is a marked difference between wanting to be another gender, considering the range and complexity of human gender, and wanting to be another species, something that is impossible.

Simpson continues, "It doesn't really work or make sense as a metaphor for being trans. I get why someone would think it did, because that's a lot of people's understanding of being trans: you're one thing but you want to be another. But that's wrong."

The one-animal-yearns-to-be-another construct, at its heart, is a misunderstanding of what it means to be transgender. "The point of coming out as trans, at least for a lot of us, is to better express who we already are, not to become something else," says Simpson. "Gender isn't species. It's not some objective, biologically innate thing, where becoming something else requires a magical transformation. [Gender is] just a spectrum of different ways to be the individual human you are."

A huge percentage of the picture book market features animal characters. As Lauren Simkin Berke, illustrator of Were I Not a Girl explains, "The use of non-humans as characters in picture books, in general, is used as a way to avoid socially constructed identities. This has a greater impact on books featuring trans characters, and characters with other marginalized identities because there are fewer of these books, and therefore less range of representation within the market."

There are books that handle the question of gender identity in complex ways that allow people to remain human. We are continuing to move from rather straightforward books like and I'm Not a Girl to more complex stories, such as Kyle Lukoff's When Aidan Became a Brother, about how gender stereotypes are pushed on children, and , about a mother supporting her daughter by making brightly colored wigs. As Lukoff says, "Trans children and their peers deserve uncompromising representation, without the labor of having to parse strained metaphors filtered through a cis-centric model of pathologization."

I don't know if I enjoy my work, but I find it necessary. I am excited about the future of books that take on the question of gender and transgender identity for young readers. But it need not be a taboo hidden in parables. We can have these conversations frankly with children and not rely on weak metaphors to do it.

Parrish Turner is a queer essayist and editor who hails from Georgia. His work has been featured on Buzzfeed, Slate, Culture Trip, Gertrude Press, and The Rumpus. He is currently working as a freelancer and children's bookseller based out of Brooklyn and is always on the lookout for a great cup of tea.

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When Animals Are Used as Stand-ins for Transgender Humans, People are Diminished | Essay

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Parrish Turner, a transgender sensitivity reader, is tired of the tropes surrounding animal stories, particularly those involving the wish to be a different animal. For Parrish, the longing to be a more authentic version of oneself is all too human.