The Golden Chain of Reading: You Have the Right to Remain Silent

By tradition the Supreme Court begins on the first Monday of October and I think it is worthwhile reflecting in advance of this as to how we discuss law and fairness and justice with children. What are the books that can open their eyes to fairness, justice and the legal system?

While there is certainly a popular perception that perhaps we have a surfeit of lawyers and a deficit of justice, we sometimes overlook just how effective, even with all its flaws, our legal system can be. In any process serving 300 million people there will be lots of horrendous miscarriages as well as farcical decisions, at least in absolute numbers. But when you consider the importance of this third branch of our government and look at how it is done elsewhere, I believe that we have a pretty impressive system that serves many often conflicting objectives reasonably well.

It is unfortunate then that, from the perspective of children's literature, we have relatively few great titles that focus on, are set in, or in some way pivot on the law. For young adults there are a few books such as To Kill and Mockingbird, but among picture books and the independent reader level, the pickings are quite slim.

This lack of awareness about the intricacies of the justice system shows up in many ways. Sally related to me the conversation she had with her cub-scout den a year or so ago. Maybe ten boys about 8-9 years old. In pursuit of one of their merit badges, they are covering the structures of the US government, the three branches, how it is all laid out in the Constitution as amended, etc. She gets to the Bill of Rights, explaining what it is, why the first ten amendments were added, etc. "Now, can anyone identify some of your rights under the Constitution?"

The first, unanimously and most loudly proclaimed right?

"You have the right to remain silent!"

The founding fathers were twisting in their graves that day.

But the dearth of books about the legal system at the picture book and independent reader level may not matter so much as the legal system and laws are really just the means towards the end: justice. Anybody who has young children or has seen the interaction between young siblings, knows just how keenly focused children can be on justice. I'll grant you that their focus is often asymmetrical - they are keen for justice to be wreaked on others and less interested in their potential role in the familial system of justice.

This interest in justice is not simply a philosophical or even a self-interested focus. There have been numerous experiments (sociological, psychological and even economic) in the past ten or fifteen years indicating that a sense of justice is an inherent feature of human nature, something that we have evolved. In a series of experiments attempting to determine just how rational human decision making is, the professors discovered to their surprise that, in fact, people will choose to forgo benefits to themselves in order punish those they see as having transgressed fair dealing.

One of our most imperative and difficult challenges as parents is inculcating a sense of fairness and justice in our children. There is no Philadelphia lawyer so adapt at teasing out some perceived inconsistency in the rules as a child. And they are manipulative little beasts. Once they understand the rule, they then want to understand how they can work the rule to their benefit.

It is early in our stay in Australia, still the first year. It is July, midwinter, and we are headed from Sydney up to the Blue Mountains for the first time, all in the Toyota Tarago, off on our first family adventure of exploration together in Australia. Baby Brother is in his baby seat all buckled in. Big Brother sits beside him in the second row, to keep him company, to reassure him because of their closeness. Sister, two years old and all sweet equanimity, sits in the back row, so distant from the front, safely buckled into her little Winnie the Pooh booster seat.

We have been driving for forty minutes or so. Not long enough to even get fully out of the city yet, but long enough for everyone to begin to get snacky. First it is "Mama, can I have a drink?" Then they all need a drink. Shortly after that it is "Daddy, can I have some crackers?" from Big Brother and of course Baby Brother needs some too (because of their closeness). Meanwhile, in the back, from the Pooh seat, all is quiet. Until we hear a sweet little voice, not pleading, just asking, "Daddy, can I have some candy?"

"No!"

Then quiet again. A reflective quiet.

"Can I have some if I cry?"

Despite there being few books that explicitly link young children to the law and legal systems, the other way to think about it is that virtually all of the older stories and fairy tales, are all about justice and fairness. Cinderella perhaps might be the archetype. Poor daughter loses loving mother and is oppressed by step-sisters. Cinderella's beauty is usually explicitly tied to her moral goodness; she does what is right and without complaint. The step-sisters are self-centered, self-indulgent and neglectful of all others. And therefore they are also ugly. With all its trappings, it is still a story of the good person triumphing over adversity and bad behaviors all around.

Regardless of what the sciences are gradually revealing, parents can see children wanting to understand the rules almost from the start. In fact I think their craving is two-fold: what is the rule and what are the consequences to breaking that rule. Fables and folktales are usually the vehicle for delivering the rules. Pick any one of your favorite fables and it is almost always about a basic rule of living; what you should do or what you shouldn't do (in fables think of the busy ant and the lazy grasshopper, in folktales think of hardworking brick building pig versus the fates of his porcine siblings). Fairy tales are often more about the consequences. Somebody follows the rules and is rewarded and/or somebody that broke the rules is punished.

And the punishments can, to an adult's eyes, be both comprehensive and terrible. The Grimm Brother's fairy tales are often viewed as almost unsuitably, well, grim. I think one reason that they retain their power with children though, is that there is little ambiguity. Bad things happen to good people (just as often children perceive happens to them when they transgress some unknown rule) but ultimately good wins, bad loses and usually loses in some satisfyingly gruesome way. There is an extreme example of this in the Struwwelpeter stories. This book was originally published in Germany in the 1850's and involves a series of rhymed story vignettes in which some child breaks the rules (plays with matches for example) and something truly terrible thing happens (they are burned to ashes except for their pretty red shoes). It remains among the pantheon of classic children's stories in Germany and in some parts of the US. Adults without children look at it and think "How barbaric". Parents with children usually find that it is an unexpectedly preferred book despite its harshness.

I don't think you can read too many fables, folktales and myths to young children. You are laying so much of the groundwork for their understanding of what is and what is not appropriate. It is why I am also somewhat dubious about the class of stories that take popular folktales and give them a twist so that the hero doesn't win and the villain does. These tales can occasionally be done cleverly but more often are lazy, sophomoric endeavors that undermine the clarity that kids seek. If used at all, best used with children that are already well grounded in the classics and can understand that the cynical twist is just that: a cynical twist and not the norm.

Picture Books