The Jungle Book changed my life. I remember going to the cinema with my dad, I was about seven and I’d been to the movies a lot (loved Bugsy Malone) and the cinema was some smoky, ill-kept flea-pit with the velvet peeling off the seats and a crackling audio system. This was before THX, my friends. Yes, I am that old.
Then, Mowgli. My hero. For the moment he wandered onto the screen in his red nappy, hip, happening and not a care in the world. His mates were wolves, how cool was that?
But as a skinny, mop-headed brown kid living in 1970s Britain with its race riots and ‘Paki bashing’ there was something so much more about Mowgli. He was just like me.
That was the moment I realised the heroes weren’t all white.
I loved Superman, Batman (of course). I was pretty keen on Wonder Woman (though that might have been more to do with Linda Carter in THAT outfit) and Six Million Dollar Man, and the entire Star Wars crew.
I followed the Pakistani cricket team. I worshipped Muhammad Ali (then, as now, the baddest of bad-asses). I listened to Chubby Checker and Jimi Hendrix, I listened to Ravi Shankar on the one Asian interest programme on TV (Eastern Eye, Sunday mornings). There was colour creeping in everywhere, in movies, in TV, in music.
But when I grabbed a book off the shelves, it was a bleached-out world. There were non-white good guys, Sinbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba. All characters out of the Arabian Nights. A book about five hundred years old. So, that made Mowgli, a mere stripling at about 120 years of age, the most modern ethnic character in children’s literature.
That was in the 1970s. My God, that’s almost half a century ago.
Now?
The characters on the MG/YA shelves are still as bleached-out as the pages they inhabit. Mowgli remains the most modern ethnic character in the children’s literature.
That is totally INSANE.
Yes, there are characters of colour out there. My own creed (male, South Asian and Muslim) is well-represented in many stories. I like to play a game when I come across a book with a character with my type of background. I go to the back blurb and look for the following words (you can play too, it’s easy), different words score different points: terrorism (10 pts), religion (5 pts), Muslim/Islam (8 pts), fanatic (5 pts), jihad (10 pts), culture clash (8 pts), Bollywood (5 pts), arranged marriage (10 pts), honour killings (new flavour of the month, 3 pts for now).
You get the idea. The higher the score, the less likely I’m going to read it.
These are worthy subjects, to be sure. But that’s the problem. They’re worthy.
They’re kind of hand-wringing, pitying books. But they merely reinforce our stereotypes. That’s surely not the point of writing for children, is it? We’ve plenty of time to develop prejudices as adults, shouldn’t we give the younger generation a break from all that?
Big and noisy. That’s what I like to read and that’s what I write.
Yes, I know a book can’t be ‘noisy.’
When I mean noisy I mean the clash of swords, I mean battle cries, fate of the world stuff. I mean cast of thousands and heroes who bleed and swear and come back for more. The big, bold old-fashioned Boys Own adventures but ones where the heroes aren’t the blond, blue-eyed, defenders of civilization fighting against the bearded, turbaned fanatical hordes.
I watched 300 with the thongs and buffed-up Spartans but (and maybe it’s just me) but the Persians knew how to PARTY! I know which side I wanted to be on.
I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and I can tell you right now ‘chilled monkey brains’ is not a common Indian dish. And I think the death goddess Kali is pretty damn cool.
Let’s embrace the ‘unworthy’ heroes of colour. They don’t bitch and moan why they’re not accepted in the best restaurants or schools because they’re too god-damn busy saving the world!
My first heroine is Billi SanGreal. Mixed race with a Muslim mother and Christian father. She prays in Arabic, Latin and Greek. She goes to church and knows which direction to face Mecca. She could be about culture clash (5 pts), religion (5 pts), Islam (8 pts). She could be worthy but what she is, is BAD ASS. That’s it. Oh, there’s more but it’s mainly sword fights, tragic romance and monsters.
Big and noisy.
Next up (because, in the end, we write children’s books because we’re writing for our younger selves) is Ash Mistry. An Indian boy with a big life choice ahead of him. Should he go to school study hard and become a doctor or an accountant like his parents would like (very worthy) or should he dedicate himself to the blood-thirsty goddess Kali and become the greatest assassin the world has ever known? Totally unworthy.
Being unworthy. It’s just so much more fun.
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