By bell hooks
Illustrated by Chris Raschka
As the back cover states: Celebrate boybood, spread the buzz. Be Boy Buzz is a short and sweet book all about the joys of being a boy. As you read, you quickly feel the groove of the beat, and you can't help but smile as you read the cheerful lyrics. The illustrations are somewhat childlike, with painted faces and crayon drawings, further capturing the feeling of a young boy singing about how he loves to be himself.
The controversy of this book lies in its language: bell hook's use of ebonics has been found "improper" to some. For example, the book says: "I be boy running. I be boy jumping [...] I be boy laughing, crying, telling my story, talking way too loud."
From the viewpoint of an educator I can see the potential problems in reading this book. After all, we spend so many hours trying to teach the children in our classrooms to use proper grammar in writing and speaking. But to exclude this book from the classroom would be to ignore a part of American culture that is very real, and runs the risk of even being considered borderline racism. Ebonics may not use the "proper" grammar that we all learn in school, but I can assure you that reading one book with ebonics is not going to make your students forget all of the grammer rules they've been taught. Furthermore, using a book like Be Boy Buzz in the class can help foster and environment where all students feel welcome, and that is vital for every classroom. Aside from just being a cheerful and proud story, this book has many merits that give it the right to be in elementary school classrooms.
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ReplyDelete"trying to teach the children in our classrooms to use proper grammar in writing and speaking"
I see what you mean--and I know how the COE and others promote certain literacies as the best ones. But as far as I'm concerned, literacy is ideological. The ramifications of saying that one literacy (or dialect) is the best one for school (the white one, in this case)are something that people just choose to ignore. Lebov did careful research that proved beyond a doubt that Ebonics contains standrd grammar rules, just as any other dialect (it's just as complex), and yet (as you outlined) there is ONE dialect that is considered "educated" in our country. This gives tremendous advantages to kids who speak this dialect prior to attending school.
I personally like this book, for the reasons taht you mentioned. But I can't tell you how many students of mine in your position have thought that it is either a grammar problem or "playing to stereotypes." I'm not sure waht to do...so I just keep trying to have the conversation.