Read what your children read

• By GREG LANGLEY
• Books editor
• Published: Aug 10, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Scholastic has launched a new series of travel atlas books for children called “America the Beautiful.” Each book in the series is a hardcover, board-style book aimed at children in elementary school. There are to be 52 books in the series (each state plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.). According to Scholastic, the books are good references for planning a “staycation” — the stay-at-home vacation that has grown in popularity as gasoline prices have risen.

The books in the series are loaded with graphic elements: charts, maps, sidebars, frequently asked questions and “Wow” factors, and each includes a travel guide at the back and a “project room” that offers ideas for school assignments and research projects. There is an index and lists of famous persons from the state, sports teams, Internet resources and more. It seems like a great idea. These books are pricey at $38 each.

The volume about the Bayou State — Louisiana — is by a writer named Allison Lassieur. It came out in November 2007. Lassieur has a clear and simple writing style that children will find accessible and appealing. Lassieur outlines the state’s geography, where the parks are located, the history and culture. She does a very nice job on the section about the native peoples, going into great detail about the wonderful Neolithic site at Poverty Point. She tracks the inmigration of historical tribes — Chitimacha, Caddo, Houma, Atakapa, Tunica, Bayogoula, Choctaw, Nachez, Acolapissa and Muskeogeons. She writes about the mound builders and the religion and games these people practice, the weapons they used to hunt and make war. Finally, she recounts what happens when they encountered white explorers and settlers. That last part is short and told dispassionately. It’s still a sad story.

Lassieur moves on to the white settlement — quickly as a short book dictates. All sorts of people came here from every place. Lassieur gives a short yet accurate account of the term “Creole” and how it is used here. Louisiana’s rich soils, abundant water and available land were magnets for European settlers, she writes. That led to the rise of plantation agriculture and the introduction of slave labor. There were always questions about the morality of slavery, but rich plantation owners dominated the state’s politics, she writes.

“To persuade poor whites to support their system, plantation owners promoted the idea that whites were superior to blacks. The poverty, low wages, and lack of education of poor whites put them just above the misery of slaves. But once persuaded that they were members of ‘a master race,’ poor whites did the planters’ bidding. They even did the dirty work, serving in nightly slave patrols for six cents an hour.”

The state’s culture gets spotlighted in this book as well, with features on writers like Colleen Salley and Shirley Ann Grau, entertainers Ellen DeGeneres and Faith Ford and sportscasters Greg and Bryant Gumbel. NPR commentator and author Cokie Roberts also gets mentioned. Of course a slew of musicians from Louis Armstrong to Wynton Marsalis to Harry Connick are mentioned in the music entry. There are short pieces on zydeco and Mardi Gras. Lassieur writes about the state’s government, Huey Long, and the state’s education institutions. Although she talks about sports too, she apparently isn’t much of a fan. She mentions LSU’s appearance in the Sugar Bowl in 2007 — “one of college football’s top events” — but not a peep about the Tigers’ national championship in 2003. (The 2008 championship came after the book’s publication). Of course Louisiana cooking is played up.

There’s much about New Orleans and its culture, but Lassieur doesn’t get it exactly right. “Two Louisiana cultures you won’t find anywhere else are the Cajun and Creole, with a strong base in New Orleans,” she writes. There are lots of Cajuns in New Orleans, but most people in Louisiana would say the Cajun culture’s base is in southwest Louisiana. It’s just a little thing, but it’s annoying. New Orleans is not really a Cajun town, but it is an amazing place with more variety of cultures than any other place in Louisiana and some of its residents speak fascinating dialects that are rare outside the city.

There are frequent references in this book to Hurricane Katrina. In one entry, Lassieur writes about the people who sought shelter at the Superdome. “Tens of thousands more crammed into the Superdome, a sports arena in New Orleans, living in terrible conditions, with nothing to eat or drink for more than a week.” That’s just not true. First of all, there was inadequate food and water at the beginning, but people weren’t allowed to starve or die of thirst. Aid did come. Those people sheltering at the Superdome didn’t have air-conditioning, sanitary facilities, enough medical aid or proper security. All that is true. But the storm was on Monday, Aug. 29, and the last few of the Superdome evacuees were put on buses to Houston on Sunday, Sept. 4, five and a half days later, not a week. Most who were at the Superdome were there three or four days. Too long, yes. It is disgraceful that they were left to suffer for even a day, but they weren’t there “more than a week.”

Do these small errors and omissions mar a children’s book so badly it shouldn’t be read? No. But parents need to read the books too and find things like these and discuss the facts with their children. Ninety-nine percent of Lassieur’s book — most of which was researched on the Internet, she writes — contains good, accurate and usable information about our state. But children should know to question everything they read in books, in newspapers, in magazines and, especially, on the Internet. They should learn to be discriminating, and slightly skeptical readers. It’s just another step in the process of becoming a good citizen who can acquire, evaluate and process information to make an informed decision.

OBOC events
Baker Branch Library Morning Book Club will host a discussion of Left to Tell — Imaculée Ilibagiza’s tale of her miraculous survival during the Rhwandan holocaust in 1994. The discussion begins at 10:30 a.m. Monday, Aug. 11, at the library, 3501 Groom Road.
The book is the 2008 summer selection of the Baton Rouge One Book One Community project.

A follow-up discussion of the book and the messages it contains will be hosted by Forum 35 from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, at Barnes & Noble, 2590 Citiplace Court. The first five participants will receive a free copy of the book.  For more information, contact Irina Sterpu at isterp1@lsu.edu.

Ilibagiza will also be visiting Baton Rouge on two separate occasions this fall at events presented by Echad Awakening and The State Library of Louisiana.

From 9:30 to 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, Echad Awakening will present “Power of One: A Conversation with Imaculée Ilibagiza” at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on the LSU campus. Ticket are $25 general admission, and $10 for students. Web site: http://thepowerofonebr.org/.