I don’t read many children’s books anymore -my own children have long since had children of their own- but every so often I am reminded of how important books can be for them.

Whatever you may think of political correctness and its enthusiastic exhortations for sensitivity, or its celebration of differences, there are times when it can have demonstrably beneficial consequences. Sometimes it is helpful to advertise a spade as a spade -helpful to celebrate disparity and variation. Children’s literature is one example. https://theconversation.com/why-there-need-to-be-more-autistic-characters-in-childrens-books-90054?

The article discusses the importance of the depiction of children with differences so they can see and recognize themselves in familiar situations -in this case, autism and autism spectrum disorder. ‘Fiction plays a significant role in shaping how people understand and respond to autism. And in this way, books are often used by both schools and parents to help children and young people understand more about autism.

‘But the limited and skewed portrayal of autism means it is often misrepresented rather than represented in fiction. For an autistic child or young person this can be extremely isolating and they are often unable to find a version of “themselves” in a book.’

‘Ultimately, every story – whether in life or fiction – has characters, and all characters are different. So given that autism affects more than one in 100 people, there needs to be more done to represent the outside world inside story books.’

The more I thought about autistic children seeing themselves as valid characters in books, the more I realized that the same applies to all children of difference -autistic, or with other challenges. We’re beginning to see more of this on TV and in movies now; books are merely an additional venue, a more portable and perhaps more easily referable source for a child to self-identify.

*

I had some time to kill between flights in the Sydney airport a while back. There never seem to be any seats where you can find solitude in an airport -no seats where you can simply sit and process your journey so far. Of course, an airport is not made for thinking -it is a temporary storage facility, a slowly moving conveyor belt that discourages sequestration whenever possible. Like a drain, it is designed to empty its contents.

But even in a warehouse, there are token concessions to personhood, albethey profit driven, and after what seemed an eternity of peregrination, I found myself in one of those ersatz stores that sell candies and bottled water next to the pop magazines and a derisory collection of books. It was relatively quiet in there, though, and I amused myself by thumbing through a few of the more promising titles. In this particular outlet, there seemed to be no particular order in their placement, however -although I suppose the alphabetic one by author that they chose made as much sense as anything else to the owners. But a Fiction was as likely to be shoulder to shoulder with a Biography or a History, as long as the author names were similar enough. It was quite an adventure, really -I could never figure out what to expect as I moved along the shelf, quietly mouthing my ABC’s.

Only Children’s books had their own section, and it was along the bottom row -no doubt a pragmatically commercial decision. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed, had it not been for bumping into an excited little boy with a book in his arms and a kneeling mother with a backpack.

I bent over and apologized to the child and smiled at the mother. But I don’t think the boy even noticed -he was so excited about the book.

“I’m in this book, mister,” he said to me with an enchanting Australian flavour to his voice.

“Are you?” I said, delighted both with his accent and the sparkle in his eyes.

I’ve never been very good at guessing ages, but he was very young -maybe three or four- and wearing his own version of his mother’s backpack.

She looked up at me but returned an embarrassed smile. I could see the obvious resemblance between the two of them, and yet her skin was a few shades lighter.

“Want to see…?” He said, still holding me in his gaze.

“Of course I do,” I said, and knelt down beside him so he could show me.

The book was one of those large, hard-covered children’s books that is made to be indestructible, but he had no difficulty manipulating the big, thick pages and opened it to one with a drawing of a little dark-skinned boy smiling as if somebody was tickling him. The resemblance to the little boy beside me was quite remarkable.

I turned to his mother. “Did you…?”

Her smile grew and her expression immediately warmed. “No… His aunt -my sister-in-law- is an illustrator for children’s books. We have this one at home, and Jorry saw it on the shelf here…”

We both stood up while little Jorry held the book proudly against his chest.

“He just loves the picture,” she explained. “We’re a mixed family in a white neighbourhood, and he doesn’t see drawings of aboriginal kids in books very often. But he feels special now and shows it to all his friends when they come over to visit.” She rested her eyes on my face for a moment. “It’s amazing what that picture does for him, you know…”

She immediately blushed, as if she’d said too much -disclosed too much- and then glanced at her watch. “We’ll be boarding soon, so we’d better go,” she said and touched my sleeve gently.

Jorry carefully replaced the book on the shelf and looked up at me. “It’s a good drawing of me, isn’t it?” he said in a very adult voice and grasped his mother’s waiting hand. “We have to catch a plane,” he added, turning his head away like someone who needed to help his mother to the proper gate.

We are all stories, in the process of being told, aren’t we?