[schneems]

I think in an ideal world they come with some kind of a diff. Maybe an activity guide with prompts for parents.

I picked up “Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves” from naeyc and that’s more or less what they propose. They suggested that when you see a problematic representation in your kids media not to hide it, but note it “That doesn’t seem very fair to be judged only by <blank>” and if there’s time engage the kid “what do you think?”

It gives a natural way to talk about the problems while also showing good examples of how they might come up in the kids life.

You can also do the inverse. Remove the gnarly reference and then introduce a surrogate conversation with possibly easier to understand plots or themes. Later when they are older you can, and should, talk to them about how the differences and ask what they think. Ask them to come up with a different change and think how that might influence the reader.

Now not only did they get the changed and original they get a healthy dose of media literacy to understand how changing narratives can change how we view the world.

There are challenges and difficulties of course, but it’s certainly possible to do well in my opinion.

[onlypassingthru]

>I think in an ideal world they come with some kind of a diff.

I've got a couple annotated editions of famous books that do just that by way of marginalia and extended footnotes. It's a great way to learn about a story's evolution or context.