To my complete and utter horror, I found this flannel board in our storage room the other day, and was completely horrified. I haven’t been a storytime person for many, many years, and completely forgot about this set I made. I tossed it in utter horror and disgust during a recent flannel board purge.
Then this morning while searching for ideas for an interactive to make, I was dismayed to find this pattern all over the Flannel Friday pinterest account.
If you are considering making this flannel board: DON’T!
If you tell this story in your storytime: STOP!
Please stop.
JUST STOP! Tell a different story.
Don’t tell this story anymore. Anthropomorphized monkey characters are a racist trope in children’s literature. I am taking down this tutorial. I think every one of these flannel boards should be resigned to the dustbin of history, and they should never be presented in storytime every again. Look at this old, ugly, stupid book. It’s bad. The stain of this racist narrative device
In fact, go look at Sarah’s version at Read It Again! posted her awesome flannel board version of Pig’s Picnic by Keiko Kazsa.
More importantly read Edi Campbell’s brilliant blog. Particularly this one https://crazyquiltedi.blog/2018/07/20/monkey-business/. Then read every article link to this post. Then read Was the Cat in the Hat Black by Philip Nel.
And if you’re all pissed or indignant that I am slamming your favorite racist microaggressive storytime activity I really DGAF.
