Family life in children's books

Books play an important role in the socialization of children. In order to understand the images of families presented to children, a sample of best-selling and award-winning children's books was analyzed. Sixty-seven Caldecott and Newbery award winners were selected. Some diversity in family structure was presented in the books. However, none of the black families was a one-parent household, and the image of one-parent households was overwhelmingly negative. Family roles, including the division of household work and paid employment, were depicted traditionally. Presentations of the homemaker role and parent-child relationships are described.A version of this paper was presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems annual meetings in Toronto, Canada, August, 1981. I wish to think William Aho, Pamela Irving Jackson, Rita Seiden Miller and Albert Ullman for helpful comments on earlier drafts.