Magic Carpet: Books, Identity, and Assimilation

We've been talking about books as windows and mirrors this week on the Fire Escape. First off, I'm convinced that "mainstream" North American kids and teens can and will enjoy books as windows into other worlds. We should expect them to as much as we do adult readers.

But I also believe that younger teens and tweens especially need to see themselves in stories. Here's an essay I wrote several years ago about about how such books might have helped during the stage when I was rejecting my cultur...