So, I have an idea for a series of anthropologically-inspired kid's books. A friend of mine writes books about historical figures for 7-9 year olds. They begin with a semi-fictional story based on one person's life, and in the back have a small textbook-like section with graphs, facts, etc explaining the historical circumstances. Why not write these about famous anthropologists? People like Malinowski, Claude Levi-Strauss and Margaret Mead, plus many others, would be ideal for a good kid's book. 

Searching around, thus far I found a magazine that produces issues on culture and historical figures, but not really what I have in mind: http://www.kidsdiscover.com/ Rather than focus on 'the Incas' or 'the Caribbean', I'm more interested in focusing on the experiences of anthropologists and the cultural rituals, products and systems they discover. 

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Primary education definitely needs more anthropology!  One of my favorite theory books - or, really, a book for teaching theory and method in cultural anthropology - is Shane, the Lone Ethnographer: A Beginner's Guide to Ethnography.  The author Sally Campbell Galman has this really quick summary of major theorists that I find useful for students.  And the whole book is a cartoon!

http://www.amazon.com/Shane-The-Lone-Ethnographer-Ethnography/dp/07...

 

I was looking around some more, and here are a couple other possible inspirations:

Anthropological Comic Book post: http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2011/anthropological-...

RAI Anthropology Cartoon Competition: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raieducation/sets/72157621634269679/

T. McCracken Anthropology Cartoons: http://members.pioneer.net/~mchumor/anthropology1_bframe.html

Anthropology for Dummies: http://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Dummies-Cameron-M-Smith/dp/04702...#_

 

Good idea, Erin!

As an advocate of devil's advocacy, I would suggest sedulous avoidance of hagiographies or theory-pushing; give voice to credible authorities who have differed with the methods or findings of each featured anthropologist.  Perhaps try to establish personal relevance (always ESSENTIAL to learning!) by posing anthropological questions to which such young kids might be capable of responding, based on their very limited life experiences -- and encourage them to wonder about how their prospective future life experiences might influence their perceptions and beliefs about humanity and its myriad flavors.  Just shootin' from the hip here, as usual!

Thanks Daniel, great finds! Feel free to keep sending through links - we can make this a repository for them, do a market analysis later, and convince people to write more stuff :-)

Larry, thanks for your insightful comments, if I ever end up writing some of this stuff personally (i.e., if I get bored waiting for other people to do it), I will definitely be requesting your assistance as a reader!

Why wait, Erin?  Please do write about Margaret Mead ASAP -- I need to learn much more about her than the very little know! 

From the many references to Levi-Strauss I find in reading all kinds of books -- about pre-dynastic Egypt, whatever! -- it would seem that he has enjoyed something tantamount to apotheosis!  (I'm not sure how one might explain him to non-francophonic kids: apparently his concepts are so exaltedly esoteric as to be untranslatable from French to English!) 

Of course, in such books as you propose, you'll first have to explain what anthropology is, and what anthropologists do.  Some seemingly have been humanist missionaries (if that term makes sense), others insensate academics.

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