NEW YORK — The name of best-selling author Laura Ingalls Wilder has been dropped from an American children’s literature award because of racist content in her books based on 19th century settler childhood in the Midwest. The decision comes with many in the United States reassessing historical and cultural legacies, leading to monuments being taken down and buildings renamed as the country grapples with ongoing racism and discrimination. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award will now be known as the Children’s Literature Legacy Award, the Association for Library Service to Children announced. The ALSC said the decision was made in consideration of “expressions of stereotypical attitudes” in Wilder’s work that are “inconsistent with ALSC’s core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness.” Wilder won the first award in 1954. Other winners are E.B. White, the author of Charlotte’s Web and Theodor Seuss Geisel, author of the Dr. Seuss books. Critics have highlighted anti-native and anti-black sentiments in Wilder’s work for decades, although her books are still published, read and loved by many. The books inspired the hugely popular 1974-1983 television series Little House on the Prairie starring Melissa Gilbert. — AFP
