What happened to Lisa, the Black Girl, in the Corduroy Children's Book Series?

[Troy]

So my little toddler loves to have books read to her and as you might imagine she has a ton of books.  Recently, she indicated she wanted me to read a specific book. So, she hopped off my lap and went to one of several stacks of and struggled to pull one from near the bottom of the stack.  The book was Corduroy by Don Freeman.

 

Corduroy was originally published in 1968 and features a young Black girl named Lisa, who has to empty her piggy bank to buy this less than perfect stuff bear.

 

I did not learn about the book until recently, as it was present. I thought the book was well done given the year it was published. I figured more books had to have been made featuring the cute little bear and the adorable young lady Lisa.  There were several more Corduroy books published, but Lisa was "disappeared!"

 

Intrigued I had to find out the heck happened to Lisa.  I stumbled across Jen Bradbury's Youth Ministry blog when she wrote an article, "Whatever happened to Corduroy's Lisa?" Jen, a white woman, explains:

 

"At this point, I cannot help but wonder if racism is at work here. How else do you explain the complete disappearance of a black family from a beloved children’s series?
...

Perhaps you think I’m making a big deal out of nothing.

But erasing black people out of a children’s book isn’t nothing.

It’s racism."

 

Don Freeman based Lisa on a neighbor's child.  

 

Who knows what was going on in the mind of the publisher. The publisher has their own built-in biases which they use to inform their understanding of the market and the books that they produce.  This would naturally be informed by racist attitudes of the day.

 

Fortunately, times have changed, and things have improved dramatically when it comes to books featuring Black children. One particularly lovely book, Big by Vashti Harrison was just long listed for a National Book Award!

 

 

[ProfD]

That's why it's important for people to write their own stories instead on relying on others.

 

If Lisa was a young girl back in 1968, she could be somebody's grandma now.

[Troy]

The little Black girl, Lisa, was brought back in 2018, 50 years later, in a new Corduroy book written by Viola Davis. 

 

Penguin Random house may be the biggest trade book publisher, with the best tech, on Earth, but they hell if they know how to market books to Black people.  If anyone should have been aware of this book it should have been me.

 

While racism, as the blogger quoted above suggests, may have been the reason for disappearing the little Black girl.  Celebrity brough her back. 

 

Viola Davis was a little girl when the original Corduroy book was published, she probably enjoyed the book and had enough pull to bring it back.  In 1968 there were probably less than a handful--if that many book out with Black girls in them.  Today such a book can go completely unnoticed. Times have changed.

[Troy]

I see they make a film of the original Corduroy Book:

 

 

There was even a cartoon series featuring Corduroy and Lisa: