10 Classic Children's Books That Are Actually Racist

3. Little House On The Prairie

Laura Ingalls Wilder's family saga of life on America's western frontier is not only a world-famous series of children's books but also a crucial document of what life was like for the 19th-century pioneers that populate the texts. Parents have lovingly read Wilder's stories to their children for generations. But those stories have also been banned from American schools for the racism present throughout them. Whether or not the Little House books are vindictive in their use of racist language is up for debate, but the evidence is all there: there is a great deal of time spent demonising Native American characters, painting them as savage and fearsome, a common cultural conception among frontiersmen in the days in which Laura grew up. Most of the negative language directed towards the natives comes from Ma's character, leading some to the conclusion that it's not the books, but Ma herself that is racist. And that gray area stays consistently inconsistent with other examples from the stories: when Laura's father performs in a minstrel show with grotesque caricatures of black people, she refers to them as "darkies". But there is also a black doctor character who's shown to be competent, smart and caring, throwing a curveball in the still-ongoing debate over the books.