The same was true when depicting Muslims. Scholar Heidi Torres, for example, found in a study of 56 picture books that Muslims were depicted as living in primarily Muslim, rather than diverse, communities.
When children read these stories, they tend to develop single narratives, whether related to race or religion.
Torres, for example, suggests that children risk developing a negative story about Islam and Muslims rather than understand the multiple ways in which Muslims live across the world.
Illustrator Molly Bang voices similar sentiments when she says that children by the age of five develop a particular way of seeing the world after reading such narratives. Noted art historian Ernst Gombrich explains how such views of the world leave a deep impression on children’s minds through “memory images”—familiar and recognizable images that define for children how they understand a race, religion or culture.
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