Post-Brexit Racism and Children's Books

 Five hundred percent. Five hundred? That's right. That's how much expressions of racism have gone up in Britain post-Brexit. Julia Eccleshare, children's books editor of the Guardian newspaper, calls for books to counter a disturbing trend.I shudder to think about what that percentage could be, in another country headed for an electoral face-off.And I think of The Story of Ferdinand, and Manneken Pis: The Simple Story of a Boy Who Peed on a War, and all the other books that have whispered, sung, laughed, cried about peace through many years and many childhoods. Now that the world seems headed in quite another direction, we may need such books more than ever.