If the World Were Blind...: A Book about Judgement and Prejudice

The book's artistry pulls you in and the its message keeps you there. I've read this book to seven and eight year olds and it always commands a very silent classroom. Young kids seem struck by its elegant honesty. The "blind" pages are very effective in conveying its message as well. When younger kids read this book for a second or third time in my classroom library, they begin to pick up on how the "name-callers" in the book are not always who you might initially suspect. The intolerance comes from all kinds of sources and some kids I think begin to pick up on how pervasive intolerance can be. "If the World Were Blind" gives young readers a lot to think about. Chris Bowen Author of, Our Kids: Building Relationships in the Classroom

Of course, this book is not really about being blind; it's about looking past appearance to see the person underneath, it's about recognizing that personal qualities are more important than physical attributes, it's about treating people with respect. ~Karen Gedig Burnett Why do we treat people in various ways? Why do others treat us with respect or disrespect? In "If the World Were Blind," Karen Gedig Burnett addresses the issues of how we judge people based on their skin color, nationality, clothes, body shape and looks. This is a book about judgment and prejudice. This book is made up of pages with black backgrounds that fold out into full color scenes of people saying various negative and positive sentences. The point is well made because if you were blind you would not be able to see the scenes filled with people of different ethnicity, action and dress. White words are printed on the black background and a sentence in a white box at the base of the closed page states what a person would not see if they were blind, for example: "If the world were blind it wouldn't matter what color skin a person had: black, tan, white, red, yellow... Next page: "...it would matter only that their voice is kind and their touch is gentle." In the black section of the page you might see: "Go back where you came from," "It's so good to see you," "Stay away from people like that. They're no good." When you open the pages you can then see who is saying which phrase. An interesting way to explain that we should treat people with respect and to care more about their internal motivations all while learning to reach out to one another with kindness. Even if this book is teaching children not to judge by appearance, I still think it is good to teach children to respect themselves and by improving our own appearance through exercise or by dressing in a way that shows others they respect themselves. Often people do show how they feel about themselves by the way they dress or by the way they take care of themselves. So, the issue of self-esteem is not really addressed fully in this book and is definitely an issue to consider. The author does give advice on choosing friends who are good for you. I guess the main point of the book is that no matter what, we can treat people with respect and in order to make the world a more nurturing place, we have to be the catalyst for change. We can diffuse anger and hate with love and be part of the solution. ~The Rebecca Review

If The World Were Blind... is an especial picturebook written by Karen Gedig Burnett and illustrated by Laurie Barrows for the purpose of teaching young readers about judgement and prejudice. Every two-page spread of the book is initially colored black, with only people's words and thoughts as well as main text standing out. Every two-page spread then folds out into a long mural twice the length of the open book, which brings the words in darkness to vibrant, colorful life, showing the people of all shapes and sizes who are thinking or saying the words that were printed on darkness before. While the foldouts make If The World Were Blind... more delicate than an ordinary picturebook, it is much sturdier than a pop-up book, and the format soundly drives home the book's conceptual message - that if people were not so quick to judge based on what they see at first glance, then everyone could learn and accept more from one another. "If the world were blind it wouldn't matter if someone were/short or tall, large or small, had an athletic body or a potbelly, perfect teeth or a toothless smile.../...it would matter only that they were / honest and fair." Very highly recommended for school and community library collections.