Letter: You can learn a lot from children’s literature

Thank you for your editorial “Bigotry against immigrants never seems to end,” (May 12).

Recently, my 8-year-old son and I started reading “The Great Brain” by John D. Fitzgerald for my son’s nightly bedtime story. The semi-autobiographical novel — the first in a series of children’s books about the author and his precocious older brother Tom — is set in Utah in 1896.

Recently, we read a chapter about a neighbor of the protagonist who is being bullied by another boy because he’s a recent immigrant (from Greece). Tom asks his father why the bully does this. Tom’s father explains that the bully learned his hatred from his own father, who “is always complaining about immigrants coming to this country and taking jobs away from Americans.” Tom points out his neighbor’s hypocrisy, as the bully is himself the grandson of an immigrant. Tom’s father agrees and observes that what the bully’s father and those who share his views “fail to understand is that it is the mingling of the different cultures, talents, and know-how of the different nationalities which will one day make this the greatest nation on earth.”

There’s a lot of wisdom to be found in children’s literature.

Stephen A. Silver, San Francisco