Intolerance – Film by Griffith (1916)

In a world beset by division and aggression, one weapon stands out as a powerful tool for both sides of the coin: storytelling. Across centuries, stories have served as a powerful tool for both dividing people and bringing them together.

In this project, we were tasked with creating a children’s book to share with a Grade 4/5 class from Carisbrooke Elementary. This book was meant to teach a lesson about the consequences of intolerance in society. We visited the class twice. Once to get an idea of what the kids were like and gather intelligence, and another to present our books and read them to a group of the kids.

“Ron’s Big Mission” – A picture book we read to the children on our first visit to help them understand intolerance.

To get an idea of what to make our books like we first learned about intolerance ourselves, read children’s books with similar ideas, and visited the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre where we learned about the propaganda tactics used to promote intolerance. In other words, the exact opposite of what we were trying to do.

Creating

While creating my book, I struggled through a journey of difficult decisions. Communicating with the Grade 4/5 class we visited through my story has taught me the importance of simplicity and relatability in reaching younger minds.

In the beginning, I found myself failing to find a theme for my book that could translate the complex idea of intolerance into language accessible to the kids. Struggling to find the right ideas, I realized that simplicity was key. Each word and each illustration had to be carefully crafted to capture the consequences of intolerance while still being exactly what it looks like to readers. Through several revisions and iterations behind the scenes (as well as a good bit of time trying to remember what I would’ve liked to see when I was in Grade 5), I was able to create a book that I thought was engaging to a young audience.

This is my book, illustrated painstakingly using DALL-E 3 to generate images.

I put careful thought into each element of the book, starting with the language. I wanted to try and use language I thought a fourth or fifth-grader would understand, but not be too familiar with. I did this because of how I remember enjoying books when I was younger, seeing words that I kind of understood, learning new uses for words I already knew. I also drew from seeing practiced authors keeping complicated language sparse as a way to make the book less frustrating to read if you don’t already fully understand the language.

With the story itself, I wanted to make a point that one person can’t change the world on their own. Sam going to the villages and being brushed off was important to that. I believe that teaching kids the power of things like understanding and friendship is important, but they need to understand that these things don’t come easily.

The art was a struggle for me. I’m not very practiced in the fine arts, so I opted to use AI to create my images, using the Bing image creator powered by DALL-E 3. After regenerating each image dozens of times, getting a consistent art style and consistent characters was nearly impossible for the time frame I had to create the book, so I, unfortunately, had to settle. I think that aside from the differences from image to image and the telltale signs of AI (like broken faces and such), that the images give impact to the story and show the characters as people like us, “with hopes, dreams, and fears.”

Presenting

Me (centre) presenting my book to kids in the classroom

When my big mission came and I was to present my book, I read aloud to the kids who I thought were fairly engaged. I think I could have presented my book more effectively if I had taken more time on each page to show off the images that made up the story, Otherwise I think that the feedback the kids gave my book speaks to how it went.

The only issue I observed in the class with our presentation was that only about half the kids in the class (at least in my group) had a sound understanding of what intolerance meant.

Conclusion

At its core, storytelling possesses a unique ability to humanize the ”other,” overcoming the boundaries of race, religion, and belief to reveal the personalities and commonalities within us all. By sharing personal experiences, struggles, and triumphs, stories invite listeners into their world, offering a glimpse into perspectives that may have previously been misunderstood or overlooked. Through this act of empathy, stereotypes are dispelled, prejudices demolished, and understanding established in their place.