Picture Books and Rights

Moira Lane from Glenelg Primary School, explains how using picture books opened up a fresh way to approach Children’s Rights with young learners.

Our school gained our silver award as a Rights Respecting School in 2021, so our pupils are familiar with the concept of rights and have considered how the articles play out in real life. For example, they started with their right to play as the basis for asking the parent council for playground improvements and studied Malala Yousafzai as a key figure in regards to the right to education.

"Picture books speak a universal language which help children to empathise with the characters they meet in the stories."

However, with guidance and ideas for using picture books from the Scottish Book Trust and Scotdec, the stories have stimulated the children’s thinking and understanding around rights in a fresh way. We are a multi composite class, with a wide range of ages and abilities, but picture books speak a universal language which help children to empathise with the characters they meet in the stories. They can readily enter into their world. After reading Susan Laughs, one five year old boy commented that “She’s just like us!” While Me and My Fear helped facilitate a healthy acceptance that we all get anxious at times and there are things we can do to help ourselves deal with it.

We used the book, The Day War Came as part of our discussions around armistice day and their reflective writing afterwards showed that this had helped them grasp the fear, panic and longing for safety and family connections a refugee might feel. The children could immediately see how war affects a child’s right to safety, family, education, health care and their general standard of living. “War came everywhere I went,” wrote one eight year old. Similarly, The Wall in the Middle of the Book helped them see in a fun way how wrong our preconceived ideas can be about other people.