In a chapter titled, “I Like You Just the Way You Are,” Ellen Handler Spitz holds out Corduroy, by Don Freeman, as an authentic story of difference and acceptance and friendship. Corduroy is an outsider, an unwanted teddy bear because he is missing a button. Lisa is an African-American little girl, who accepts Corduroy the way he is. Lisa saves her money and goes back to the store to buy Corduroy, after her mother initially refuses to buy him because he is damaged. She takes him home and affectionately sews a button on him—her helpful gift to her bear friend. Ellen Handler Spitz is an internationally respected scholar and author, and her insights for Don Freeman’s story are comprehensive (see Inside Picture Books, 1999.) She notes that Corduroy was published in 1968, the same year as passage of the Civil Rights Act and the year in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assasinated.
Don Freeman, Corduroy, 1968