Reply #50: I did read all the posts, thank you.

[baldguy]

What you refuse to understand is that when 3-5 yr old children are being read a story, they couldn't care less about cultural context of the story's origin - that the author was born in England, but lived most of her life in India, that the story was taken by Americans who illustrated it using their own ignorance & prejudices, and that the pictures don't actually represent the characters in the story - nor could they fully understand it without a long, patient, well-informed explanation by their tutor.

They look at the pictures. That's why the pictures are important.