Christmas is over but it’s always the season for meaningful educative gifts. Earlier today we stumbled across the crowdfunding project by Sophia Deen of the Bright Little Labs. They are working on a book for children (and adults alike), which features Detective Dot and her adventures through a modern day tech consumer society.
The Concern
On TechAcute we are trying to prepare content for all ages, genders and personal backgrounds without a bias as good as we can. Some other media publishers however don’t reflect the diversity of roles as much as they could. If you are watching cartoons sometimes with your kids, you know that often technical and intellectually dominating characters are not female. Instead they are primarily portrayed as the princess, which has to be rescued and the overall focus is on narrow entertainment without an educational value-add.
Also if you check into this project in detail, you will find information on how we consume more and more things, strive for cheaper and cheaper stuff and maybe damage the world and the people with that behavior. The concern here really is that we are behaving in a destructive manner and while we might be more or less aware of that, our children might learn the lesson, that such a behavior is the normal way of doing things, not knowing about the consequences.
The Book
The Amazing Adventures of Detective Dot features Dot, the 8 year old coder with special powers. What makes her so special? Household objectives come to life when she is around and together they find out where they come from and how they are made. Dot is a tech-savvy girl and uses rather scientific approaches to solve problems and answers questions. The overall educative mission here is to teach about things we use in our lives, how they are produced and how that might impact our world and society. The book is planned to appear as hardcopy book (of course following a sustainable production model) and as digital book compatible with tablets, phones and common e-readers.
Story Bait
Here is a little excerpt from the official Detective Dot webpage. I certainly felt drawn to support the project after reading this and maybe you feel the same.
“Stories to inspire kids to create a fairer world: Meet Detective Dot – an 8 year old coder with a special power – she can talk to her stuff! From a memory chip with amnesia to a football with an overinflated ego, these objects have big questions about who they are and where they came from. Via Indian tea fields and swanky Silicon Valley offices, join Dot and her gang as they uncover the world, one household object at a time. Where everyone is consumed by the urge to buy, Dot gives a voice to the consequence.”
You can back the project on their Kickstarter campaign page today and for ten more days. Thanks for reading!
Kickstarter: Detective Dot – Adventure stories for a fairer world
Photo credit: Bright Little Labs
