¡Hola a todos! I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. Below are numerous resources that touch on identity, family, and testimony. I know I’ve shared a lot, but there were just so many to choose from this week! I hope these are of use to everyone. Have a wonderful weekend.
— Rethinking Schools shared Tackling the Headlines: Teaching Humanity and History. One of the main takeaways: “The best antidote to Trump’s xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and fossil-fuel soaked future is critical thinking.”
– Our Lee & Low Books friends shared Valentine’s Day Children’s Books that Celebrate Familial Love. Even if it is no longer Valentine’s Day, it is important to stress the value of familial love. It’s a theme we’re talking about all month long.
— Also, Teaching for Change shared a great list of Afro-Latino Books for Children and YA. We were excited to see Margarita Engle’s Silver People on the list. It’s one of our recent Americas Award winners. If you are interested in learning more about it, check out the book review by our colleague Katrina.
– When talking about testimonios and identity, author Mia García questions How Do I Keep My History? How Do I Honor It? courtesy of Latinos in Kid Lit. “M. García was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She moved to New York where she studied creative writing at The New School… Her debut novel, Even If the Sky Falls, from Katherine Tegen books …is out now.”
–Here are 13 Books to Teach Children About Protesting and Activism shared by Raising Race Conscious Children. With the complicated state we’re in as a nation, we can’t stress how important we believe it is for young children to learn about activism.
– PBS NewsHour shared A Mexican-American Artist On Why More Brown Faces Are Needed in Children’s Books. In the interview, PBS News Hour spoke with award-winning author Duncan Tonatiuh on “how he chose his style, what children have said about his work, and why there ought to be more brown faces in children’s books.”
— If you are looking for potential grant funding, Reforma shared the Día Grant– from the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature (CSMCL). This grant will award $500.00 in selected multicultural children’s books to a library with families who will have a Día program.
– For Black History Month, Celebrate Afro-Latino Music With Smithsonian Folkways. “The music of West Africa, where a majority of those enslaved in the Americas came from, was diffused through both an indigenous and Spanish filter to become the distinct sounds and rhythms that we know today.” This is a great resource to provide students with different narratives that can often be overlooked during Black History Month.
-Last week I shared a lot of resources on the meaning of teaching. Continuing this theme, Teaching Tolerance shared a testimony of how ‘Homegoing’ Has Changed through the teaching of Jeremy Knoll. He writes, “Teaching in a relatively affluent, largely white high school, I have always been troubled by a lack of empathy I see in some of my students. Too often in conversations about injustice or unfairness that spring up from the books we read, my students seem unwilling to acknowledge the advantages they have been given over so many others in our society.”
–Lastly, Remezcla shared a post on a documentary about the Black Immigrant Experience in Mexico. Highlighting the experience of both Haitian migrants and expat African artists, this is a great film for students to learn about different immigrant narratives.
Abrazos,
Alin Badillo
Image: Peace Flag. Reprinted from Flickr user Randal under CC©.
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