This week’s readings very clearly deal with a lot of the themes of the past few weeks such as diversity, racism, and acceptance. The books I read were Separate is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh, and One Last Word by Nikki Grimes.

I first read Separate is Never Equal, and I thought going into it that it would be about the black civil rights movement in the South. I was pleasantly surprised however, to learn that it was actually about a group of Hispanic families that used the legal system to desegregate the public schools in California. This took place a few years before the Brown v. Board of Education case that achieved the same thing in the South.

I really enjoyed this book because it isn’t just a children’s book with a good message. The author and illustrator is a Latino man who illustrated the book using the old meso-american art styles that are a part of his heritage. Plus the book is telling an important story that many people (myself included) are probably not aware of. And this is a powerful thing. Here in America, we focus a lot on the painful and horrific past of White and Black relations. This is a good thing because we still need to get over it. But we can only really focus on one issue at a time. While we are trying to heal the deep wounds inflicted onto one people group, the others that have experienced similar things are largely ignored. People groups such as the Indigenous peoples, Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese, and any others, are forced to wait and go through the triage process.

This book is an example of counter-story telling both in its actual story (which is a biography of one of the children involved in the case), but also in the fact that the words “Separate is never equal” are usually associated with the black struggles in the South. It serves as a reminder that a LOT of people experienced suffering at the hands of racism throughout our history. And the fact that this book is a picture book does not take away from that fact.

The illustrations in this book are superb, and even though they are often fairly minimalist and “simple”, they are extremely interesting and help make the characters real. The book primarily has characters of Hispanic or Latino descent, and so the book is illustrated in their culturally historical style.

One of the tasks for this week was to select an illustration that the author uses to highlight the racism of the story. I chose page 17 that depicts the Mendez family reaching out to other Hispanic families to join their cause. In the picture, a family is seen walking away from their offer fearing trouble from their White employers. Not only is this a sad image, but it is/was a sad reality. What the family fears is a very real possibility. However, the silver lining is that the children are looking back towards the Mendez family over their shoulders as they are walking away. The children want to join and help and do whatever they can.

We were also supposed to pick an illustration that refuted the negatives of the other illustration, and show how the Mendez family overcame with the help of others. I chose page 20 which depicts the Mendez family meeting Mr. Marcus, a lawyer who is willing to help them with their case. On the next page is shows Mrs. Mendez driving a tractor and taking care of the farm since Mr. Mendez is on the road practically all day organizing and rallying support for the case. I chose these illustrations because it shows that the legal system that we have in this country can do a lot of good. Not all the time, but it’s better than a lot of other places in the world.

Additionally, Mrs. Mendez running the farm and doing things herself is very reminiscent of what happened during both World Wars when a significant amount of our young men went off to fight, die, and kill across the globe. Worthy cause or not, the result was the same: women became dominant in a lot of areas of life. And this was not limited to white women. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Black and Latino men fought for the U.S. in both world wars. The same effects that happened in white families often happened with minorities as well. These illustrations show us that making things change requires the help of others. The burden is too great to carry alone.

The people involved with the Harlem Renaissance knew this well. They worked to bring people together and help each other through hard times. One Last Word is a collection of poems by Nikki Grimes. In it, she took a variety of poems from poets of the Harlem Renassiance and created new poems based off of their words using the “golden shovel” technique. This technique takes an excerpt from a poem, and uses each word as the final word of each line in the new poem. An example would be taking “Within the stardust and anchors, we sit among the rust” (written by me) from a poem, and writing a new poem where the final words in each line would be:

…. within

…. the

….. stardust

….. and

….. anchors

etc.

I find this technique to be very interesting because I like poetry that requires the author to follow some sort of rule or restriction. I feel that it takes more talent to create something that is well-crafted and makes sense when limited rather than being able to freely write. However, because the lines have to end in specific words that often shouldn’t be at the end of lines, I do not like reading these kinds of poems. I like poetry and hip hop music because I enjoy clever word play that also sounds good. I found that a lot of the poems in the book were hard for me to read. I enjoyed a few, but overall I enjoyed the original poems that Nikki Grimes used far more than her own work.

However, there was one of hers that I really loved. It was “A Dark Date For Josh”. I enjoyed this poem because I felt that it still maintained a lot of the rhythm and cadence that I enjoy from poetry, but also because it is very personal for me. First of all, my name is Josh, but I am also in a relationship with a black woman. I have lived through some of the things I read in this poem. While my parents were not bothered in the slightest about the relationship, her mother took some convincing because of her histories with both white people and men.

I also see the generational divide towards both of the relationships in real life. I understand fictional Josh’s mother’s reaction, and Josh’s confusion. She is not upset because she is black, she is worried about what might happen to them because she’s black. As far as I can see, the younger generations are moving quickly from the problematic ways of our forebears, but the world has not yet entirely caught up.

There have been a few occasions while out in public with my partner where I was preparing myself to get us out of a potentially hostile situation. I am also convinced that the main reason the situation didn’t happen is because I am a fairly fit 250 pound male. While the barriers that we have experienced (and she has experienced more than I ever will) are significantly fewer than 10, 20, or 50 years ago, they still exist, which is why Josh’s mother was upset. In the end however, I decided I loved the poem at the last line “The prom is more like a test run for my heart. It’s – a start.” A start for changing the world and what it accepts.

Overall, I think that this book, and this poem in particular (for me at least), is incredibly important and relevant to our society today. The book is full of poems about black beauty, pride, feminism, female beauty, and female pride. These are the same messages that we were being spread almost 100 years ago, and we still need to spread them. That’s why this book is another example of counter story telling. One phrase that I hear fairly frequently but despise is “you’re pretty!… for a black girl”. We need to start dropping the clause off the end of this shit. People of every color need to be told that they are beautiful the way they are and that they matter.

Doing this will have two effects (I believe). The first is that people of color are told that they are beautiful and matter. This is an important message for self-esteem and community healing. The second is that the more voices we incorporate into our society, the less white people will feel entitled and expectant of dominance. They will start being able to share the spotlight, power, and voice in our country. I can’t wait to see that happen.

I know that this post has been very long, but I have included my own poem in the golden shovel style. The first poem here is the original poem (written by myself) with the excerpted lines in italics. Enjoy!

“Secret Racism”

God bless their hearts,

Those keepers of the secret racism.

They are blind to reality

Strutting about in their own fantasy,

Explaining their status in life

With “good luck and hard work.”

They tread on the lesser as they go to work

While their mind denies the truth of their hearts:

That their skin has given them their life.

They say “it has been dealt with, this racism”

But that is only true in their fantasy.

A world with them on top, undeniably, is the reality.

They avoid talking about this reality

Because to acknowledge it is too much work.

So they live on in their fantasy

Ignoring the truth of their hearts.

Deep down they know that this evil exists, this racism

But they pretend, because change would affect their life.

They thank the Lord Almighty, their Savior, for their life,

But not their skin which is powerful in this reality.

As a demon hates the light, they hate the word “racism”

Because it is everywhere, it has even invaded their work.

They push down that annoying truth in their hearts

Because it interferes so heavily with their fantasy.

They live their fantasy

Clueless to the facts of life,

Ignoring the truth in their hearts

And shunning our reality.

Because it would be too much work

To change and destroy racism.

Life is great for the keepers of the secret racism

Living away from everything, deep in their fantasy.

It’s not worth it to them, too much work

To change, to make a difference in their life.

They are too lazy and blind to accept reality

And give themselves to the truth in their hearts.

These keepers of the secret racism avoid the truth in their life,

They work to silence the voices of the truth in their hearts,

But in reality, this secret is only a secret to those deluded by fantasy.

The following is my golden shovel poem

“Passing the Torch”

Oh victorious Lord, oh almighty God!

Please look on down below and upon this servant bless

The burden, so heavy, of prophetically witnessing their

Attempts and fails, shoves and wails echoing from aching hearts.

Dreams of the past slowly shifting into place, now taken up by those

Younger and sometimes wiser rightful keepers

Seeking peace. Message of hope, they know not of

Broken paths long tread, but online seas instead. They are our chosen to carry out the

Plan long envisioned. And when I am weary, I look to my comrades of the not-so-secret

Road that we made, together, to lead our people to a land without racism.

This book is fantastic. Go read it if you haven’t. That’s all.

Well since you’re still here, I guess I should explain. Varian Johnson’s The Parker Inheritance is a mystery novel that links events of the past with the present. Most of the characters in the book are Black, and have a variety of personalities and traits, successfully avoiding many of the common stereotypes. The book also deals with intense topics like racism (and how it has changed over time), gender, family structures, and gender roles. These are all very relevant topics today that need to be exposed to children, and this book does so in an approachable way.

Over the past few weeks, we have been reading books like Crenshaw that deals with poverty, A Crack in the Sea filled with stories from refugees, and Wishtree that revolves around immigration. Not only do these books have engaging stories and extremely relevant topics, but the characters in the stories are wonderfully diverse.

I remember when I was growing up that most of the books I read and that were available to me were all about white people. Every now and then a character was thrown in to add some diversity to the cast, or the class library had a couple books about brown people. But these were all just extras. They weren’t important.

But these books are important. I was essentially told through what was available to me, that the stories, lives, and existence of people of color were not important. While I did not fully believe this, it certainly had an impact on me. Exposure is critical, for both people of color and not. Books like these affirm that the stories within them are valuable, and the people are real, and important. I am extremely pleased that the number of “non-white” books and characters are increasing, because awareness is increasing with it.

I also really enjoyed this book because of the history behind it. While the story and its characters are fiction, the story of the times and situations is not. Today, it is easy to look back at the 1950s and 60s and see them as detached, especially for younger people. It is very easy to view those times as separate from what we are living now. I’ve found that this is a problem for a lot of history, but this book helps the reader see past that.

The book does a wonderful job of tying the two threads together. The reader sees this history, and by extension our history, on a continuum rather than a series of unconnected points on a timeline. This is incredibly important. When events are not connected, it is harder to see how they influence each other. It is easy to look at our current day and say “racism is gone!”. But it isn’t. The 1950s and 60s were 60ish years ago. People still remember those times. People from both sides of the conflict, and people don’t change easily. People definitely still remember the decades after, and are bringing all of those memories into the current day.

“Know your history so you don’t repeat it” is a good piece of advice, and a warning. This book helps the reader understand that.

Sources:

Johnson, V. (2018). The Parker inheritance. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic.

I have been doing my best these past few weeks to do as much of my schoolwork and reading before the morning that they’re due, but over the weekend I started feeling the effects of an oncoming cold. This cold has since manifested and done it’s best to hinder me, but has not achieved victory yet. However, this cold and a variety of other factors kept me up very late Sunday night trying to finish the readings and work that would be discussed in Monday’s class. I had work the next morning at 10, and class at 4:30, and I ended up asleep around 4 or 5 in the morning. Needless to say, after I got home from class I was exhausted.

Regardless, I knew that I needed to start on the work for the next day’s class, and so I picked up this week’s novel Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate, and started reading. I had been told last week that it was a mystery and also gripping. I wouldn’t really consider it a mystery, but it certainly was gripping and I finished it in one sitting. Not only was it an easy read, I found myself connecting with and relating to the main character, a boy named Jackson, in the story because a lot of the elements talked about in his life were familiar to me. “There, but for the grace of God, go I” is a quote that comes to mind when I think about Jackson’s life so far, and looking back at mine.

The summer before 5th grade my family packed everything we owned and move to Canada. Dad had accepted a pastor position at a church in Pickering, Ontario, and we moved into the basement of one of the church families. We only stayed there for a year or two I believe, but it was a one bedroom set-up, and me and my two brothers slept in the “living room” connected to the kitchen. After that we moved to a townhouse, and then the church split. My dad, the other pastor, and a lot of our friends left the church.

We could only stay in our new house because one of the church members had bought it for us, and we paid them instead of the bank. The next few years I remember that most of the gifts given at Christmas were donated, and often things that we needed like good winter coats, boots, snowpants, and hockey equipment. I remember never going hungry, but a lot of extra room in the cupboards. I remember my mom bringing an unmarked envelope in from the mailbox. I didn’t see any names on it, but I did see the wad of cash that she pulled out from it, and I saw the relief in her soul as she gave thanks to God in the Kitchen.

But most of all, I remember how my parents made sure that those years were some of the best that I’ve had.

The relentless optimism, cheerfulness, and smiles from Jackson’s parents were familiar to me. The fact that he still had a relatively normal life in school and the neighborhood was familiar to me. Buying only the necessities for the family dog was familiar to me, as we did the same with our dog, Buddy. His knowledge of what was really going on, as well as his desire to be told the truth was familiar to me. While I never really had an imaginary friend, and we weren’t ever homeless (one could argue that moving to another country and spending a few days in the car can be called “living in your car”, but it’s not quite the same), it was familiar to me, because but for the grace of God, we would have been.

I enjoyed this book and think that it is important for a number of reasons. The first is that it validates the feelings of children who are going through this. You are often prone to feeling alone in a situation like this, hence Jackson’s need for his imaginary friend. This book shows a child like Jackson that they aren’t alone. It also allows children who are not in situations like this to see what it can be like. In many different stories there are children who are going through situations like Jackson’s but we rarely see their perspective. Instead we get the outsider’s perspective: the dirty hand-me-down clothes, lack of a school lunch, and an ever-working parent.

While it is important that these children are included, and can be used to teach compassion to children, Crenshaw is far more effective.

In my opinion, the other reading for this week, Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena and Christian Robinson is an example of a text that allows the reader to interact with people who are in a rough situation. I did not find it as powerful as Crenshaw, but I think that’s because Last Stop is an outside look. While still powerful, useful, and a very good book, its effects are slightly different. This book could be used to start a broad conversation that ends with the class reading Crenshaw. I think that would be a powerful unit for a lot of the students in a class.

Sources:

My last blog post was about H. M. Bouwman’s A Crack in the Sea which I thoroughly enjoyed. One of the plot lines in the book is about a group of Vietnamese people trying to leave the country by boat in order to seek refuge any where else. The books that I read this week expand upon the refugee experience throughout history. These books were Stormy Seas: Stories of Young Boat Refugees by Mary Beth Leatherdale and Eleanor Shakespeare, and Traveling the Blue Road: Poems of the Sea collected by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Bob Hansman & Jovan Hansman.

Both of these books are targeted for children, and I enjoyed both of them, and thought them to be very important. Stormy Seas tells the stories of several children from different parts of our world and history. These stories show the hardships and horrors of both what they are fleeing, and what they endure in order to find a better life. Each story is true, and ends by telling the reader what they have accomplished with their life because of the journey that they made, and because of the people that let them into their country. Many of these people went on to do incredible and amazing things.

The fact that this book points this out is important. Too often in the media we are told to fear the refugees, or are told to worry about them taking our jobs, or committing crimes against us even though statistics clearly show that this is not the case. The sooner that we can get people resistant to such fear-mongering, the better. And this book allows us to reach children, and start this process young.

This book is also very important because in many of the stories, the hardships don’t end once they cross the ocean. Several of the children are mistreated, imprisoned, and persecuted by the people of the country that let them in. A lot of this mistreatment stems from the fear-mongering, which is further reason to break the cycle. These people have been through more than anyone should have to.

Aside from the moral awareness lessons of the book, it is also a great way to introduce topics in history or geography. With each new story, the reader can learn about a new topic, point in history, culture, or issue in our world, and I’m sure that many children reading the stories will want to learn more. Conveniently, most of the pages in the books have small sections that give background information, quotes, and definitions of some of the words. This helps bring each story to life, and sets it firmly in our world. It doesn’t seem as detached, and helps each story become more powerful.

Traveling the Blue Road is also very useful for this. This book is a collection of poems about traveling the sea, many of which deal with refugees, and some are about the slave trade. The first poem in the book is about Christopher Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic, and the last is about the Sea-going Sama people of our present day. That is several hundred years worth of interesting, intriguing, and important history that future citizens of the world need to know.

Both of these books serve as an entry point into learning about this history by providing interesting and relevant stories to the reader, backed by incredible illustrations and visuals that bring each page to life. I know that’s cliche but it’s true. Both these books urge the readers to view refugees with humanity and compassion, as well as make the reader look back through our history not as a series of isolated facts, but as a rich history of stories and struggles by real people.

To help myself and my colleagues fully realize this fact, my professor assigned us to write two persona poems. One of the poems was to be about a character from A Crack in the Sea and the other was to be about a child from Stormy Seas. The first one I wrote I called Storyteller and it is about Thanh.

Storyteller

Filled with visions and thoughts from far away

My eyes zone out and I travel to a distant place.

The gleaming hero in the corner beckons me,

Children’s laughter echoes, soldiers threaten me.

I am not a child of academia, I am a storyteller.

Filled with feelings of inferiority

And the pangs of hunger gnawing at me,

At the searing sun and endless waves,

I lose all hope, in desperation I shout and rave.

I am not a hero, I am a storyteller.

Filled with water, searching for a way out

Sinking to die, revived with a shout.

Living with wonder and hope once more

I am welcomed upon floating shore.

I am not alone, I am a storyteller,

I am home, I am a storyteller.

Writing this poem was fun. I have written a lot of poetry before, but have not in a while, and I enjoyed going back to it. The first two lines of the first stanza came very quickly to me, and so I knew that I had a rhyme scheme if I wanted one. I decided that I would do two sets of rhymes for each stanza, and I would end each stanza with the same line, that also came very quickly to me. Throughout the poem, this final line begins with “I am not…”, and at the end of poem I had two different options to end on “I am not alone” or “I am home”. I ended up deciding to keep the pattern going, and adding a final line that broke the pattern, further reinforcing the message.

The second poem I wrote was about Najeeba’s story of fleeing Afghanistan.

This Piece of Wood

Running from the people who wouldn’t let me learn of the place I am going

Hiding with my family in the darkness of their shadow

Hunted for being different, hated for wanting to leave.

Floating on this battered piece of wood, legs cramping, knees in my chest

The sky opens up and attacks us viciously, waves spilling over, terror of the deep

Hunted for being different, hated for wanting to leave.

Helped at a cost, they don’t care about our humanity

I need this, I join the pact to get to Australia or die

Hunted for being different, hated for wanting to leave.

Forced to welcome us, they let us in, and give us all a number

Crammed into a prison, they mock us, they mistreat us

Hunted for being different, hated for wanting to leave.

I leave that place behind and start a new life, start a new me

Surrounded by foreign people and their customs, I work hard

Hunted for being different, hated for wanting to leave.

Now I help those like me, the hunted and hated

I try to make the world a better place, so that no one else suffers like I did

Love those who are different, welcome those forced to leave.

Unlike Storyteller, I decided not to have a rhyme scheme, and I did not break the pattern with a single line at the end of poem. Instead I broke the pattern in the last stanza. At first I had a harder time starting this poem. I knew that I wanted to use a different format than Storyteller but I did not know Najeeba as well as I knew Thanh. However, once I started, it just kept coming. Instead of a rhyme scheme, I decided to match the number of commas in both lines of each stanza. If the first line had one comma, the second would as well. Same for three or two commas. As with Storyteller the repeating line of each stanza came to me quickly, and I decided to repeat it since the meaning can be true for both the Taliban and the Australians. And that’s a powerful message if I do say so myself.

Sources:

Leatherdale, M. B., & Shakespeare, E. (2017). Stormy Seas. Toronto: Annick Press.

Traveling the blue road: Poems of the sea. (2017). Lake Forest, CA: Seagrass Press.

This week my reading load was lighter than usual, for which I am grateful. I read A Crack in the Sea by H. M. Bouwman. Last week’s readings touched on the issue of immigration, community, and acceptance. A Crack in the Sea does as well, but in a very different way.

The story is set in a magical version of ours containing “doorways” within storms at sea that lead to the “second world”. In this world, the seawater is sweet and safe to drink, the seafloor is almost always within sight, only a few islands exist, and some individuals have magical “gifts”. These gifts also exist in our world, but are often stronger in the second world. Two nations exist here: Tathenn on the islands and Raftworld which travels the water and is made up of rafts.

The people of these nations are mostly descended from 133 Africans who were thrown overboard from the slaveship Zong in the late 1700s. Three of the Africans had gifts that allowed the group to survive underwater and find an island at the other end of one of the doorways. They eventually formed Raftworld and Tathenn. The story takes place in 1978, and since the founding of the nations, various people have found their way through and joined either of the nations.

The book follows a timeline for each world, and describes how both meet up in the end and how the characters help each other. In the end the children, who are the main characters, all find a place and a purpose, which is what they had been looking for. The book is very engaging, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the picture of a diverse culture formed from tragedy.

I also enjoyed the author’s ability to set up questions that the reader asks very early on, but doesn’t answer until much later in the book. While I was reading, I kept making predictions or asking questions about characters, and their pasts or relationships to characters from the past. Some of them I was able to get right, others I was way off. But I was never disappointed with the results, and the answers often posed still other questions about the world that aren’t answered in the book. I like that because it allows the world to seem much more open and real. In our world, not everything is neatly defined and contained. That’s the other impressive thing about this story. Even though the author created another world and culture, and tied them to our world, they seem real. Because of the way things are set up, I never said “that wouldn’t happen”, which is a good sign, believe me.

Citations

BOUWMAN, H. M. (2017). A CRACK IN THE SEA. New York, NY: PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

Last week I discussed The Wild Robot by Peter Brown and What Makes a Monster? by Jess Keating. Both of these children’s books discussed (albeit in different ways) a fear of the unknown, and how learning about that which you don’t understand allows for acceptance and community building. This week I will be looking at Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers, My Two Blankets by Irena Kobold (illustrations by Freya Blackwood), and Wishtree by Katherine Applegate.

This trio of books builds upon the theme from last week, using the removal of the “monster” label through knowledge as a starting point, rather than the conclusion. These three books also specifically talk about immigration, and the differences between the people that make up communities. Her Right Foot gives the cultural differences a symbol in the form of the Statue Of Liberty, highlighting the fact that one of the things that makes the U.S. so great is its diversity. Millions of people found hope in the statue, and their arrival into our community has made the U.S. what it is.

Wishtree and My Two Blankets go into greater detail about some of the specifics that immigrants experience, and what the community looks like on a micro level rather than a macro one (as discussed by Her Right Foot). In My Two Blankets the main character learns to integrate herself into the strange new culture that she finds herself in with the help of another character who is a native of this culture. Both characters need to work together to make it happen, and the story is of different people reaching across the divide between them. This is a very concrete example of an immigrant’s experiences, challenges, and successes of trying to integrate into a new culture.

Wishtree is similarly about integration into a community, but is told mostly through animals and nature. The book discusses two different communities: A human neighborhood and a collection of animal families that live in the same tree as each other. Both communities are made up of different individuals from different species and different cultures, and both revolve around the tree. At the end of the story, all of the animals show themselves to the humans, even though the laws of nature dictate that they shouldn’t get along: “This just don’t happen … Those animals oughta be eating each other” (201).

The animals show themselves as a community to prevent the tree from being cut down. Likewise, the humans show themselves to the rest of the human community, trying to prove how much the tree means to them, as well as showing the unity of the community despite their differences. Earlier in the story, someone carved the word “LEAVE” on the tree, since it was on the property of an immigrant family. Just as the tree was in danger of being chopped down, the immigrants were considering moving somewhere else where they could be accepted. The animals came together in their differences to save their home, and the humans came together in their old differences to welcome the new differences.

I say ‘old differences’ because over the years, the neighborhood has been inhabited by all kinds of immigrants, such as Irish and Italian. While these groups historically were discriminated against, they are now accepted.

This brings me back to Her Right Foot which is a book about the Statue of Liberty. The book starts out as a factual book about the statue, and then starts focusing on the design of the statue. The book is full of factual details woven into the narrative such as the building process, design, and the transformation of copper. It also points out the little known fact that the statue’s pose is one of movement: “She is going somewhere! She is on the move!”

As well as these three books, I also read an article by Amy Edwards about teaching critical literacy in the classroom. In this article, Amy talks about what she did to teach critical literacy to her class, and what it really is. One of her big aspirations was to get the class to start thinking about the world through other viewpoints. Doing this requires looking at sociopolitical issues and events through a lens that is not familiar to the reader.

Imagine if My Two Blankets had a book twin, of sorts, that told the story of the helpful and welcoming girl. Most of the class would be able to easily identify with her because she is like them. But the story would not be as impactful. It would instead be a story about being nice to strangers, and how doing so makes you feel good. By reading about Cartwheel and experiencing her transformation, the reader can feel what it is like to arrive in a land where everything is strange, and finally experiencing acceptance.

Now let’s get back to the Statue of Liberty. The book asks why it’s so important that the statue is moving, and presents an answer:

• “If the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom, if the Statue of Liberty has welcomed millions of immigrants to the United States, then how can she stand still? (page break) Liberty and freedom from oppression are not things you get or grant by standing around like some kind of statue. No! These are things that require action. Courage. An unwillingness to rest” (Italics added for emphasis)

The second page of this quote is a great example of matching illustrations to words, and an example to practice critical literacy because of it. Here is the illustration:

What can we learn from this illustration? Well, we can assume that the depicted scene is far away from the statue. We can assume that the people in the scene are not stereotypical Americans, or part of mainstream American culture. This tells the reader that this scene is far away from the U.S. and far away from them. It tells the reader that the viewpoints of these people is going to be much different from their own. And it tells the reader that in order for these people to see the effects of the Statue of Liberty, we are going to have to go to them.

If I used this book to do something similar to what Amy Edwards did with her class, I would discuss this book with the class, and talk about what I mentioned above. The next part of the discussion would be asking the students to think about how WE view the Statue of Liberty and how someone in this illustration might view it. Next I would ask what it might mean that we don’t think of the statue as moving. Are there limits put on her impact because she can’t move? What does it mean that we as a country view the statue as motionless, lifeless?

These are important questions for everyone to ask, especially in our current day. There are many people who would rather put the chains back on her feet and use the statue as a source of entitlement and symbol of superiority. Is that who we are? Looking at things with a critical lens is vitally important, and asking critical questions is equally so. Because of this, I not only challenge you to think about the questions I posed about the Statue of Liberty, but also this: How are you promoting acceptance within your community?

Citations:

This past week I was tasked with reading a children’s novel called The Wild Robot by Peter Brown and a non-fiction book titled What Makes a Monster?: Discovering the World’s Scariest Creatures by Jess Keating. Both of these books were required reading for my graduate level course “Advanced Children’s Literature” and are clearly loosely connected by a few themes.

The Wild Robot is a story about an intelligent robot (named “Roz”) that awakens in the wild. The wild that Roz encounters is a North-American coniferous forest located on an island. The island is very suitable to natural life, consisting of a mountain, beaches, forests, grasslands, rivers, and ponds. As such, the island is teeming with life and Roz has to find a way to fit in and understand the role that her “perfect lines and angles” (18) could have among the “irregular shapes of the wilderness” (18).

So what does this story have in common with a non-fiction picture book about monstrous animals? What Makes a Monster describes about a dozen creatures that are scary, dangerous, misunderstood, and sometimes absurd. The book explains to the reader why most of the animals are considered “monsters” as well as some misconceptions that we humans have about them. The book presents a frightening creature and educates the reader about them. The fear of the unknown disappears in the face of new knowledge. The animals may still look creepy and terrifying (such as the Goblin Shark), but knowledge about the animal’s habitat, abilities, size, actual lethality, etc. replaces the fear with understanding, for the most part (a Portuguese Man-O-War off the NC coast or a Japanese Giant Hornet flying 30mph are still things that I would rather avoid).

A Goblin Shark

The animals on the island that Roz encounters go through a similar development. They are afraid of her and run away screaming “Monster!”. Yet as they interact more and start helping each other, the fear goes away, and they start relying on each other to live. Most, if not all, the creatures in What Makes a Monster have the potential to kill or seriously damage humans. Roz has similar power over the wild creatures thanks to her enhanced mechanical power and computing brain. Yet knowledge is what allows the creatures to look past that and not regard her as a threat.

What really makes The Wild Robot interesting is realizing that you can replace the island animals with a community of people, and replace Roz with a person. In our America Roz could be a Muslim, Latino immigrant, war refugee, or any other sort of feared minority. As a nation and culture, our first reaction is fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the capabilities of the other. Fear is a human and natural reaction. It helps us survive. But looking past that is what separates us from the animals around us.

This book about a robot and animals tells an extremely human story. Conveniently, I was also required to read an article titled Story as World Making by Kathy Short. In the article, Kathy argues that the stories we tell shape our understanding of the world, and tell us how to be more human. Very early in the article she says:

• “Stories are thus much more than a book or narrative – they are the way our minds make sense of our lives and world. We work at understanding events and people by constructing stories to interpret what is occurring around us.”

So what is Peter Brown trying to get us to understand in The Wild Robot? Understanding, community, helping each other, trust. If Kathy is right, then is it any wonder that this book has become so successful today?

Citations:

Brown, P. (2016). The wild robot. NY: Little, Brown.

Keating, J. (2017). What makes a monster?: Discovering the worlds scariest creatures. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Short, Kathy. G., (2012). Story as World Making. Language Arts, 90(1)

Thanks for joining me!