Teaching Social Justice with Children's Books

Comfort Food

In Salma the Syrian Chef, written by Danny Ramadan and illustrated by Anna Bron, we are reminded of common bonds and universal languages that we all share. Languages like laughter, cooking, and beauty. In this book, which will be published in March 2020 by Annick Press (received as an ARC from NetGalley), Salma has just moved with her mother from Syria to a Welcome Center in Vancouver. Her father stayed behind in Syria, but they hope he will be able to come to Vancouver very soon. Salma notices that her mom seems quite sad and wants to do something that will bring joy back to her mother’s face.

Salma recognizes that no matter where the other residents of the Welcome Center have come from, they all miss food from their home countries. She decides to cook foul shami for her mother to bring happy memories of Syria to Canada. She needs help from some of the younger and older residents of the Welcome Center to make this dish and she encounters some challenges along the way.

Ramadan has taken the very complex experience of immigration and the simple, but profound, act of cooking a meal to create a feast of love and hope in this picture book. The bright and expressive illustrations by Bron bring the story to life and will draw in readers of all ages. This is a book to read again and again with children in schools and in homes.

Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards:

Diversity 6: I like being around people who are like me and different from me, and I can be friendly to everyone.

Diversity 8: I want to know about other people and how our lives and experiences are the same and different.

Diversity 10: I find it interesting that groups of people believe different things and live their daily lives in different ways.

Common Core Standards:

RL.1- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

RL.2- Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

RL.3- Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

RL.7- Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

A Special Place

During World War II, there were many individuals from multiple countries who stood up against Nazi persecution. It still wasn’t the norm, though, as resisting took unbelievable amounts of courage and a desire/ability to see beyond the message that many government officials were delivering to the public. Therefore, the fact that so many of the residents of the Haute-Loire plateau in south-central France participated in small and large efforts to resist the Nazis is remarkable. Village of Scoundrels by Margi Preus (ARC provided by NetGalley and Amulet Books) is a work of historical fiction that describes the efforts of several children and young adults who chose to aid refugees despite the risk to their own lives. The book might be a work of fiction, but many of the acts of the young people profiled are facts.

Representing the 14%

We need more books for children and young adults that feature main characters with disabilities. This seems evident even without statistics, but just to provide a bit of context: The most recent figures that I could find which specifically focused on children’s books featuring characters with disabilities were from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in 2017. Focusing specifically on the 698 picture books that they received, only 21 (3%) included characters with disabilities. Of those 21, only 2 included main characters with disabilities (that would be 0.2% of the picture books received). While we cannot entirely generalize this information to all books for children and young adults and while small changes might have been seen between 2017 and 2019, we can be fairly confident in saying that the 1 in 7 children with disabilities are not represented at that rate in the books written for children their age.

How We View the World

When someone experiences a trauma, or is close to someone who does, there can be a shift in worldview. Sometimes our lives are split in two- life before the event and life after. Or it can feel like you are living in one world, where the trauma remains, while everyone else carries on in their day to day to lives in another world. Akwaeke Emezi has made these feelings into reality in their book Pet which explores the complexity of ridding the world of injustice.

Keeping Cultures Alive

I am in no way an expert in culturally sustaining pedagogy. Still, it is something that interests me and something that I would like to learn more about. Social justice isn’t just about accepting differences and fighting against inequality. It also involves making sure that cultural traditions, languages, and beliefs remain active and appreciated. One book that highlights the importance and challenge of keeping cultures alive is The Book Rescuer written by Sue Macy and illustrated by Stacy Innerst.

Developing a Dream

Sometimes I question whether or not I took enough time to talk with my students about the process and effort involved in creating works of wonder. We read plenty of books, but I don’t know if all of my students realized that some of those books took years to write. One book that does an extraordinary job of outlining the process involved in developing a history-making speech is A Place to Land written by Barry Wittenstein and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.

Never Have I Ever…

Last year, my students told me about the game Never Have I Ever, which they enjoyed playing in their classrooms. In this game, someone says something that they have never done or has never happened to them and those people who have done it would respond. For example, a student might say, “I have never traveled outside of the state,” and those students who had traveled outside of the state would then share where they had gone. Different phrases came to mind while reading Kekla Magoon’s new book, Light it Up, and these were not at all playful.

Some Things Stay the Same

I read two adult nonfiction titles last month that have influenced my reading of children’s and young adult literature. The first was The Plateau by Maggie Paxson which looked at a region of Southern France called Plateau Vivarais-Lignon. This region is best known for the number of individuals and families that hid Jews during World War II. Now, the people within the region are accepting refugees from a number of countries into their community. Paxson attempts to answer the question of what makes the people within this region sacrifice their own comfort to help others. She does so in exquisite prose that demonstrates the complexities of what is, quite simply, showing humanity.

A Guide to Anti-Racism

Tiffany Jewell’s book, This Book is Anti-Racist, is not just a fantastic book for youth who are looking to increase their own activism. It is also a tool for young adults to make sense of their own identities and to dive deeply into issues of privilege. Jewell does a remarkable job of conveying the importance of activism, without making it seem like this will be easy for teens who are still concerned with social image.

I was lucky enough to receive an Advance Reader Copy of this book through NetGalley and Frances Lincoln Children’s Books. It is one of the best tools that I think a family or classroom could have to introduce a variety of identity groups, institutional racism, and methods for combating racism in communities. In a relatively short text, Jewell provides an enormous amount of information. While this could have been overwhelming, Jewell thoughtfully includes opportunities for reflection at the end of each chapter in her book (there are 20 chapters, so many opportunities to reflect). Readers are asked to think deeply about their own identities, their histories, and their actions when they encounter racism in their communities. These opportunities for reflection also allow for readers to process the large amount of information that is packed into each chapter of the book.

While the information throughout the text is very intense and readers might start to feel a bit overwhelmed by all that they are facing as anti-racism activists, the illustrations by Aurélia Durand are bright and vibrant, showing the power and energy of small groups and individuals taking action against injustice. While Jewell never makes it seem like the journey will be easy, this book provides hope that young activists will prevail.

Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards:

Justice 13: I can explain the short and long-term impact of biased words and behaviors and unjust practices, laws and institutions that limit the rights and freedoms of people based on their identity groups.

Justice 14: I am aware of the advantages and disadvantages I have in society because of my membership in different identity groups, and I know how this has affected my life.

Action 17: I take responsibility for standing up to exclusion, prejudice and injustice.

Action 18: I have the courage to speak up to people when their words, actions or views are biased and hurtful, and I will communicate with respect even when we disagree.

Action 19: I stand up to exclusion, prejudice and discrimination, even when it’s not popular or easy or when no one else does.

Common Core Standards:

RI.5- Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).

RI.6- Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.