Educations Matters: Diverse Children's Book Reviews
Learn how to explain the history of enslavement to kids with these children’s books about slavery, from the Underground Railroad to Frederick Douglas. “It [Enslavement] is such a major part of American history, but it gets glossed over. I mean, the foundation of our early economy was based on slavery, and that’s missing,” Berry said….
Booker T. Washington early years come to life in Fifty Cents and a Dream, detailing how Booker managed to get an education with just fifty cents in his pocket and a dream in his head.
What Martin Luther King Junior did for me and books for kids to realize that MLK did to make the world a better place for us all.
In honor of Martin Luther King, Junior, I have selected ten children’s and young adult books, both fiction and non-fiction, to help us all to understand exactly the magnitude of achievement that Martin Luther King, Jr. accomplished during his too short life. Happy Martin Luther King, Junior Day! And thank you to all the unsung heroes out there who stand up to injustice every day!
This week, we are exploring Africa. Why? A million years ago b.c. (before children), I designed and manufactured women’s golf apparel using natural fibers and geared to fashion forward twenty-, thirty- and forty-somethings. The first collection used gorgeous fabrics from West Africa.
My 5th grade daughter’s book club got invited to the 5th grade boys’ book club because they had a special guest, William Maliul, an articulate and engaging Lost Boy of Sudan, who came to speak about his experiences in Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the United States. Brothers in Hope was the book club selection and though it is a picture book, the content is suitable for a 4th or 5th grader.
This Top 10 list of African American Picture Books is different for me, because rather than list the books from favorite to most favorite as I usually do, I chose instead to list the books in historical chronology such that each book touches on a significant period or event of African American history in the United States. If you read all 10 (and please use your library for this!), you and your child will get a sense of history through picture books. Because each picture books tells its own powerful story, I am hoping you and your child will get images and vignettes that will linger in your mind.