(Week 7, Children's Folktale) Folktales for Fearless Girls, by Myriam Sayalero

 

    This collection of folktales focuses on stories with an all female heroine cast. These folktale come from a wide variety of places and represents women from multiple cultures: China, Russia, Persia, India, Armenia, the UK, Spain, France, Southern Africa, Egypt, and Germany. 

 

These stories take young readers along a journey of female empowerment and turns the idea of a knight in shining armor on its head. 

Discussion and Classroom Application 

This is a fun read to use for a reader's theater activity. Discussions on the differences between how women are viewed in these mention countries when these stories were written versus how they are viewed now. 

(Week 7, Young Adult Fantasy) The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

    In this classic high-fantasy novel, countless children and adults have been transported to Middle Earth. We see Bilbo Baggins, a gentlemanly hobbit, who is roped into becoming a "burglar" for a troop of Dwarves on a mission to reclaim their kingdom from Smaug the dragon. Along the way Bilbo finds out just how much of an adventurer he really is as he overcomes challenge after challenge, or at least he does until he find a magical gold ring with the power to turn him invisible whenever he wears it. This novel has far too much to wrap up in a short summary, so do yourself the favor and read it for yourself. Through this beautifully written epic tale, we are introduced to the world that will eventually lead to Tolkien's series Lord of the Rings.  

Discussion and Classroom Applications

    This book has been a classic for decades and has various classroom applications. It would be interesting to see how the characters in this story could be used as representations of other cultures or how the themes of this book could reflect cultural aspects that apply to more than one culture. 

(Week 6, Hispanic/Latino Historical Fiction Young Adult) Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan

    Esperanza Rising is a story that begins in tragedy, but ends with hope. Hope is the English translation for Esperanza's name which serves as a sense of foreshadowing that even through the hardest times, hope can raise you out of your despair. In the beginning, Esperanza is living on her father's ranch. He is a wealthy landowner has has built a life for his family that ensures that they want for nothing. Sadly at the end of the grape harvest and the day before Esperanza's thirteenth birthday, her father, Sixto Ortega, is murdered leaving Esperanza and her mother at the mercy of Esperanza's devious uncles who, due to the land inheritance, now own the ranch. Tio Luis, who is also the bank president, makes it clear that he wishes to live like a king in the place of his now deceased brother, and take over the ranch house and marry Sixto's widow. Esperanza's mother vehemently refuses which ultimately lead to her and Esperanza's departure to the United States to work for their survival. 

    They arrive in the United States during the Great Depression with a family that has been close friends for many years and together they strive and toil in an Oklahoma work camp. Esperanza saves and saves for the day that she can send for her Abuelita to join them. She babysits the workers children until she too is old enough to work and contribute to earning a living. Dealing with the separation from her grandmother and her mother's sickness that she contracted shortly after coming into California, Esperanza is jolted from the comfortable life of a wealthy rancher's daughter to the impoverished life of a laborer in the fields that belong to someone else. She witnesses firsthand racism and unfair living situations and pay that were given to these workers. She also witnesses the fight that these workers had in working toward a better future for all laborers during this time. Through all of this heartache, she suffers another blow of betrayal, or at least she thinks so. Her lifelong friend, Miguel has taken every cent that Esperanza saved up to bring her Abuelita to the United States. However, little did she know that Miguel had taken the money, snuck back into Mexico and brought her grandmother to her with the money as it was intended. Esperanza's mother is also released from the hospital after recovering from the fever, and everyone is together once again to face this life head on. Esperanza, realizing the depth of Miguel's feelings for her and hers for him, now faces the future with the hope that was always in front of her despite the hardships that were thrown at her. 

Discussion and Classroom Application

 This is a wonderful book to serve as an introductory piece to the lives of Depression Era migrant workers and their plight to find reasonable working conditions and wage. While this does not go into great detail of the hardships that were faces, it can certainly be something that teachers use to scaffold their way towards the harsher realities that were faced. Along with English, this book would be a good supplemental reading option for History, and Government. 

(Week 6, Hispanic/Latino Historical Fiction Children's Book) Waiting for the Biblioburro, by Monica Brown

 

    This is a beautiful story of a young girl named Ana who loves to read. She loves the stories and the places they take her. She was gifted a book by her teacher before the teacher moved away. This is her only book, so she has read it so many times that she knows it by heart. She even tells her baby brother the cuentos from the book and stories that she makes up on her own. She longs for more books, but they have no access to buy more or visit a library where she lives. One day, she hears the baying of donkeys carrying what seems to be a heavy load. She sees a man with a sign reading "Biblioburro". The man tells her that he is a librarian, "a bibliotecario". He spreads his books out for all the children in the village to look at while he reads to them. Before he leaves, he tells the kids that they can take books home to keep until he returns in a few weeks. The Ana is so excited, "'Me too?' asks Ana. 'Especially you,' says the librarian with a smile." 

    When Ana tells the librarian that someone write a story about his burros, he pretty much says that she should. She runs home with her books and reads and waits for the librarian to come back. She is constantly asking when he will come back her mother simply smiles and replies, "Go read, Ana; Go draw, Ana; Go write, Ana, Go to bed, Ana!" She dreams so many fantastic dreams of bringing stories to everyone she meets and everywhere she goes. She then begins to write the book for the Biblioburro, the librarian, and the burros. When The Biblioburro finally returns, Ana gives the librarian the book and he reads it to the rest of the children. He takes it with him on the Biblioburro to share it with other children who are waiting for their turn at the Biblioburro!

Discussion and Classroom Application

This story was written for children age 5 to 8. This was based on the real-life Biblioburro created by Luis Soriano in the late 90s. Now, I wouldn't necessarily call the late 90s a "historic time", but it is in the past and this serves as a pretty significant event in the lives of the children that Luis' travelling library has helped to change. This is a great way for children to see how important books are and they are to be treasured because not every child has access to books, or new stories (cuentos) to fill their days with wonder and fuel for their imaginations. 

(Week 5, Native/African American Literature) The Cost of Being Extreme

 

   

    Imagine your the son of a famous, Super Bowl Champion football player, and your father is everything you love and look up to. In Jacqueline Woodson's novel in verse, ZJ is a 12 year-old boy who experiences the heartache of watching his father go from being in his prime to suffering from a mysterious braid injury that no one can explain. This is a relatively short story outlining the confusing slow burning grief that comes from losing a loved one with them physically pass away. ZJ begin his telling of this journey by introducing the relationship he has with his father, “He’s not my hero, he’s my dad, which means he’s my every single thing.” On the other hand, ZJ had no interest in following in his father's footsteps by becoming a football player, his passion resides in music. He talks about his friends, and how they were almost always around. This is why it ZJ and his friends thought his dad was joking New Year's Eve Dec. 1999 and he began yelling asking who those kids were and why they were in his house. As a child, it can be unimaginable to see your father, a man who can take on the world and walk away without a scratch, suddenly seem like the most fragile being on the planet. Today we know that football players are highly susceptible to developing CTE, but at the time ZJ's father began showing symptoms of this degenerative neurological condition, the NFL adamantly denied the possibility of such a connection. Thankfully, in 2016 the facts could no longer be denied. Jacqueline Woodson, gave us this story as a heartbreaking look at the price of bein at the top of a highly aggressive sport. Because of the long term physical and neurological abuse his career put him through, ZJ lost his father long before he should have. The novel ends with ZJ playing his music for his father and getting a small precious glimpse of the man he used to be. 

Discussion and Classroom Application

    Along with studying this novel during a poetry unit, it would be a disservice to our students if we did not also offer this reading in a science and health/athletics class as well. There are far too many instances to educate our children of the risks that come from participating in professional football, boxing, UFC, and even bull riding. More measures must be taken to protect neurological health of our athletes and their families.   

(Week 5 Children's book, Native/African American Literature) Fry Bread Is You

   In Kevin Noble Maillard's children's book Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, we are given a precious illustration of how an entire nation of native peoples are connected by a simple yet profound image of fry bread. As a Choctaw descendent, I have grown up with Choctaw dishes: fry bread, Chahta Banaha (best with bacon grease), and Tanchi Labona to name a few). While reading this book, I was transported back to my maternal grandparents' home learning how to cook fry bread from scratch. This story walks its readers through making fry bread while also connecting it to specific concepts that is relevant to building a child's sensory skills such as "food, shape, sound, color, flavor, time, art, history, place, nation, everything". Kevin Noble Maillard also employs examples of figurative language to truly connect children to their own experiences with cooking with family. 

                  

Discussion and Classroom Application

        This book is an excellent resource for teaching figurative language such as metaphor and onomatopoeia. The language is also very simple wo this would be a great addition to classrooms ranging from kindergarten to possibly 3rd grade.  This would also be a great supplement resource for History as it discusses key historical events relevant specifically to the removal of the Native Tribes to Oklahoma.   

(Week 4 Young Adult Graphic Novel) Growing Up With The Weight Of Generations On Your Shoulders

    Have you ever felt like your life was nothing more than living up to other people's expectations? How did that pressure help you? How did it hurt you? Did you ever feel as if you never fit in anywhere? Malaka Gharib felt all these and more as she grew up as the daughter of immigrant parents in the US. Malaka recorded her experiences in this graphic memoir, I was Their American Dream. This memoir is just an interesting look into the life of a young girl caught between three different cultures none of which she can fully claim to be because so many people in the US, several aspects of each culture enriches their lives in unique and beautiful ways. 

Malaka begins with the story of how her parents made it to the US. Her father, an Egyptian Muslim, had always dreamed of coming to America. He loved everything about the culture and the fast pace of life. Her mother, on the other hand, did not want to leave her home in the Philippines. She was from a wealthy family and had a great job. It all came down to Malaka's grandfather having his family leave a few members at a time during the 70's due to political unrest in the country. From there, Malaka's mother worked hard and eventually met Malaka's father at a company where they both worked. They were from different cultures, with different attitudes about being in the US, and differing opinions for how to live their lives. Their marriage eventually ended in divorce when Malaka was young. This, however, did not affect the way her parents loved her. She mostly stayed with her mother and her Filipino family and culture. Malaka was sent to a private Catholic school during the week, spent every other weekend with her father until he moved back to Egypt to care for his ailing father and never moved back. From then on, Malaka spent the school year with her mother, half-sister, and other Filipino relatives. In the summer she would stay with her father, step-mother, and half siblings in Egypt. Her step-mother would help her to become a women, sharing some very important milestones with her while Malaka stayed with them. Malaka's father would try to make the best of the time he had with his daughter while she was there.  Malaka got to see the different ways her Egyptian family lived in comparison to the nearby fighting between Israel and Palestine. She also had to navigate the different ways she was expected to act with each branch of her identity (Filipino, Egyptian, American) while not crossing the wires in detrimental ways. 

The community in which her school is located is an eclectic mix of other immigrant families, so she was pretty immersed in a society of kids who were from all different places. This, however, didn't make it much easier for her to be accepted by her peers. Anytime she wanted to hang out with the Filipino kids, she was too Egyptian, there were not may other Egyptian students at her school. Anytime she wanted to look like the kids on TV, she was "whitewashed" or a "poser". Eventually she was able to find a group of kids who would accept her as she is and together they made it through high school. 

The harsh reality that Malaka soon finds out is that things don't get much easier immediately after high school. Malaka goes to college at Syracuse, New York. After getting some financial help from her Filipino family, she is on her way. Again, she is smacked with the reality that she is different and that most representation goes to "white people". She is singled out at school and eventually her job as being ethnic, diverse, other. One thing she was not expecting was the "colorblindness" of her college classmates. She does not get a chance to talk about her culture(s) which is something she loved to do whenever anyone asked "What are you?" As she grows older she starts to realize that this is not a question that is well-received very often. She meets with other people who have varying different ethnic backgrounds and present this question to them and how they react to it.

 Through trial and error, life became a little simpler until she met Darren, a white Southern Baptist man from Nashville, Tennessee. Her Filipino family really liked him, but her Muslim father took some convincing. Thankfully, things were smoothed out, and Malaka and Darren got married. They, like Malaka's parents, had differing cultures and backgrounds, but they had a similar vision for their lives. They still squabble over things that can strain the cultural "norms" of one or the other, however, they overcome them as they arise. Malaka and Darren enjoy their version of their American dream, her mother enjoys travelling the world with her boyfriend Dan, and her father built his dream home in Egypt (his "Arab Dream"). She takes all her experiences and let them mold her into a strong woman who is proud of her many facets. She looks forward to bringing Darren and her children to Egypt one day. Even though they may not know the culture as they would if they were raised there, but she knows that, "They'll be able to feel the sun on their face, and the wind in their hair, and they'll know, someday, somehow, that all this is a part of them, too."  

Discussion and Classroom Application

    This, like Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match, can open up so many conversations about the power of genetics and the various aspects of how culture mash-ups can create/complicate identity. I would love to assign this book to my eighth grade students for exploring the theme of cultural identity, writer's purpose, and writing style. This could cross over to Science, History, Geography, and Humanities.