(Week 1: SEL Children's Book) Living a Beautiful, Mismatched Life! How Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match by Monica Brown Celebrates Embracing Individuality

 This week children's book focus is on Monica Brown's Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match. This book is such an insightful look into the life of a biracial girl who has her own sense of fashion and self. Marisol is the daughter of a Peruvian-American mother and a Scottish-American father. From the cover art you can see that Marisol has her mother's caramel complexion and her father's red hair. This alone is enough to set this fiery girl apart from other members of her community and even within her own family, "My cousin Tato...says, 'Marisol, your skin is brown like mine, but your hair is the color of carrots. You don't match!'" An interesting part of this story is the translation of one page's English words is followed and repeated in Spanish. What an amazing way to introduce bilingualism to children! As we read through Marisol's story, we see that along with a mismatched appearance, she LOVES combining things that go against the grain of what is accepted as "normal", e.g. peanut butter and jelly burritos, soccer-playing pirates, polka-dots and stripes, cursive and print.

Yes, this girl definitely dances to the beat of her own drum until of her friends criticizes her one too many times, "Marisol, you couldn't match if you wanted to!" This leads Marisol to come to school the next day determined to match in everything she can: clothes, games, food, art, etc. 

 This leaves Marisol feeling lost as she goes through the motions of trying to be what she thinks her peers want her to be. However, in swoops her teacher, Ms. Apple, takes notice and tries to reassure Marisol that she does not need to change herself in order to be appreciated. As an educator, I often forget just how much impact a simple complement or acknowledgement of a student's individuality could have on that student social and emotional success. After Marisol reads her teacher's note, she quickly goes back to her beautiful, individual, mismatched self. At the end of the book Marisol's parents take her to get the puppy she had been asking for, and she finds a one of a kind, mismatched kindred spirit in a puppy she names "Kitty!"

                            

I would love to use this book in a Kindergarten classroom to teach social empathy towards people whom society categorizes as "different" or "weird" based on their personal choices in dress and actions. Another way this book could be beneficial to a classroom setting would be to use this book as a tool in a science class to teach the power that genetics have on a person's appearance based on culturally diverse lineages. Lastly, this could be used to integrate ELL or LEP students while also engaging native English speaking students in a culturally collaborative whole group setting. 

*Click the attached link to listen to a full reading of this book:

Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match by Monica Brown YouTube Reading