African and African American Children's and Adolescent Literature in the Classroom


Book Description

The essays in this collection discuss multicultural issues in children's and adolescent literature, focusing particularly on African and African American cultures. They challenge our understanding of what, in an age of globalization, multicultural texts really are. Cumulatively, these essays illustrate multicultural literature's power to educate young readers about the numerous and varied perspectives on their own cultures and roles in society, as well as those of other cultures. The scholarship presented here makes it clear that not only should multicultural literature be integrated within the school curriculum, but that it can be examined to reveal subtle cultural nuances that show how cultures, customs, and people may be at once similar and different.







Teaching Children's Literature


Book Description

Offers a fresh perspective on how to implement childrens literature across the curriculum in ways that are both effective and purposeful. It invites multiple ways of engaging with literature that extend beyond the genre and elements approach and also addresses potential problems or issues that teachers may confront.




If I Ran the Zoo


Book Description

Gerald tells of the very unusual animals he would add to the zoo, if he were in charge.




The Black Kids


Book Description

A New York Times bestseller “Should be required reading in every classroom.” —Nic Stone, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin “A true love letter to Los Angeles.” —Brandy Colbert, award-winning author of Little & Lion “A brilliantly poetic take on one of the most defining moments in Black American history.” —Tiffany D. Jackson, author of Grown and Monday’s Not Coming Perfect for fans of The Hate U Give, this unforgettable coming-of-age debut novel explores issues of race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy black teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots. Los Angeles, 1992 Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer. Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids. As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson. With her world splintering around her, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them?




Linguistic Justice


Book Description

Bringing together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism and white linguistic supremacy, this book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts. By highlighting the counterstories of Black students, Baker-Bell demonstrates how traditional approaches to language education do not account for the emotional harm, internalized linguistic racism, or consequences these approaches have on Black students' sense of self and identity. This book presents Anti-Black Linguistic Racism as a framework that explicitly names and richly captures the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language-speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. To move toward Black linguistic liberation, Baker-Bell introduces a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students. This volume captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in classrooms while simultaneously illustrating how theory, research, and practice can operate in tandem in pursuit of linguistic and racial justice. A crucial resource for educators, researchers, professors, and graduate students in language and literacy education, writing studies, sociology of education, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, this book features a range of multimodal examples and practices through instructional maps, charts, artwork, and stories that reflect the urgent need for antiracist language pedagogies in our current social and political climate.




Long Way Down


Book Description

A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) Jason Reynolds’s Newbery Honor, Printz Honor, and Coretta Scott King Honor–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling novel Long Way Down is now a gripping, galvanizing graphic novel, with haunting artwork by Danica Novgorodoff. Will’s older brother, Shawn, has been shot. Dead. Will feels a sadness so great, he can’t explain it. But in his neighborhood, there are THE RULES: No. 1: Crying. Don’t. No matter what. No. 2: Snitching Don’t. No matter what. No. 3: Revenge Do. No matter what. But bullets miss. You can get the wrong guy. And there’s always someone else who knows to follow the rules…




Telling Tales


Book Description

This work examines the development of African American literature for young people--in terms of recurrent thematic content and underlying philosophies--from 1920 to the present. Johnson provides a close reading of various texts including 1) The Brownies' Book magazine, edited by W.E.B. Du Bois and Jessie Fauset from January 1920 through December 1921; 2) fiction, non-fiction, and poetry written by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps in the 1930s and 1940s, and the historical fiction that their work prefigures; 3) the picture book canon of Lucille Clifton, poet laureate of Maryland and Pulitzer nominee, and one of the most prolific writers of verse and prose for children. The book also features illustrations representing books published between 1920 and the present. Included among these is a cover from The Brownies' Book magazine, a wood-cut from Hughes and Bontemps' 1932 Popa and Fifina, and a painting from Harriet and the Promised Land, written and illustrated by celebrated artist Jacob Lawrence, and an illustration by John Steptoe. Telling Tales takes a fresh new look at material that has long been neglected. Until recently, most critics have examined not African American children's literature itself, but (mis) representations and stereotypes of black people in mainstream literature. This current study is an attempt to redirect critical inquiry in the field. The book creates a space for further critical study that will more fully explore issues herein: the relationship between the publishing industry and the development of African American children's literature; the nature of the relationship between African American adult and children's literature; the relationship between word and image, and more. Most importantly, the book provides a useful introduction and model for reading this literature for a broad audience that includes parents, teachers, librarians, other educators, and scholars of African American letters.




The Brilliance of Black Children in Mathematics


Book Description

This book is a critically important contribution to the work underway to transform schooling for students who have historically been denied access to a quality education, specifically African American children. The first section of the book provides some historical perspective critical to understanding the current state of education in the U.S., specifically for the education of African American children. The following sections include chapters on policy, learning, ethnomathematics, student identity, and teacher preparation as it relates to the mathematical education of Black children. Through offering “counternarratives” about mathematically successful Black youth, advocating for a curriculum that is grounded in African American culture and ways of thinking, providing shining examples of the brilliance of Blacks students, and promoting high expectations for all rather than situating students as the problem, the authors of this book provide powerful insights related to the teaching and learning of mathematics for African American students. As is made evident in this book, effective teaching involves much more than just engaging students in inquiry-based pedagogy (Kitchen, 2003). The chapters offered in this book demonstrate how mathematics instruction for African American students needs to take into account historical marginalization and present-day policies that do harm to Black students (Kunjufu, 2005). Empowering mathematics instruction for African American students needs to take into consideration and promote students’ cultural, spiritual, and historical identities. Furthermore, mathematics instruction for African American students should create opportunities for students to express themselves and the needs of their communities as a means to promote social justice both within their classrooms and communities.




Racism in Contemporary African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature


Book Description

Applying critical race theory to contemporary African American children’s and young adult literature, this book explores one key racial issue that has been overlooked both in race studies and literary scholarship—internalised racism. By systematically examining the issue of internalised racism and its detrimental psychological effects, particularly towards the young and vulnerable, this book defamiliarises the very racial issue that otherwise has become normalised in American racial discourse, reaffirming the relevance of race, racism, and racialisation in contemporary America. Through readings of works by Jacqueline Woodson, Sharon G. Flake, Tanita S. Davis, Sapphire, Rosa Guy, and Nikki Grimes, Suriyan Panlay develops a new critical discourse on internalised racism by studying its effects on marginalised children, its manifestations, and the fictional narrative strategies that can be used to regain and reclaim a sense of self.




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