Articles

We are proud of the role of Teaching for Change played to make this excellent book even better. When an advance copy arrived at our office in January, we were dismayed to see that that the monster was illustrated as a black bat in an ominous sky. One more time, the message was that black is bad and scary. We quickly consulted with our colleagues... Read more.

It is hard to believe that anyone looking at the Monkey early childhood book series by Marc Brown did not see the racist stereotypes it perpetuates. But, they all missed or overlooked it. In fact, the author, illustrator, publisher, reviewers, and libraries gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up. Edith Campbell, a children’s book reviewer who is a member of the... Read more.

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison has started to release the 2017 publishing statistics on children’s books about people of color and first/native nations and by people of color and first/native nations. The CCBC’s tracking information doesn’t consider the quality of the titles but does indicate... Read more.

The new children’s book Islandborn by Junot Díaz tells the story of a young girl, Lola, who learns from family and friends about the Dominican Republic where she was born. She was brought to the U.S. as a baby, so the stories help paint a picture of life on the island and the forces that led her family to leave such a wonderful place. Read more.

The See What We See (SWWS) coalition is thrilled to introduce the cover for Dragons in a Bag by Zetta Elliott. Random House will release Dragons in a Bag in October of 2018. It is a wonderful middle grade novel, the first in a series, that will leave you clamoring for the sequel. This is the first cover reveal for SWWS and the Social Justice Books website. Read more.

By Marilisa Jimenez Garcia, Ph.D.
Recent national news reflect the public’s lack of knowledge of the U.S. as a country in possession of colonies, such as Guam and Puerto Rico. In recent polls, many Americans were unaware that Puerto Rican's born on the island were U.S. citizens. Moreover, Puerto Ricans remain one of the largest Latinx... Read more.

Teaching for Change challenges young people to read as many books as they can over the summer – especially multicultural and social justice books that encourage them to question, challenge, and re-think the world beyond the headlines. This reading list features new (2016 and 2017) titles. Read more.

We share here articles and ideas that parents and teachers can use to help children develop critical literacy skills that will help them as citizens and consumers for years to come... Read more.

In addition to selecting books that reflect the criteria of the Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books, consider the balance of books in your library or classroom as a whole. All books should portray people who are real and distinctive without stereotyping or tokenism. Find books that represent groups who are often invisible. Read more.

By Pen America
Reading is a formative part of childhood: educating, widening horizons, offering adventures and stoking imagination and creativity. Books for children and young adults are not often thought of as a free expression battleground in the United States—and yet every year, hundreds of demands to remove books... Read more.

Recent events— including the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the Charleston church shooting, and the debate over the Confederate flag— have led many parents and teachers to seek out resources to address issues of race and inequality with young children. We share with you here an excerpt from the book Anti-Bias Education for Young Children... Read more.

By Clarence Lusane
As a young child I became a voracious reader. I don’t remember a time when my mother did not read to me. Then she and I began to make weekly trips to the library as I got older. It was the best time of the week bar none. Finally, I grew old enough to go by myself which I did frequently. While I remember reading... Read more.

In the last five years, only 10% of children’s books published were about people of color despite the fact that 37% of the U.S. population are people of color. Rush Limbaugh found out that Teaching for Change is trying to challenge this disparity and he is hopping mad. Limbaugh devoted a long segment of his show on June 16 to tell his listeners that... Read more.

By Amy Rothschild
In March, Walter Dean Myers and his son Christopher Myers brought national attention to a question often asked by frustrated parents, teachers, librarians, and youth: where are the people of color in children’s books? The two authors wrote must-read op-eds featured on the front page of the New York Times... Read more.

By Alysa Landry
It’s time to break out the construction paper and synthetic feathers. Students in schools across the country this month will learn about the first Thanksgiving, perpetuating a fairy tale about struggling pilgrims and the friendly Indians who shared a harvest banquet. This usually follows... Read more.

By Louise Derman-Sparks
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it’s the presence of justice.” Consistent with that perspective, the impetus for anti-bias education work is rooted in a desire to build just early childhood programs for all children. Early childhood education plays a part... Read more.

By Amy Rothschild
Banned Book week provides us the chance to reflect on what is and what isn’t available for us to read at different moments in history and different places.  We think of Orwell, and we think of more recent events, like the banning of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson, AZ. Government censorship... Read more.

By Amy Rothschild
I teach in a preschool program at a public school, and while my teaching team and I have ample freedom to follow the children’s interests in our planning, our school does place a high value on the teaching of nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes are to early childhood curricula what Frost and Poe are to high school... Read more.

By Louise Derman-Sparks with Merrie Najimy
What messages are you hearing from the mainstream media about the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt? What about the fighting in Libya or the government crackdowns in Syria and Bahrain? If the messages and images of Arabs and their countries are confusing to you, imagine what children are picking... Read more.

By Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards
The political struggle in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and several other states over the right to unionize has thrust working people into the limelight. The threat to unionized labor, and the economic and health benefits supported by unions, also threatens children’s quality of life—now and in the future... Read more.

Social Justice Books draws inspiration from the work of the Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC) formed in 1965 with the objective “to promote a literature for children that better reflects the realities of a multicultural society.” The impetus to create the council came from Mississippi Freedom School teachers concerned by the racist... Read more.

By Rebecca A. Hill
Most students know Rosa Parks as the woman with tired feet who refused to move to the back of the bus. What they don't know is that, for all of her life, she was an avid Civil Rights worker. Elementary school children learn about Christopher Columbus as an adventurous explorer, not as a mercenary who... Read more.