Reviewed by Deborah Menkart Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: This bilingual children’s picture book (English and Arabic) is worth reading for the illustrations alone. The three dimensional characters, made from beach stone by Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr, are so expressive and exquisite that they tell a story of their own. Badr conveys the […]
Unbound: A Novel in Verse
Reviewed by Deborah Menkart Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: When Grace, the enslaved protagonist of this beautiful novel-length poem, turns 9, she is sent to live and work in the big house, forcing a heart-wrenching separation from her family. Then Grace hears that her mother and younger brothers will be placed on the auction […]
Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life
Reviewed by Megan Schliesman Review Source: Reading While White Book Author: Peggy, John, Charlotte and child, Stephen, Mulvina, Jane, Athelia, Qush, Bacus, Betty. It is with little more than these names that this book began. Ashley Bryan explains in his author’s note that he acquired a collection of slave-related documents and found among them an 1828 […]
A Movie in My Pillow / Una película en mi almohada
Teaching Ideas Reviewed by María Cárdenas Review Source: DeColores Book Author: During the bloody Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992) between the military government representing the 12-family oligarchy of wealthy landowners, and leftist forces representing mostly impoverished peasants, US-supported government death squads terrorized, tortured, murdered and disappeared thousands of civilians, especially targeting students, intellectuals, and Indian people in […]
When I Get Older: The Story Behind Wavin’ Flag
Reviewed by Lidwien Kapteijns Review Source: Africa Access Book Author: Since it became the theme song of the Soccer World Cup in 2010, many young people all over the world have come to know and love the “Wavin’ Flag” song of Canadian-Somali Hip Hop singer K’naan (born Keynaan Abdi Warsame). This creative and impressive book for […]
American Street
Reviewed by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Review Source: Pirate Tree Book Author: In Ibi Zoboi’s debut novel, American Street, 16-year-old Fabiola Toussaint has just arrived from Haiti to the United States with her mother, but things have gone terribly wrong. While Customs & Border Patrol officials wave Fabiola through—because she was born in the U.S. but returned to […]