We Want You to Know: Kids Talk About Bullying By author: Deborah Ellis Debora Ellis knows how to listen, especially to kids. She presents their ideas with candor and honesty. The kids in her books each have something important to say. In…
Category: Environment
Hans Christian Andersen Awards
Hans Christian Andersen, yes, we love the stories he gave us. Their universal themes of compassion and tolerance are as relevant today as ever. In his honor, the highest international recognition given to authors and illustrators of children’s books are…
Heart and Soul-The Story of America and African-Americans
This book received effusive praise from the sacred cows of the industry and I assumed that it was a huge commercial hit as a result, especially considering its subject matter. But finding that it was lodged at a humble #12,000…
We can learn about ways to stop bullying from teens in the civil rights movement
My daughter Amanda — her fifth graders call her Ms Angel — recently told me about issues with name calling on the school playground and she wondered aloud how to turn this into a lesson that would make her class recognize they have…
Belonging to the Land–a review of Far From Home by Na’ima B Robert
I grew up in the Southwestern Desert of the United States, the Chihuahua Desert, the driest desert of North America. I once wrote an essay about how the land shapes the people there—only survivors are left, I wrote, but we…
Outstanding International Books 2011
Celebrating the best of children’s international books of 2011! Outstanding International Books is a project of the United States chapter of the International Board on Books for the Young. These books reflect excellence in worldwide writing for young readers. The…
Can a book on bullying be humorous? A.S. King thought so and she has written a brilliant book
Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King Little, Brown and Company ISBN: 978-0-316-12928-2 $17.99 Lucky Linderman knows what it’s like to be bullied. He knows what it’s like to live in fear while adults, caught up in their own…
Boy vs Girl–the power of faith to change one’s life
Part thriller and part social-issues novel, Boy vs. Girl by Na’ima B. Robert–set in Great Britain among a Muslim immigrant family–explores the power of personal faith to transform’s your life, even when the stakes may cost you your physical life. Farhana…
BEATRICE’S DREAM, A STORY OF KIBERA SLUM
BEATRICE’S DREAM, A STORY OF KIBERA SLUM by Karen Lynn Williams, photographs by Wendy Stone, published by Francis Lincoln Children’s Books, 2011 a photo-essay nonfiction biography picture book, an IBBY Outstanding International Books 2012. Jambo! Hello from Beatrice, an orphan,…
Longing for Place: Katrina “Refugees” and Beneath a Meth Moon
When we think of refugees, we think of people driven from their homes in developing nations due to war or oppression. Rarely do we think of people fleeing the effects of global climate change as refugees, nor do we consider…