A Heartbreaking Book That Is A Call to Action “We are kept in a cage. It is very crowded. There is no room to move without stepping over other. There’s not even enough room for the baby to crawl.” – Child Testimonial, Hear My Voice/Escucha mi voz Review: Heartrending. That is the word that would […]
National Poetry Month is almost over, but poetry is something we should celebrate all year long. I used to just read poems in isolation, but recently I’ve begun to check out poetry volumes. After watching a session on teaching poetry at the 2020 NCTE Convention by #TeachLivingPoets founder Melissa Alter Smith and APLitHelp.com Educator Susan […]
An Intriguing Critique of the Feminist Movement I’ve been making my way slowly through Mikki Kendall’s Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women That A Movement Forgot. This is partially because my kids keep pulling my bookmark out of book and I have been rereading some passages when I’ve been really tired. So I’m going to […]
Today I started reading Jasmine Mans’ poetry book Black Girl, Call Home in celebration of National Poetry Month. I sought her book out at the bookstore after seeing it mentioned repeatedly around the #bookstagram universe. But what got me to purchase it was landing on the poem, “Secrets” when I began to flip through it. […]
Review: The ABC’s of Black History by Rio Cortez and illustrated by Lauren Semmer is a colorful alphabet book that is packed with history from A to Z. It begins with the Black National Anthem and mentions movements like the Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights along with figures like Ruby Bridges, Jean […]
Monarch Butterflies was a multi-dimensional book that should be welcome in any elementary or home school classroom. It is also an excellent selection for parents to have in their home library to support their child’s learning. From the beautiful art to all of the details on the development of the monarch butterfly, this book captures […]
This book is everything that I wish existed when my brother and I were growing up! As I read this with my four year old son, he saw himself on every page, exclaiming “That’s me Mommy! Wait turn back! That’s me when I get my skateboard Mommy!” All of the images – from when the […]
It isn’t often that I finish an entire poetry book in one sitting. But Say Her Name was so powerful and heartbreaking and uplifting that I had no choice, because it spoke to my spirit. I read this for the first time in June 2020 and it was the balm I needed at that moment […]
A colleague of mine recommended this to me and I am so glad that I listened to her. There was so much pain and emotion, yet so much power in this short little novel. Sixteen year old Will walks every night as he processes through the grief of losing his father to suicide. You immediately […]
The start of this book is what caught me. It wasn’t long into it that I realized that despite Leigh, the main character, denying any connection to William Faulkner that she was indeed wrong. Emily X.R. Pan took Faulkner’s technique to the next level. I loved the structure of this story that goes from the […]