brown girl dreaming ~ deserves all of her medals

Color Your World

(this is what happened while I was trying to find the words for a diversity post)

Children's Book Awards and a Grant Opportunity

Working on a grant proposal, thinking outcomes, facing deadlines, finding all the right words for all the right places, (thank you Meghan Trainor), is both challenging and time consuming. I'm looking at the serious subject of race, discovering the value of home and family, looking for ways to encourage young girls to find their voice and learning what defines them. Yet the more I research and uncover the more unsure I am of my skill to lead a group of tweens in this weighty discussion. The spectrum of racist behavior is more than my heart can handle.  I'm looking at the Civil Rights Movement in the United States for historical background for Jacqueline Woodson's amazing fictionalized memoir ~ Brown Girl Dreaming. I have a miracle of a book for book discussion, a good program idea to partner it with but maybe this is going to hurt too much.  I attended school in the 50's, 60's and 70's.  Black and white kids were bused into my school.  Maybe this proposal is too personal. I just don't know.  

(Now let's step away from that.  Here's the post I planned on writing!)

For the past two months I've been mentally writing a blog post regarding the positive steps made by publishers with regard to more diversity in children's picture books. I truly believed that the stories were being written, being submitted, but publishers needed to hear our cry.  Publish them! We, the people, we-the libraries, we-the schools and we-the parents on FB on Twitter, on Youtube needed to shout - #WeNeedDiverseBooks.  And alleluia, the publishers heard us!  

Here's an interesting article from the UW - Madison's CCBC

Diversity remains an important topic for all of us working with children in a variety of settings. Selecting diverse songs, books, flannels and props is my part, "our part" as storytellers, programmers and librarians for children. 
  

When I first found my beautiful dark skinned little girl puppet, Tanika, I practiced her voice again and again before she debuted in story time. I had to be comfortable with her. Comfort, respect and creating a genuine little girl was important.  She was shipped from Colorado, so her back story is that I adopted her from Colorado.  

I drew on the childhood of my niece Vivian, she is biracial, to find Tanika's voice and personality.  The story time kids loved Tanika even before she arrived.  I had informed our families that Piper and I were adopting a little girl, Tanika, from Colorado. And we all waited and waited.  I wanted everyone to love Tanika as much as I do.  She's been with me for a number of years but she is forever three.  She loves hearts, her hair with bows and barrettes, and purple is her favorite color.  My intention was to create casual diversity.  Tanika's skin color is not the issue.  She is part of my family, our library family, and a great pal to all the kids in story time. 

This is what I see as doing our part.  I can not wave a wand over the library and create a perfectly diverse staff, ( I don't even know what that would be), but I can make my story time room diverse each day to meet the needs of the diverse families attending.  This is "our part"

When selecting books for the branch I take the time to be sure that casual diversity leads the way in picture books.  It is here - in the picture books and the board books where I can make a huge difference for my community.  Children want to see themselves in the library books.  We now have well written books, meaningful stories, beautifully illustrated with children of color.  I would like to say that "children of color" is not the important part of the book but it is exactly the important part of the book.  The characters are of color and their race is not part of the story.  This is casual diversity done well. And it's about darn time, publishers.  Oh, and thank you.

And now here - I want to hug the publishers.  We do not have enough kids of color on the covers of juvenile non-ficiton.  Thank you for this series.  And just so you know - they are popular and always circulating.  I believe that parents and teachers are breathing a giant sigh of relief.  Casual diversity on the covers of non-fiction.  Finally.  ('Cuz it's not only white kids who do magic, and craft and enjoy science projects)

And there will always be beautiful books where diversity is intentional.  This is how we learn and experience other cultures.  These are a couple of new ones in my branch.

It's "our part" right?  To find the casual and the intentional diversity that matches our library's needs?  

I have written before about the tremendously diverse neighborhood my little branch serves.  The many cultures I encounter each day may indeed make me more aware and sensitive to what has been lacking in children's publishing.  The tide is changing.  I am so grateful.

(btw Green is a Chile Pepper won a Pura Belpre illustrator award)

Now what do I do with the tweens and Brown Girl Dreaming? 

I think I need some more time with this idea.  

Did you see that cover art on the book?  

Seems almost magical to have a cover with all that open space for medals - Coretta Scott King author award, National Book Award, Newbery Honor and Sibert Honor - wow!    

P.S.(Piper Script)

Just in case you are new to Piper Loves the Library  - here's a few more places where we visited diversity:

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2014/08/flannel-friday-are-you-feelin-it.html

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2014/07/reading-beatrices-goat-together.html

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-our-way-to-cla.html

Flannel Friday, are you feelin' it?

Feel the Love

Here's our new friend...we told you he was coming.  Just last week on Piper Loves the Library, we said we were making a new flannel friend and he was going to be a young man of color.  So, we did it.  Intentional casual diversity for my story time friends! 

And Kaden is his name-oh!  Yep, this handsome fella's name is K A D E N.  One letter for each of the space holders on the flannel board.  And it's a name the kids can learn with the Bingo song.  Here's our version.  (oh, sorry, we didn't make the letters yet)

Piper met a friend at school

And Kaden is his name-oh

K A D E N

K A D E N

K A D E N

And Kaden is his name-oh

From the moment I thought of making this young man, I knew I wanted to use the flannel band aids with him, so look...tough day for Kaden.  He's keeping a brave smile on his face.

We take care of him with all these band aids but sometime you just need to ask...are you feelin' it Kaden?  Are you feelin' the love.  Can we make it better?  Now look, I adore this part! " Feel better" hearts!  You know you need to make some...for everyone!  We're feelin' the love!!  (And you know that Kaden will make a flannel board appearance on Valentine's Day!)

We practiced some stories today.  We had so much fun.   Kaden loves Tip Tip Dig Dig.  Name those trucks my friend - then we can read the book.  

And then there's this!  These two cool cats met today.  "My buttons, my buttons, my four groovy buttons!"  And check it out! They both like tie dye!

Next week Kaden can meet the dinosaurs.  I wonder which one he'll like best?  We love the dinosaurs and we love making new friends.  

Before we left the story time room we intentionally placed some diverse books on display. And we took a photo for the blog.  Maybe you can't see that bottom book on the right...it's a biography of Maya Moore.  Oh yea, we're feelin' the UCONN love!  Piper and I hail from Connecticut.  We are loud and proud of basketball star and UCONN graduate, Maya Moore!  (((((yay)))))  Can you hear the love?  

P.S. (Piper Script): Go Huskies!  I hope Kaden likes basketball.  Maybe we can make him a UCONN shirt!  Our story time kids will love him.  

We need diverse books

...and we need Diverse Flannels

Just in case you missed Miranda Paul's #WeNeedDiverseBooks, I have attached it here.  Please click the link.  You don't have to go any further on our blog today...just watch this Youtube slideshow.  
WeNeedDiverseBooks Slideshow by Miranda Paul on Youtube

Thank you...You liked it, didn't you?  I  know.  And I also know that we all read books with wonderful diversity in our story times.  Thou shalt not preach to the choir!  But the other day I thought: hmm,I should look at my flannel sets from the perspective of diversity.  I had the thought, (yay, me), but for those of us working public libraries in the midst of Summer Reading...thoughts don't automatically turn into actions with any immediacy.  All in good time.

My library community, where Piper and I work, is extremely diverse - culturally, ethnically, racially...we are the United Nations!  Our families represent more than 60 languages - truly something wonderful.  It is the library's job to be sure our families know the value of literacy and shared reading.  We embrace our neighbors and each unique culture. We make sure to build our town's collection with an eye always on diversity.  It is our hope that each child sees himself or herself in our diverse books and in our creative story times.   

Our SRP kids made this on Wednesday:

(inspired by Pinterest)

Today I'm making a kid for the Flannel Boad...a kid of color.  He'll interact with lots of my flannels.  I look forward to using him with Piper's bandaids and allowing both Tanika and Isabella well deserved breaks from having to "do everything!"  

Here's the template on the stiff felt backing, (he's almost 16" tall!). Need to tape him down and cut around the entire template.  Think I'll lengthen and beef up those skinny legs a tad.  

Skin color, hmm...check these felt colors!  I often use the caramel color to show diversity...but today I am selecting the dark brown.  And I'll use black for the hair.  Thinking of changing the hair style to something that spikes up!  

I really want to make a tie-dye T-shirt but possibly Batman would be better?  Or a shirt with a dinosaur or bugs or what?  Advice, anyone?

Okay, you'll need to come back next week because I'm short on supplies.  Blaming the Summer Reading Program again, this girl's too tired to shop.  

P.S. (Piper Script): We're going to miss these S.R.P. kids, I may have to visit them at school.  

If you like diversity in flannels, you may also like this one...looks like I drew the same kid.  wow!  Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  Please comment, we love to hear from you.  

We love Flannel Friday!  Story Time with Miss Tara and Friends is hosting this week's round-up.  Come visit us...click here!

Update to this post, already!  I changed up the kid drawing!  Look at the new template: