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·        What are human rights?

·        Does everyone deserve the same human rights?

·        Who should uphold that human rights are protected and followed?

·        Can you describe a place/situation where human rights are not followed? What should you do?

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Ji-Li Jiang explains how one day her life changed and how if you didn't meat the cultural standards you lost your human rights.

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Growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China, Ji-Li is taught to destroy 'the four olds' tradition, culture, religion and customs. But, following Chairman Mao's vision for China comes at the cost of her family being destroyed.

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Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang | Scholastic

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This book tells the story of Ji-li Jiang, a twelve-year-old girl growing up in China in 1966, the year that Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, and s

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What does it mean to read critically?

What is race?

What explicit and hidden messages about race do authors and illustrators of picture books send to readers?

What obvious and hidden messages about beauty do authors and illustrators of picture books send to readers?

What can authors, illustrators and readers do to make picture books that include more people from more different backgrounds?

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Sit in: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down

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Sit in: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down

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"Andrea Davis Pinkney uses poetic, powerful prose to tell the story of these four young men, who followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words of peaceful protest "-Scholastic

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Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney | Scholastic

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This picture book is a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the momentous Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in, when four college students staged a peaceful prote

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Sit in: How four friends stood up by sitting down

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Sit in: How four friends stood up by sitting down

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The authors talk about imagery, art style (watercolors) and the illustrations trying to inspire the winds of change.

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Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down

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Watch Brian and Andrea Pinkney introduce their new picture book

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Does where I am from make me who I am? What about others?

How can I be proud of who I am and celebrate others?

How do I learn about people? How do I share myself with others?

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A love letter to Jack Ezra Keats about immigration and equality.

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A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year 2016
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year 2016
A Sydney Taylor Award Honor Book
An ALSC 2017 Notable Children's Books list pick

★ "Those who love Peter (and who does not?) will relish the illustrations, particularly that of Keats holding hands with Peter under a snow-dappled tree. More to the point, Pinkney lets readers know what Peter meant and still means as a milestone in inclusive children's literature. "He brought a world of white / suddenly alive with color." A loving and forceful reminder that Keats' Peter is our Peter-always." - Kirkus Reviews, ★ "Fancher and Steve Johnson's acrylic, collage, and pencil illustrations seamlessly integrate images from Keats' books into their own art, which employs a style complementary to the originals. Equally important they skillfully represent Pinkney's lyrical text, which sometimes requires historical accuracy, magic realism, and nods to future possibilities, all within one spread . . . This is an important book." - Booklist, starred review

★ "Pinkney's poem sheds fascinating light on Keats's long-lived achievement." - Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Pinkney's verse seamlessly weaves together story and fact to craft an intimate conversation about the artist's history and impact . . . Lovely." - School Library Journal

"In lively verse, Pinkney presents a picture book biography of Ezra Jack Keats . . . The resonances are immediate and cathartic. Fancher and Johnson, who, like Keats, are known for their collage illustrations, thoughtfully incorporate Snowy Day motifs and other images from Peter's world along with photos and additional archival material; the color palette and textures, too, effectively pay homage to Keats's work." -"A heartfelt and thoughtful look at an artist's growth and a single individual's effect on a genre." - BCCB

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A Poem for Peter by Andrea Davis Pinkney | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year 2016A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year 2016A Sydney Taylor Award Honor BookAn ALSC 2017 Notable Children's Books list pick ★ "Those who love Peter (and who does not?)

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What are human rights? Watch this history lesson about human rights.

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights empowers us all.

Use this Text Set to learn more about the history (first 4 articles), and children's labor and education rights (last 4 articles).

Take action: how can you, as a class, uphold the rights that protect everyone and promote kinship between all human beings in your daily lives and in your school community?

Share your learning and projects with @newsela and #standup4humanrights on Twitter or Instagram.

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Our Rights: How kids are Changing the World

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Our Rights: How kids are Changing the World

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The true story of kids standing up for their rights and the rights of others

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Our Rights: How Kids are Changing the World

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By Janet Wilson Kids have the power to make social change A girl who spoke out against her government for the rights of aboriginal children, a boy who walked across his country to raise awareness of homelessness, and a former child soldier who wants to make music not war.

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What is a family?

What makes some families different from others and in what ways is your own family unique?

How does having different kinds of families make the world and our classroom community a richer place?

How can family help you overcome adversity?

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A story about a loving family working together after a fire.

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Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen. Where she sees the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq.

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The following pages are excerpted from Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Copyright © 2005 by Marjane Satrapi. Excerpted by permission of Pantheon, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

ON WRITING PERSEPOLIS
By Marjane Satrapi, as told to Pantheon staff

Chances are that if you are an American you know very little about the 1979 Iranian Revolution. "This revolution was normal, and it had to happen," says Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, a totally unique memoir about growing up in Iran after the Shah left power. "Unfortunately, it happened in a country where people were very traditional, and other countries only saw the religious fanatics who made their response public." In her graphic novel, Satrapi, shows readers that these images do not make up the whole story about Iran. Here, she talks freely about what it was like to tell this story with both words and pictures, and why she is so proud of the result.

Why I Wrote Persepolis

From the time I came to France in 1994, I was always telling stories about life in Iran to my friends. We'd see pieces about Iran on television, but they didn't represent my experience at all. I had to keep saying, "No, it's not like that there." I've been justifying why it isn't negative to be Iranian for almost twenty years. How strange when it isn't something I did or chose to be?

After I finished university, there were nine of us, all artists and friends, working in a studio together. That group finally said, "Do something with your stories." They introduced me to graphic novelists. Spiegelman was first. And when I read him, I thought "Jesus Christ, it's possible to tell a story and make a point this way." It was amazing.

Writing a Graphic Novel is Like Making a Movie

People always ask me, "Why didn't you write a book?" But that's what Persepolis is. To me, a book is pages related to something that has a cover. Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.

We learn about the world through images all the time. In the cinema we do it, but to make a film you need sponsors and money and 10,000 people to work with you. With a graphic novel, all you need is yourself and your editor.

Of course, you have to have a very visual vision of the world. You have to perceive life with images otherwise it doesn't work. Some artists are more into sound; they make music. The point is that you have to know what you want to say, and find the best way of saying it. It's hard to say how Persepolis evolved once I started writing. I had to learn how to write it as a graphic novel by doing.

I'm a pacifist. I believe there are ways to solve the world's problems. Instead of putting all this money to create arms, I think countries should invest in scholarships for kids to study abroad. Perhaps they could become good and knowledgeable professors in their own countries. You need time for that kind of change though.

I have been brought up open-minded. If I didn't know any people from other countries, I'd think everyone was evil based on news stories. But I know a lot of people, and know that there is no such thing as stark good and evil. Isn't it possible there is the same amount of evil everywhere?

If people are given the chance to experience life in more than one country, they will hate a little less. It's not a miracle potion, but little by little you can solve problems in the basement of a country, not on the surface. That is why I wanted people in other countries to read Persepolis, to see that I grew up just like other children.

It's so rewarding to see people at my book signings who never read graphic novels. They say that when they read mine they became more interested. If it opens these people's eyes not to believe what they hear, I feel successful.

You Have to Think Freely to Know What to Write

My parents were very proud when they read Persepolis. If I criticize them once in a while, it's because it's the truth, and they laugh. My father always says, "It is only an idiot who never changes his mind." My parents accept that times change, and they are not right anymore. They've taught me that you can make mistakes.

They were extremely open-minded about what I said and they were demanding. I'm also tender with them because they were magnificent parents. They gave me the most important thing - the freedom of thinking and deciding for myself. The best present anyone can receive is not being formatted because the world or a religion wants you to be.

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Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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The following pages are excerpted from Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Copyright © 2005 by Marjane Satrapi. Excerpted by permission of Pantheon, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Create your own One World Poster about a person or topic you have learned about.

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The One World posters featured in Learning for Justice magazine are a reader favorite, which is why we're making them available for download.

Click the thumbnail for an image file, suitable for your device wallpaper or using in your teaching materials.

Or click the "Download PDF" link for a high resolution version suitable for printing these 11" x 17" posters at school or your local office supply store, then post them in your classroom to inspire students and teachers alike.

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The One World posters featured in Learning for Justice magazine are a reader favorite, which is why we're making them available for download. Click the thumbnail for an image file, suitable for your device wallpaper or using in your teaching materials.

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Amal loves school and her family. Because of her class and gender she is forced to pay back a debt of working in the rich families house. She is separated from her family and friends.

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Read 2,577 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. The compelling story of a girl's fight to regain her life and dreams after being forced ...

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Let's tweet questions to the author and listen to her responses!

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AMAL UNBOUND: Global Read Aloud Video: AMAL UNBOUND: Global Read Aloud Video: Student Q & A- Week 2 Global Read Aloud Week 3 Student Q & A Global Read Aloud Q & A Week 4 Global Read Aloud Q & A Week 5 Student Q & A- Week 1

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AMAL UNBOUND: Global Read Aloud Video: AMAL UNBOUND: Global Read Aloud Video: Student Q & A- Week 2 Global Read Aloud Week 3 Student Q & A Global Read Aloud Q & A Week 4 Global Read Aloud Q & A Week 5 Student Q & A- Week 1

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This powerful story of brotherhood, basketball, figuring out who you are, growing up and loss thread though this story. Mrs. Podolny's favorite!!!!

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"Alexander fully captures Josh's athletic finesse and coming-of-age angst in a mix of free verse and hip-hop poetry that will have broad appeal. . . . This will inspire budding players and poets alike."

- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review

This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. . . . Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch."

- Kirkus, starred review

"The poems dodge and weave with the speed of a point guard driving for the basket, mixing basketball action with vocabulary-themed poems, newspaper clippings, and Josh's sincere first-person accounts that swing from moments of swagger-worth triumph to profound pain."

- Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Alexander has crafted a story that vibrates with energy and heat and begs to be read aloud. A slam dunk."

- School Library Journal, starred review

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"Alexander fully captures Josh's athletic finesse and coming-of-age angst in a mix of free verse and hip-hop poetry that will have broad appeal. . . . This will inspire budding players and poets alike." - Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships.

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Create an hpReveal about the book your reading... 

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Create an hpReveal about the book your reading... 

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-How does your main characters personal characteristics help him/her overcome the challenges they face?

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The book is about three siblings, Violet, Kaus and Sunny Baudelaire. Violet is a 14 year old inventor. Kaus is a 12 year old, who loves nothing more than reading, and he is very smart. Sunny is a baby, who like to bite. They become orphans in the beginning of the story and are sent to live with Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance. The children have to use their skills to outsmart the adults around them and stick together.

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The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket | Scholastic

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After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other, and their wits, when their appointed guardian tries to swindle

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Theory # 742 We came from crabs, my brother and me.

We're made of good stuff, but you have to work to get it.
Here is an example of my Glogster... create your own beliefs and theories about what bravery, self worth and family mean to you.

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Forever or a long, long time: text, images, music, video | Glogster EDU - Interactive multimedia posters

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See the Glog! Forever or a long, long time: text, images, music, video | Glogster EDU - Interactive multimedia posters

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Wonder                                        By R. J. Palacio

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Wonder                                        By R. J. Palacio

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Wonder is a story about August and his family. August is starting school for the first time, after being home-schooled due to surgeries and a fear of going to school. We follow August though his first year of school, being bullied, making friends and overcoming many personal struggles. The book is broken into parts, where we get narration from August's sister and her best friend.

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Ten-year-old Auggie, born with extreme facial abnormalities, goes from being home-schooled to entering a private middle school, where he endures taunts and stru

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In honor of April's poetry month NPR takes submissions on poetry from students! To prepare, here is Kwame Alexander reading student's poetry submissions about teamwork. Write your own poem to submit in April.

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NPR's Morning Edition wants you to share a couplet, and author Kwame Alexander will pick a few and transform them into one, grand poem. The deadline is May 11.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

National Poetry Month just ended, but, really, when is it ever not time for a poem? MORNING EDITION is teaming with our contributor and poet Kwame Alexander, and we need your help. We need you to submit a poem made of couplets.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Couplets did you say, Steve, couplets? Well, what are those, you wonder? Well, here's a clip from Rachel Martin's conversation with Kwame Alexander. He read an excerpt from his new book on our program yesterday.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

KWAME ALEXANDER: (Reading) Game so deep, it's below. Air so swift, you breathe slow. Watch me fly from the free throw. Superman is sweet, yo. But Rachel is my heat, bro.

RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: Come on.

ALEXANDER: (Laughter).

MARTIN: It doesn't say that in the book, but I like that refresh (ph) (laughter).

ALEXANDER: Well, I added that line for you, Rachel. But a couplet is really easy. It's two lines, and the lines rhyme. And we want it to be about teamwork, having a team around you to help you rebound on and off the court. Take it literally, or you can take it metaphorically.

MARTIN: Yeah.

INSKEEP: The NPR headquarters here has one of those electronic signs with news headlines creeping across them this morning. The headlines included a poetry call-out.

GREENE: And to submit your two-line poem about teamwork - something we know a lot about at this show - you can go to npr.org/morningpoem.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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NPR's Morning Edition wants you to share a couplet, and author Kwame Alexander will pick a few and transform them into one, grand poem. The deadline is May 11. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: National Poetry Month just ended, but, really, when is it ever not time for a poem?

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R. J. Palacio talks to students about adversity.

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Over 5 million people have read the #1 New York Times bestseller WONDER and have fallen in love with Auggie Pullman, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face.

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After being separated from his family, Ivan learns that family is what you make it.

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BRAVE HEARTS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES

In this stunning sequel to the modern classic The One and Only Ivan, Katherine Applegate continues the story of Bob, Ivan, and Ruby as Bob finds courage he never knew he had, and discovers the true meaning of friendship, family, and home.

Bob, Ivan, and Ruby have touched the hearts of millions of readers, and their story isn't over yet!

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Buy Now Start Reading Now Start Reading Buy Now Watch The Trailer Watch Trailer #1 New York Times Bestseller Winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal, this stirring and unforgettable novel from renowned author Katherine Applegate celebrates the transformative power of unexpected friendship. Inspired

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Bud, not Buddy                          By Christopher Paul Curtis

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Bud, not Buddy                          By Christopher Paul Curtis

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This is a story about Bud, a ten year old boy who is one his own. His mother has died and after running away from his foster home, he sets on a journey to find the father he has never met. He uses clues in his suitcase to track him down during the great depression.

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Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis | Scholastic

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The story of ten-year-old Bud, an orphan during the Great Depression. After running away from his foster home, Bud sets out to search for the man he thinks is h

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A Young People's History of the United States

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A Young People's History of the United States

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US history from the viewpoints of workers, slaves, immigrants, women, Native Americans, and others whose stories, and their impact, are rarely included in books for young people

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Note: We were pleased to promote the special offer by Seven Stories Press for free copies of the e-book version of A Young People's History of the United States for two days in March. That offer has ended, however the e-book can be purchased for $11.97 from the publisher and may also be available from your public library.

In paperback with illustrations, this is the young adult edition of Howard Zinn's classic telling of American history. A Young People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn with Rebecca Stefoff brings to U.S. history the viewpoints of workers, people who are enslaved, immigrants, women, Native Americans, and others whose stories, and their impact, are rarely included in books for young people.

Beginning with a look at Christopher Columbus' arrival through the eyes of the Arawak Indians; then leading the reader through the struggles for workers' rights, women's rights, and civil rights during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and ending with the current protests against continued American imperialism, Zinn presents a radical way of understanding America's history. In so doing, he reminds readers that America's true greatness is shaped by our dissident voices, not our military generals. [Publisher's description.]

ISBN: 9781583228692 | Published by Seven Stories Press.

Book Preview

Teacher Quotes

High School Social Studies Teacher, St. Louis, Missouri

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A Young People's History of the United States - Zinn Education Project

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Note: We were pleased to promote the special offer by Seven Stories Press for free copies of the e-book version of A Young People's History of the United States for two days in March. That offer has ended, however the e-book can be purchased for $11.97 from the publisher and may also be available from your public library.

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Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine | Scholastic

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The story of an African American slave who escaped to freedom by having himself mailed to Philadelphia by a member of the Underground Railroad.

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Brotherhood and growing up is a major theme in this book. We follow two brothers, one brother looks up to his older brother, while the older brother sees how his actions effect him and his younger brother.

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While their mother is at work, James and Isaac play checkers until bedtime. Isaac thinks James is smarter than anybody--after all, James is ten and he's only si

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Create a voicethread telling me what was "most important about me reading this book,” (Burns, 2009, p. 423)

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Esperanza Rising                              By Pam Munoz Ryan

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Esperanza Rising                              By Pam Munoz Ryan

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A beautiful story about Esperanza, a young girl growing up during the Mexican Revolution. Her father is killed by bandits, which begins her riches to rags story. After fleeing Mexico to get away from her evil uncles. Esperanza, her mother and two beloved workers start a new life in America

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic

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What do you want to teach the class from what you have learned?

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Here is a video I made on the videolicious app about my sister's wedding this summer in California! This is a great app for differentiating your teaching and/or adding more Universal Design Learning...

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Listen for tips on how to make a snow angel and tips about how to write verse from Andrea Davis Pinkney. She talks about Jack Erza Keats experience about being a jew after world war II.

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Create an iMovie book trailer using iMovie planning guide and app.

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I made a movie trailer on iMovie. CAST: a my 5 year old son (parent permission granted!) named James and his stuffed animals ( no stuffed animals were harmed in the making of this movie ). DIRECTOR...

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Separated by continents and decades, the harrowing escape stories of refugees Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud intertwine.

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Create your own book or retelling of an event 

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Create your own book or retelling of an event 

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-Retell a story that you have read from a different characters perspective. Clarke & Whitney (2009) suggest children “hear multiple perspectives in a text” (p. 532).

-Use the storybook creator app: here is a funny example from my sisters wedding...narrated by my son.

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Photo Credit: Google Images and Krista Podolny

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Bud, Not Buddy takes place during the great depression, read this article about the great depression and it's relationship with the dust bowl.

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the writer and illustrator behind the book Young, Gifted and Black, described the book as a love letter to the next generation of change-makers.

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Our price: £5.99. Bright, beautiful and uplifting. Let's celebrate black awesomeness!

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In the world of adults, the Supreme Court has upheld a travel ban from some mostly Muslim nations, and refugee arrivals from Syria as well as other Middle East hot spots have slowed to a trickle. Political leaders claim refugees are a threat. But in the world of children's literature, there's a new trend towards putting stories about resilient young Muslim refugees front and center.

More than a dozen books are due out this fall, from picture books for toddlers to complex novels for the teen audience. The new crop adds to a growing list of titles that present a positive image of refugees, humanizing and personalizing the ongoing conflicts, says Vicky Smith, children's editor at Kirkus Reviews. "It is a real desire on the part of authors, illustrators and publishers to respond to the crisis in a way that is proactive and helpful," she says.

The wave of children's books about refugees comes amid the largest refugee crisis since World War II, as millions of civilians - many of them children - flee wars and insurgencies in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Another wave of the displaced are unaccompanied children fleeing towards the southern U.S. border to escape violence in Central America. "Both of those events have triggered a rush of books dealing with refugees," Smith says. "The trend started in about 2015 and it's just been growing every year."

These new novels explore the trauma of war and violence from a child's point of view - everything from treacherous sea journeys to encounters with smugglers and overcoming Islamophobia or other forms of bigotry when starting over in a new country.

It is a real desire on the part of authors, illustrators and publishers to respond to the crisis in a way that is proactive and helpful.

"We are hearing from our branch libraries, kids and parents are looking for these stories, " says Stephanie Anderson, assistant director of selection at the New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library. "I think there is a trend, and a huge readership." It's also a way to push back against a political climate that demonizes refugees and Muslims, says Laura Simeon, who's the Young Adult editor at Kirkus. "The industry is paying attention. There is a real sense that we need to resist. And this is one of the ways we can help with the resistance."

In A Land of Permanent Goodbyes, CNN journalist Atia Abawi writes about a Syrian family that escapes their ISIS-controlled town for Istanbul, and then a perilous sea journey on an overcrowded boat to Greece. Suzanne Del Rizzo's picture book, My Beautiful Birds, follows Sami, a Syrian boy who leaves behind his beloved trained pigeons when his family flees to a refugee camp in Jordan; he eventually finds comfort in caring for wild birds in the camp.

The latest popular title, Marwan's Journey, was published in May. "The text is so lyrical and so beautiful, without being heavy handed," says Deborah Sloan - she's in charge of marketing this picture book about a young boy on a perilous journey. Sloan says sales have been so strong there is already a second printing.

Author Alan Gratz is often credited with starting the trend with his book Refugee, a surprise New York Times best-seller in 2017. "The lives of refugees are so dangerous and so overwhelming, and so incredible that I don't have to make anything up," he says. The lives of refugees are more incredible than fiction."

His novel weaves together the stories of three children: A Jewish boy whose family tried to escape Nazi Germany on a ship called the St. Louis in the 1940's; a Cuban girl who flees Havana on a raft in 1994 and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy who escapes war-torn Aleppo on a journey to Europe with his family. "Refugee was trying to put what's happening in the present day in some sort of historical context," says Gratz. "We keep making the same mistakes ... generation after generation, we keep turning people away at the doorstep who need help."

Refugee is popular with teachers and librarians as a way to explain the current crisis to children. Gratz has been invited to speak across the country - he says he visited more than 100 schools in the last school year, and he's booked for 100 more next year. "I go to some schools where they have an 85% refugee population. They're seeing it, they're living it, they're feeling it," he says.

His aim in writing the character 12-year-old Mahmoud Bishara is to show that his young Syrian protagonist is just like the American middle-schoolers who are reading his story. "He is watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV. He is doing math homework for school. He hopes to go to college," Gratz says. "Then bombs fell on [his family's] house, and they became refugees."

Robin Russell teaches seventh grade humanities at the Open Window School in Bellevue, Wash., and she assigns many of the refugee novels to her class. "It's not just about memorizing facts," she says. "Establishing a connection ... it makes it more personal and you can connect through your own humanity with someone else."

We are hearing from our branch libraries, kids and parents are looking for these stories. I think there is a trend, and a huge readership.

Her students gathered for a recent Skype interview to talk about what they learned. Rayhan Khanna says the characters in Refugee "were from different parts of the world but they were all interconnected through this way of seeking a better life." Classmate Tendo Lumala says the novels showed him that it's hard to be a refugee, because you have to make tough decisions. "It's not because you're doing something wrong, it's because of your situation and entirely not your fault." And Rachel Hines says these novels about refugees helped her understand the crisis for the first time. "I realized that the stereotype isn't true."

With so many ongoing conflicts, there are now books that illuminate the refugee experience across the world and throughout history. Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water tells the story of an 11-year-old Sudanese girl in 2008 who has to walk miles each day for water, and one of the "lost boys," on a trek to a refugee camp in 1985. There are books about Hmong refugees, Nigerians and an English child sent to Canada for safety during World War II. But educator Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee says the wave of new novels is sometime considered too politically hot for the classroom.

"I find it sad that we are not allowed to tell these stories of everybody," she says. Lee is an outreach specialist for a group of schools across the country, and, she adds, "some schools say this is too hot of a topic to touch."

Alan Gratz says he welcomes invitations to schools with a skeptical audience. "I visit the South particularly, the rural South quite a lot and that's a tough sell, sometimes," he says. "I go in, sometimes somebody has already looked me up and they're challenging me on social media before I ever get to their school."

He is an engaging speaker, who challenges students to question their assumptions. "They're repeating things that they've heard from their family, or from the news, or from their local community. I can get in there and I can say, 'Wait, wait, wait, read this book, let's talk about what's really going on.'"

"If they keep those opinions, that's their prerogative," Gratz says, "but I know that people have had their minds changed by books about refugees for kids."
This story was edited for radio by Larry Kaplow, produced by Claudette Lindsay-Habermann, and adapted for the Web by Petra Mayer.

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New Kids' Books Put A Human Face On The Refugee Crisis

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In the world of adults, the Supreme Court has upheld a travel ban from some mostly Muslim nations, and refugee arrivals from Syria as well as other Middle East hot spots have slowed to a trickle. Political leaders claim refugees are a threat.

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Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin review - moving story of a child migrant

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The team behind the graphic novel versions of Colfer's Artemis Fowl series change direction with this very real and affecting tale

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Connecting students reading to current issues and history.

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Celebrating young voices around the world!

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TED-Ed Clubs support students in developing 21st century presentation skills - while celebrating and amplifying youth voices around the world. Below, three reasons to start a TED-Ed Club: You learn...

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xplore great ideas, research and develop your ideas worth sharing and learn how to present your ideas to the world in the form of TED-style talks.

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Why we help develop and amplify student voice

Students are filled with curious, innovative, brilliant and thoughtful ideas; we know there is a significant impact when students are not only asked about their passions and perspectives, but when they work to develop and share those ideas to a larger audience. Through this program, students develop both 21st century skills and are better prepared to advocate for the problems of today and the future.

How the program works

The TED-Ed Student Talks program provides free, customizable activities for educators working with students ages 6-18 in a classroom, school, extra-curricular setting or youth/educational organization. When an educator's application is approved, you receive access to a customized virtual learning platform where you will access our our guided activities and resources, which are standards-based and built on TED-Ed's core learning principles; in addition, you will be able to connect with the TED-Ed staff and fellow educators from around the world.

How the application process works

The TED-Ed Student Talks application is open all year round. The TED-Ed team reviews and approves applications on April 1, August 1 and December 1. Once approved, you will receive access to our customized virtual learning platform for 12 months after which you will have to re-apply to renew and continue your access.

Identify the elements of a great idea

Thinking curiously and critically of ideas they learn about

Research, develop, and craft their ideas into compelling, spoken narratives

Gain confidence to share ideas with their peers and community

Give and receive meaningful feedback on each other's ideas

Apply here

Frequently asked questions

How does the program work? Who can get involved? What resources does an approved educator receive? What is the recommended group size? How can districts, larger organizations and networks of schools get involved? Are there resources available in languages other than English?

Students work together to identify, develop and share their creative ideas. Use TED-Ed's free, customizable public speaking activities as a guide and to inspire tomorrow's TED speakers and leaders.

Want to learn more? Dive into the details by downloading this information packet OR take a sneak peek at our activities via the Explorations at a glance found in our Leader Guidebook.

If you work in an administrative role of a school or organization and want to have multiple groups of educators and students involved, you can easily indicate that when filling out your application.

When filling out the "Organization Type" question, please select "A group/network of schools" option. Once approved, our team will follow up with you to help ensure all of the educators in your network gain access to our virtual learning platform.

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Bring TED-Ed Student Talks to Your School

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The TED-Ed Student Talks program helps you claim your voice, share your ideas, and participate in a global conversation. Discover the talk that only YOU can give!

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Lets nominate someone in our community for a racial justice award.

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InterFaith Works' Ahmad and Elizabeth El-Hindi Center for Dialogue will present the 2019 Racial Justice Awards during a special reception at Syracuse Stage at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019. The awards ceremony will be followed immediately by the first preview performance of "Native Gardens."

Nominations for the award will be received through Friday, Nov. 9. The guidelines and nomination form are posted online. The Racial Justice Award honorees are selected from nominations of youth, adults and organizations whose efforts have produced or contributed toward ending racial injustice and promoting social equity in Central New York. Past honorees include educators, community activists, business professionals and organizations who have channeled their passion and skills toward this important work.

For more information, call 315-449-3552, ext. 119 or email Gwen Sanders at gsanders@interfaithworkscny.org.

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InterFaith Works' Ahmad and Elizabeth El-Hindi Center for Dialogue will present the 2019 Racial Justice Awards during a special reception at Syracuse Stage at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019. The awards ceremony will be followed immediately by the first preview performance of "Native Gardens."

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A wordless comic about a scary experience about being an immigrant. Leaving your family for better prospects a new foreign place.

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' The suitcase' pencil on paper

'The old country' pencil on paper

' Flock' pencil on paper
The following is an extract from an article written for Viewpoint Magazine, describing some of the ideas and process behind this book.
Looking over much of my previous work as an illustrator and writer, such as The Rabbits (about colonisation), The Lost Thing (about a creature lost in a strange city) or The Red Tree (a girl wandering through shifting dreamscapes), I realise that I have a recurring interest in notions of 'belonging', particularly the finding or losing of it. Whether this has anything to do with my own life, I'm not sure, it seems to be more of a subconscious than conscious concern. One contributing experience may have been that of growing up in Perth, one of the most isolated cities in the world, sandwiched between a vast desert and a vaster ocean. More specifically, my parents pegged a spot in a freshly minted northern suburb that was quite devoid of any clear cultural identity or history. A vague awareness of Aboriginal displacement (which later sharpened into focus with a project like The Rabbits) only further troubled any sense of a connection to a 'homeland' in this universe of bulldozed 'tabula rasa' coastal dunes, and fast-tracked, walled-in housing estates.

Being a half-Chinese at a time a place when this was fairly unusual may have compounded this, as I was constantly being asked 'where are you from?' to which my response of 'here' only prompted a deeper inquiry, 'where do your parents come from?' At least this was far more positive attention than the occasional low-level racism I experienced as a child, and which I also noticed directed either overtly or surreptitiously at my Chinese father from time to time. Growing up I did have a vague sense of separateness, an unclear notion of identity or detachment from roots, on top of that traditionally contested concept of what it is to be 'Australian', or worse, 'un-Australian' (whatever that might mean).

Beyond any personal issues, though, I think that the 'problem' of belonging is perhaps more of a basic existential question that everybody deals with from time to time, if not on a regular basis. It especially rises to the surface when things 'go wrong' with our usual lives, when something challenges our comfortable reality or defies our expectations - which is typically the moment when a good story begins, so good fuel for fiction. We often find ourselves in new realities - a new school, job, relationship or country, any of which demand some reinvention of 'belonging'.

This was uppermost in my mind during the long period of work on The Arrival, a book which deals with the theme of migrant experience. Given my preoccupation with 'strangers in strange lands', this was an obvious subject to tackle, a story about somebody leaving their home to find a new life in an unseen country, where even the most basic details of ordinary life are strange, confronting or confusing - not to mention beyond the grasp of language. It's a scenario I had been thinking about for a number of years before it crystallised into some kind of narrative form.

The book had no single source of inspiration, but rather represents the convergence of several ideas. I had been thinking at one stage about the somewhat invisible history of the Chinese in Western Australia, particularly in an area of South Perth once used as vast market gardens a century ago, which is now grassed parkland. I did a little research into who these people were and how they related to the Anglo-Australian community around them, and came to be particularly motivated by one short story, 'Wong Chu and The Queen's Letterbox' by the West Australian writer T.A.G. Hungerford, which draws on the author's childhood memories of a strange, segregated group of misunderstood men, and considers their tragic isolation from families back in China.

Drawing on more immediate sources, my father came to Australia from Malaysia in 1960 to study architecture, where he met my mother in who was then working in a store that supplied technical pens (hence my existence some time later - I have a special appreciation for technical pens). Dad's stories are sketchy, and usually focus on specific details, as is the way of most anecdotes - the unpalatable food, too cold or too hot weather, amusing misunderstandings, difficult isolation, odd student jobs and so on. In researching a variety of other migrant stories, beginning with post-war Australia and then broadening out to periods of mass-migration to the US around 1900, it was the day to day details that seemed most telling and suggested some common, universal human experiences. I was reminded that migration is a fundamental part of human history, both in the distant and recent past. On gathering further anecdotes of overseas-born friends - and my partner who comes from Finland - as well as looking at old photographs and documents, I became aware of the many common problems faced by all migrants, regardless of nationality and destination: grappling with language difficulties, home-sickness, poverty, a loss of social status and recognisable qualifications, not to mention the separation from family.

In seeking to re-imagine such circumstances (of which I have no first-hand experience) my original idea for a fairly conventional picture book developed into a quite different kind of structure. It seemed that a longer, more fragmented visual sequence without any words would best captured a certain feeling of uncertainty and discovery I absorbed from my research. I was also struck with the idea of borrowing the 'language' of old pictorial archives and family photo albums I'd been looking at, which have both a documentary clarity and an enigmatic, sepia-toned silence. It occurred to me that photo albums are really just another kind of picture book that everybody makes and reads, a series of chronological images illustrating the story of someone's life. They work by inspiring memory and urging us to fill in the silent gaps, animating them with the addition of our own storyline.

In 'The Arrival', the absence of any written description also plants the reader more firmly in the shoes of an immigrant character. There is no guidance as to how the images might be interpreted, and we must ourselves search for meaning and seek familiarity in a world where such things are either scarce or concealed. Words have a remarkable magnetic pull on our attention, and how we interpret attendant images: in their absence, an image can often have more conceptual space around it, and invite a more lingering attention from a reader who might otherwise reach for the nearest convenient caption, and let that rule their imagination.

I was particularly impressed by Raymond Briggs' The Snowman, having come across it for the first time while thinking about my migrant story. In silent pencil drawings, Briggs describes a boy building a snowman which then comes to life, and is introduced to the magical indoor world of light-switches, running water, refrigeration, clothing and so on; the snowman in turn introduces the boy to the night-time world of snow, air and flight. The parallels between this situation and my own gestating project were very strong, so I could not help reading the silent snowman and small boy as 'temporary migrants', discovering the ordinary miracles of each other's country in a modest, enchanting fashion. It also confirmed the power of the silent narrative, not only in removing the distraction of words, but slowing down to reader so that they might mediate on each small object and action, as well as reflect in many different ways on the story as a whole.

Of course, this came at some expense, as words are wonderfully convenient conveyors of ideas. In their absence, even describing the simplest of actions, like someone packing a suitcase, buying a ticket, cooking a meal or asking for work threatened to become a very complicated, laborious and potentially slippery exercise in drawing. I had to find a way of carrying this kind of narrative that was practical, clear and visually economical.

Unwittingly, I had found myself working on a graphic novel rather than a picture book. There is not a great difference between the two, but in a graphic novel there is perhaps far more emphasis on continuity between multiple frames, actually closer in many ways to film-making than book illustration. I have never been a great reader of comics (having come at illustration as a painter) so much of my research was redirected to a study of different kinds of comics and graphic novels. What shapes are the panels? How many should be on a page? What is the best way to cut from one moment to the next? How is the pace of the narrative controlled, especially when there are no words? A useful reference was Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, which details many aspects of 'sequential art' in a way that is both theoretical and practical, not least because it's a textbook written as a comic - and very cleverly done. I noticed also that many Japanese comics (manga) use large tracts of silent narrative, and exploit a sense of visual timing that is slightly different from Western comics, which I found very instructive. Simultaneously, I had been working in some capacity as an animation director recently with a studio in London, adapting The Lost Thing as a short film (where much of the narrative is silent) and closely studying to the techniques used by storyboard artists and editors in that industry. All of these pieces of 'research' informed the style and structure of the book over several full-length revisions.

The actual process of then producing the final images came to be more like film-making than conventional illustration. Realising the importance of consistency over multiple panels, coupled with a stylistic interest in early photographs, I physically constructed some basic 'sets' using bits of wood and fridge-box cardboard, furniture and household objects. These became simple models for drawn structures in the book, anything from towering buildings to breakfast tables. With the right lighting, and some helpful friends acting out the roles of characters plotted in rough drawings, I was able to video or photograph compositions and sequences of action that seemed to approximate each scene. Selecting still images, I played with these by digitally, distorting, adding and subtracting, drawing over the top of them, and testing various sequences to see how they could be 'read'. These became the compositional references for finished drawings that were produced by a more old-fashioned method - graphite pencil on cartridge paper. For each page of up to twelve images, the whole process took about a week... not including any rejects, of which there were several.

Much of the difficulty involved combining realistic reference images of people and objects into a wholly imaginary world, as this was always my central concept. In order to best understand what it is like to travel to a new country, I wanted to create a fictional place equally unfamiliar to readers of any age or background (including myself). This of course is where my penchant for 'strange lands' took flight, as I had some early notions of a place where birds are merely 'bird-like' and trees 'tree-like'; where people dress strangely, apartment fixtures are confounding and ordinary street activities are very peculiar. This is what I imagine it must be like for many immigrants, a condition ideally examined through illustration, where every detail can be hand-drawn.

That said, imaginary worlds should never be 'pure fantasy', and without a concrete ring of truth, they can easily cripple the reader's suspended disbelief, or simply confuse them too much. I'm always interested in striking the right balance between everyday objects, animals and people, and their much more fanciful alternatives. In the case of 'The Arrival', I drew heavily my own memories of travelling to foreign countries, that feeling of having basic but imprecise notions of things around me, an awareness of environments saturated with hidden meanings: all very strange yet utterly convincing. In my own nameless country, peculiar creatures emerge from pots and bowls, floating lights drift inquisitively along streets, doors and cupboards conceal their contents, and all around are notices that beckon, invite or warn in loud, indecipherable alphabets. These are all equivalents to some moments I've experienced as a traveller, where even simple acts of understanding are challenging.

One of my main sources for visual reference was New York in the early 1900s, a great hub of mass-migration for Europeans. A lot of my 'inspirational images' blu-tacked to the walls of my studio were old photographs of immigrant processing at Ellis Island, visual notes that provided underlying concepts, mood and atmosphere behind many scenes that appear in the book. Other images I collected depicted street scenes in European, Asian and Middle-Eastern cities, old-fashioned vehicles, random plants and animals, shopfront signs and posters, apartment interiors, photos of people working, eating, talking and playing, all of them chosen as much for their ordinariness as their possible strangeness. Elements in my drawings evolved gradually from these fairly simple origins. A colossal sculpture in the middle of a city harbour, the first strange sight that greets arriving migrants, suggests some sisterhood with the Statue of Liberty. A scene of a immigrants travelling in a cloud of white balloons was inspired by pictures of migrants boarding trains as well as the night-time spawning of coral polyps, two ideas associated by common underlying themes - dispersal and regeneration.

Even the most imaginary phenomena in the book are intended to carry some metaphorical weight, even though they don't refer to specific things, and may be hard to fully explain. One of the images I had been thinking about for years involved a scene of rotting tenement buildings, over which are 'swimming' some kind of huge black serpents. I realised that these could be read a number of ways: literally, as an infestation of monsters, or more figuratively, as some kind of oppressive threat. And even then it is open to the individual reader to decide whether this might be political, economic, personal or something else, depending on what ideas or feelings the picture may inspire.

I am rarely interested in symbolic meanings, where one thing 'stands for' something else, because this dissolves the power of fiction to be reinterpreted. I'm more attracted to a kind of intuitive resonance or poetry we can enjoy when looking at pictures, and 'understanding' what we see without necessarily being able to articulate it. One key character in my story is a creature that looks something like a walking tadpole, as big as a cat and intent on forming an uninvited friendship with the main protagonist. I have my own impressions as to what this is about, again something to do with learning about acceptance and belonging, but I would have a lot of trouble trying to express this fully in words. It seems to make much more sense as a series of silent pencil drawings.

I am often searching in each image for things that are odd enough to invite a high degree of personal interpretation, and still maintain a ring of truth. The experience of many immigrants actually draws an interesting parallel with the creative and critical way of looking I try to follow as an artist. There is a similar kind of search for meaning, sense and identity in an environment that can be alternately transparent and opaque, sensible and confounding, but always open to re-assessment. I would hope that beyond its immediate subject, any illustrated narrative might encourage its readers take a moment to look beyond the 'ordinariness' of their own circumstances, and consider it from a slightly different perspective. One of the great powers of storytelling is that invites us to walk in other people's shoes for a while, but perhaps even more importantly, it invites us to contemplate our own shoes also. We might do well to think of ourselves as possible strangers in our own strange land. What conclusions we draw from this are unlikely to be easily summarised, all the more reason to think further on the connections between people and places, and what we might mean when we talk about 'belonging'.

Harbour' pencil on paper

Inspection' pencil on paper

'The City' pencil on paper

'The story of The Giants' pencil on paper

'The market' pencil on paper

'The place of nests' pencil on paper

'Ticket' pencil on paper

'Dinner' pencil on paper

'Four seasons' pencil on paper

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' The suitcase' pencil on paper 'The old country' pencil on paper ' Flock' pencil on paper The following is an extract from an article written for Viewpoint Magazine , describing some of the ideas and process behind this book.

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Should our classroom become a #choosekind classroom?

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Attention Educators! We invite you to participate in the 2018-19 Certified Kind Classroom Challenge, a program to promote, recognize, and celebrate acts of kindness throughout the school year. One kind deed = one marble, and students will be challenged to fill a jar with kindness in order to be recognized and have the chance to win exclusive prizes.

1. Label an incentive jar with an official Certified Kind label.

2. Challenge students to do kind deeds in order to fill the jar with marbles (1 kind deed = 1 marble).

3. Post pictures and anecdotes about your classroom's progress on social media using the hashtag #choosekind. Please make sure that any people in your pictures are 18 or older.

4. When the jar is full, take a photograph and email it to certifiedkind@penguinrandomhouse.com along with your name, grade taught, school name, and mailing address. Post the photograph on social media using the hashtag #choosekind.

5. You will receive an email confirmation that your classroom is Certified Kind, as well as a certificate of achievement. Your class will be listed on the Certified Kind Classroom Registry at choosekind.tumblr.com/map.

OF THOSE 500 CLASSROOMS, A LUCKY FIVE WILL BE RANDOMLY SELECTED TO RECEIVE:

A $500 donation in their class's name to a charity of their choosing

A class pizza party to celebrate their achievement

A framed print of their class's favorite precept

A class set of Wonder School Planners (maximum 36)

A Wonder journal, tote bag, note cube, pouch, and calendar for the teacher

Congratulations to our past Certified Kind Classrooms!

Click here to see the official rules.

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Certified Kind Classroom Challenge 2018-19 School Year Attention Educators! We invite you to participate in the 2018-19 Certified Kind Classroom Challenge, a program to promote, recognize, and celebrate acts of kindness throughout the school year. One kind deed = one marble, and students will be challenged to fill a jar with kindness in order to be recognized and have the chance to win exclusive prizes.

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Let's take action to change our world

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GET ACTIVE IN FIGHTING
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

1. Petition your government

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the fundamental and international agreement on what human rights are, and so must be known and applied throughout the world.

Make your voice heard. Make human rights education in schools and universities part of the curriculum. You can ensure human rights are learned and demanded by everyone, by signing this petition.

2. Create or Share a Link to us

Create or share a link to us ( www.humanrights.com) from your website or the website of your organization or educational institution.

3. Start A Group

Do you want to take an active role in initiating activities and forwarding the cause of human rights in your community or professional area? The most effective thing you can do is start a group!

4. Launch Petition Drives

From your own group you can immediately launch petition drives and send letters to legislators asking that they enact human rights legislation (and in turn prevent legislation that endangers human rights).

5. Obtain Copies of The Story of Human Rights Film and Human Rights Public Messages

Start showing these films to your friends and colleagues. Special editions of the booklets are available for youth.

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Get Active in Fighting for Human Rights, Petitions, Groups & Request Materials: United for Human Rights

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Learn how to become active in the fight in defending the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by starting or joining a group, launching petition drives and obtaining copies of The Story of Human Rights on DVD and booklets. Make your vice heard by supporting human rights education in schools, colleges and universities.

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Are girls and boys treated equally in sports? 

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Are girls and boys treated equally in sports? 

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This video looks closely at the history of sports and how we can make it more equal.

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For regular updates about Title IX cases and news stories, see The Title IX Blog.
For a "young readers" account of Title IX's effect on sports, see Karen Blumenthal, Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, the Law the Changed the Future of Girls in America.
For an inspiring story of Title IX activism, watch the documentary A Hero for Daisy.
And for more on Title IX's history and impact on women's sports, see ESPNW's " Nine for IX" series.

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Equality, sports, and Title IX - Erin Buzuvis and Kristine Newhall

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In 1972, U.S. Congress passed Title IX, a law which prohibited discrimination against women in schools, colleges, and universities -- including school-sponsored sports. Before this law, female athletes were few and far between, and funding was even scarcer. Erin Buzuvis and Kristine Newhall explore the significance and complexity of Title IX.

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Who gets to pick human rights? Who gets to enforce them?

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Let's Begin...

The basic idea of human rights is that each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are born, is entitled to the same basic rights and freedoms. That may sound straightforward enough, but it gets incredibly complicated as soon as anyone tries to put the idea into practice. What exactly are the basic human rights? Who gets to pick them? Who enforces them-and how? Benedetta Berti explores the subtleties of human rights.

Create and share a new lesson based on this one.

About TED-Ed Animations

TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here "

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What are the universal human rights? - Benedetta Berti

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The basic idea of human rights is that each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are born, is entitled to the same basic rights and freedoms. That may sound straightforward enough, but it gets incredibly complicated as soon as anyone tries to put the idea into practice.

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How do you think African Americans were effected by the great depression? Do you think it was easier or harder for African Americans ?

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Lasting from 1929 to 1939, the Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the industrialized world. While no group escaped the economic devastation of the Great Depression, few suffered more than African Americans. Said to be "last hired, first fired," African Americans were the first to see hours and jobs cut, and they experienced the highest unemployment rate during the 1930s. Since they were already relegated to lower-paying professions, African Americans had less of a financial cushion to fall back on when the economy collapsed.

The Great Depression impacted African Americans for decades to come. It spurred the rise of African-American activism, which laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The popularity of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal program also saw African Americans switch their political allegiances to become a core part of the Democratic Party's voting bloc.

African-American unemployment rates doubled or tripled those of whites.

Prior to the Great Depression, African Americans worked primarily in unskilled jobs. After the stock market crash of 1929, those entry-level, low-paying jobs either disappeared or were filled by whites in need of employment. According to the Library of Congress, the African-American unemployment rate in 1932 climbed to approximately 50 percent.

As historian Cheryl Lynn Greenberg writes in To Ask for an Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression, black unemployment rates in the South were double or even triple that of the white population. In Atlanta, nearly 70 percent of black workers were jobless in 1934. In cities across the North, approximately 25 percent of white workers were unemployed in 1932, while the jobless rates among African Americans topped 50 percent in Chicago and Pittsburgh and 60 percent in Philadelphia and Detroit.

During the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of African-American sharecroppers who fell into debt joined the Great Migration from the rural South to the urban North. According to Greenberg, by 1940 1.75 million African Americans had moved from the South to cities in the North and West.

African Americans formed grassroots organizations, uniting for economic and political progress.

From the Great Depression's earliest days, African Americans mobilized to protest for greater economic, social and political rights. In 1929, Chicago Whip editor Joseph Bibb organized boycotts of city department stores that refused to hire African Americans. The grassroots protests against racially discriminatory hiring practices worked, resulting in the employment of 2,000 African Americans. The "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" boycotts and pickets soon spread to other cities across the North.

The decade of the 1930s saw the growth of African American activism that presaged the Civil Rights Movement. In 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune organized the National Council of Negro Women, and the following year saw the first meeting of the National Negro Congress, an umbrella movement of diverse African-American organizations that fought for anti-lynching legislation, the elimination of the poll tax and the eligibility of agricultural and domestic workers for Social Security. Young African Americans in 1937 formed the Southern Negro Youth Congress registered voters and organized boycotts.

The African-American vote helped elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, for the first time switching to the Democratic Party.

For decades prior to the Great Depression, African Americans had traditionally voted for the Republican Party, which was still seen as the party of emancipation from the days of Abraham Lincoln. The presidential election of 1932, however, saw a sea-change as African Americans began to switch their political allegiance to the Democratic Party. "My friends, go turn Lincoln's picture to the wall," Pittsburgh Courier editor Robert Vann implored African Americans in 1932. "The debt has been paid in full."

In an oral interview, historian John Hope Franklin said African Americans were drawn to Franklin D. Roosevelt after years of inactivity under Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. "He had a purpose, had a message, had a program. And it seemed that was better than the inertia that preceded things," he said.

Franklin also said African Americans could identify with Roosevelt's personal struggles. "Roosevelt inspired large numbers of blacks, I think in part because he was handicapped himself. And although was not publicized as much as it might have been, blacks knew that he was a victim of polio, that he couldn't walk, and that he had overcome these handicaps."

Since Roosevelt needed the support of Southern Democrats to pass his New Deal agenda, he did not advocate for the passage of federal anti-lynching law or embrace efforts to ban the poll tax that prevented many African Americans from voting. Yet, the economic support received by African Americans under the New Deal solidified their newfound loyalty to the Democratic Party. By 1936, more than 70 percent of African Americans voted for Roosevelt, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

What was the 'Black Cabinet' during Roosevelt's presidency?

Roosevelt appointed far more African Americans to positions within his administration than his predecessors, and he was the first president to appoint an African American as a federal judge. According to the Roosevelt Institute, FDR tripled the number of African Americans working in the federal government.

New Deal officials appointed African Americans as special advisors. Although none actually filled Cabinet-level positions, these public policy advisors were referred to as the "Black Cabinet" and the "Black Brain Trust." Perhaps the best-known member of the Black Cabinet was its only woman, Bethune, a close friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and founder of Bethune-Cookman University.

New Deal programs, however, still discriminated against African Americans.

Although New Deal programs provided African Americans with badly needed economic assistance, they were administered at a state level where racial segregation was still widespread, and systemically, enforced. The New Deal did little to challenge existing racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws prevalent during the 1930s.

The Civilian Conservation Corps established racially segregated camps, while the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages in African-American neighborhoods. The Agricultural Adjustment Association gave white landowners money for keeping their fields fallow, but they were not required to pass any money to African-American sharecroppers and tenant farmers who farmed the land and were not eligible for Social Security benefits.

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Last Hired, First Fired: How the Great Depression Affected African Americans

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Lasting from 1929 to 1939, the Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the industrialized world. While no group escaped the economic devastation of the Great Depression, few suffered more than African Americans. Said to be "last hired, first fired," African Americans were the first to see hours and jobs cut, and they experienced the highest unemployment rate during the 1930s.

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Creating a quizlet can take many different forms. In this example, it is a series of flashcards. But, students can make a test, match up game and presentations.

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Start studying Esperanza Rising. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

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-How has Bud's personal characteristics help him overcome the adversity he faces?
-Christopher Paul Curtis uses the phrase here we go again two times in this passage. Why do you believe that Bud starts his story with the phrase and restates it right before he packs up his belongings?
-How does the setting of the novel add to the story? The great depression? Hooverville?
-Why do you think Bud says "I don't know why, but my eyes don't cry no more?"

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This NewsELA text set connects students with a pathway to explore current issues of

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Newsela | "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Create your own song retelling the story. Here is an example with a rap.

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Google Lit Trip

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Why do we have different skin colors?

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The science of skin color - Angela Koine Flynn

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When ultraviolet sunlight hits our skin, it affects each of us differently. Depending on skin color, it’ll take only minutes of exposure to turn one person beetroot-pink, while another requires hours to experience the slightest change. What’s to account for that difference, and how did our skin come…

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Listen to students ask questions to the author Christopher Paul Curtis.

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Welcome to the fourth installment of NPR's Backseat Book Club, where we select a book for young readers - and invite them to read along with us and share their thoughts and questions with the author.

Our selection for January - The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis - describes the civil rights era from the perspective of a young (and extremely mischievous) boy and his family.

When young Byron Watson becomes too much to handle, his family decides to send him from Flint, Mich. to his legendarily tough Grandma Sands in Birmingham, Ala. - that incendiary year of 1963 when tensions over school desegregation were roiling.

Daphne Kunin from Lancaster, Pa. wanted to know if Curtis based any of the scenes from the book on his own life - like the episode with the "Nazi flame thrower of death" - when Byron lights toilet paper parachutes on fire over the toilet and flushes them away.

Curtis says that the particular scene is actually the most autobiographical moment in the book.

"It was based on me," says Curtis tells NPR's Michele Norris. "I just threw matches in the toilet. I liked the sound they made when they hit the water." When Curtis tried to get away with burning the matches by locking the bathroom door, his mother kicked the door down and lifted him in the air by the collar, much as it happens in the book.

"I remember thinking, I never would have done it if I knew she was this strong!" Curtis says.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 is the first Backseat Book Club selection in which the main character himself actually spends quite a bit of time in the backseat of the family's car. That car was based on Curtis' own family car: a beloved but battered Plymouth. The paint had long stripped away, exposing the brown primer underneath. Curtis' father called it the "Brown Bomber" after Joe Louis.

"It was an important thing to have a car - it gave you the mobility. And we loved being in the car with Dad." Even though there were only two radio stations in Flint that they could listen to, Curtis says, "The car was a great place to be."

As an adult, Curtis worked on a factory line building cars for thirteen years. His job was to "hang doors," that is, attach the doors to the cars. These doors weighed anywhere from 50 to 80 pounds, and each worker "hung" 300 of them a day, in a ten-hour shift.

"It was almost like a ballet," Curtis says. "Each step had to be done correctly, where you placed your feet, and it took a while to learn how to do it."

It was during his time at the factory that Curtis began to write. He and a friend decided that they would take turns hanging 30 doors in a row. That gave each of them half an hour out of every hour to do whatever they wanted.

"I found out that if I sat down and started to write, I forgot about being in the factory," Curtis says. "And I think that led to me being a writer."

Curtis left the factory for a year to follow his dream of writing. He put himself to work, writing the Watsons' story for five hours a day at his local library.

The book went on to win the prestigious Newbury Honor. Our readers connected deeply with the story; they were delighted by the humor and moved by its evocation of the struggles of civil rights movement - and especially the church bombing that killed four African American girls.

Brothers Sebastian and Martin Parra from Nashville, Tenn. asked about whether the bombing affected Curtis when he was a child.

It affected him profoundly, Curtis says. He was ten-years-old when it happened. His parents were very strict (he had 6:30 pm every night), but sometimes he and his sister would sneak downstairs and secretly watch television, hiding behind the couch on which his parents were sitting. When the news revealed that the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham had been firebombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan, it was a moment that stuck with Curtis.

"I'd never seen my parents cry before ... It was a very, very traumatic time," he says.

But it was also a heroic time. Curtis describes those who fought bravely for African American civil rights as "true American heroes ... They are the people who believe that as long as one person is being treated unfairly, we all are. These are our heroes. And they still walk among us today. One of them may be sitting next to you as you read this or standing in the next room making your dinner or waiting for you to come out to play. One of them may be you."

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'Birmingham': A Family Tale In The Civil Rights Era

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Welcome to the fourth installment of NPR's Backseat Book Club, where we select a book for young readers - and invite them to read along with us and share their thoughts and questions with the author.

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Google Lit Trip

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I'm not exactly sure when the commercial notion of "summer reading" first appeared in the parlance of publishers, bookstore clerks and readers. Not until after World War II did American families with little more than modest incomes find they had leisure time to enjoy a weekend -- or, at the upper end of the great middle, perhaps a week or two -- at the beach or in the country. But the expectation of even a few leisurely summer days and nights gives hardworking people who also happen to be readers a goal. I confess that I began stockpiling terrific new books to recommend for summer while still shivering in the middle of winter's cold and snow, trying to keep warm by looking forward to those relatively unbroken stretches of sultry chill-out time.
Fun With Problems
By Robert Stone, hardcover, 208 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, list price: $24

This is only Robert Stone's second collection of short stories. The first one, Bear and His Daughter, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Just about anything he writes deserves our attention.

The major characters in Fun with Problems, each of them a gloomy soul, meet the most uncheerful ends. Lawyers, drug smugglers, software magnates, honeymooners -- they drown in Caribbean waters or in swimming pools or in enough booze to fill a swimming pool, if not an ocean. Down, down, down, down they go! Stone's sentences are so stark, yet so dramatically persuasive, that we follow them all the way to the bottom, instructed by the writer's dramatic insights into the painful interior states of his characters and how they might, devils willing, apply to our own lives. Here, a software magnate is about to take a dive:

"His mountain property had two levels, both of them set well back from the river so he could assure himself that he was not like the reckless householders downstream. Some of them had balanced themselves on picturesque but heart-stopping outcrops, where they could crawl to the edge of their decks and look down over the rim into swirling white water. Leroy never failed to see, in his imagination, their terrifying fall into the canyon, houses and Franklin stoves and heritage tomatoes and trophy wives in fatal descending whirl..."
(Read an excerpt from Stone's hilariously biting story "High Wire," about a screenwriter tiptoeing between drug addiction, his indifferent wife and his ex-lover, Lucy.) Walks With Men
By Ann Beattie, paperback, 112 pages, Scribner, list price: $10

From one of the country's foremost storywriters comes this novella-length volume about a young female Harvard graduate and her life on the loose in 1980 New York City and Vermont -- a woman who meets a mentor whom she immediately turns into a lover. Beattie tells the story of promising magazine journalist Jane Costner in a cool style, tamping down the fires of heartbreak that are always flaring up on the edges of her life.

That very coolness, the seeming off-hand accuracy in the use of real speech and the illusion Beattie creates that she's always working from actual experience, gives Walks with Men a convincing sense of life. Even the way the book ends, with a second round of Jane Costner's walking, this time in the suburbs, with a pair of aging males, one of them her stepfather, makes inconclusiveness seem conclusive. As if to quantify that tentative view of the world, her stepfather's companion says, "You can never know a person ... Never know 'em any more than you can figure out their life story by looking at their photograph." Still, Beattie does her best, and often, as she does here, succeeds. (Read Beattie's tart description of the second encounter between Jane Costner and her mentor/lover Neil. In classic Beattie fashion, the first involved a laparoscopy.)
The Dreamer
By Pam Munoz Ryan, hardcover, 374 pages, Scholastic Press, list price: $17.99

A sidestep here -- in case you don't want the young readers in your family subsisting all summer on a diet of vampire novels. Give them a copy of The Dreamer, Pam Munoz Ryan's novel about the childhood of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Ryan dramatizes the young poet's discovery of love, and his love of the ocean and beetles and pine cones and language.

The novel can be funny on the page -- as when we see water dripping while the young Neruda listens, or witness him first discover the way language can be played with -- and also quite pretty. MacArthur Award-winning artist Peter Sis did The Dreamer's sublime illustrations. (See an illustrated excerpt from the novel, in which a young and frustrated Neftali Reyes struggles with his math homework: "His teacher called it simple addition, but it was never simple for him.")
A Visit from the Goon Squad
By Jennifer Egan, hardcover, 288 pages, Knopf, list price: $24.95

This is Jennifer Egan's episodic safari through time with a bunch of music lovers, from the early days of punk to the near future, in which, with a touch both tart and sympathetic, she shows us the way we lived then, the way we live now and the way we will live (we hope) down the road. As it starts, the novel appears to be about urban youth and the business of punk music, but it quickly opens up to reveal time's comical and relentless permutations at work on children and adults of several generations. It even reproduces a young girl's PowerPoint chapter on family, love and hope.

Told with both affection and intensity, Goon Squad stands as a brilliant, all-absorbing novel for the beach, the woods, the air-conditioned apartment or the city stoop while wearing your iPod. Stay with this one. It's quite an original work of fiction, one that never veers into opacity or disdain for the reader. (In this excerpt, Egan introduces us to Sasha, whose urge to steal another woman's wallet is as strong as her need to talk about it with her shrink.)
Lucy
By Laurence Gonzales, hardcover, 320 pages, Knopf, list price: $24.95

Does time ever flow when you're caught up in this one! Lucy is a Congo-born adolescent girl with a primatologist father and a bonobo ape for a mother. You heard right. The trouble erupts when the U.S. government and rabid American right get wind of her existence, producing all the thrills and pleasures of a book at least as good as something from the late Michael Crichton. (In fact, in Next, one of his last novels, Crichton introduced us to a "humanzee," a creature nowhere near as entrancing as Lucy.)

The science in Gonzales' novel is fascinating, the politics perhaps just a bit exaggerated, but hey, that's entertainment. Lucy herself is a natural-born sweetheart, a serious reader of novels who also tries to fit into American high-school culture. Her story is an all-season treat, a fast-paced but thought-engendering book you'll keep on reading, through heat or cold, rain or snow or sleet. (Read an early Gonzales passage in which Jenny Lowe, an American primatologist, discovers the death, in the Congo, of a fellow scientist -- and the survival of his very unusual adolescent child.)

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Fiction, Long And Short, For Summertime Escapes

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Whether you're vacationing for a week or a weekend, Alan Cheuse has a fiction recommendation to fit. Novels from Jennifer Egan and Laurence Gonzales for your weeklong escapes; a novella from Ann Beattie for those three-day getaways; and stories from Robert Stone for all you day-trippers.