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When a young girl visits the site of Africville, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the stories she’s heard from her family come to mind. She imagines what the community was once like —the brightly painted houses nestled into the hillside, the field
where boys played football, the pond where all the kids went rafting, the bountiful fishing, the huge bonfires. Coming out of her reverie, she visits the present-day park and the sundial where her great- grandmother’s name is carved in stone, and celebrates a summer day at the annual Africville
Reunion/Festival.

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Calvin has always been a boy, even if the world sees him as a girl. He knows who he is in his heart and in his mind but he hasn't yet told his family. Finally, he can wait no longer: "I'm not a girl," he tells his family. "I'm a boy--a boy in my heart and in my brain." Quick to support him, his loving family takes Calvin shopping for the swim trunks he's always wanted and back-to-school clothes and a new haircut that helps him look and feel like the boy he's always known himself to be. As the first day of school approaches, he's nervous and the "what-ifs" gather up inside him. But as his friends and teachers rally around him and he tells them his name, all his "what-ifs" begin to melt away.

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Animals and kids love to play! This wonderful book celebrates playtime and the connection between children and the natural world. Beautiful illustrations show:
● birds who chase and chirp!
● bears who wiggle and wobble!
● whales who swim and squirt!
● owls who peek and peep!
● and a diverse group of kids who love to do the same, shouting: We play too! / kimêtawânaw mîna.

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Shanti misses the warm monsoon rains in India. Now in America, she watches fall leaves fly past her feet. Still, her family’s apartment feels like a village: Mama cooking luchi, funny stories in Bangla, and Baba’s big laugh. But outside,
everything is different – trick-or-treating, ballet class, and English books. Back and forth, Shanti trudges between her two worlds. She remembers her village and learns about her new town. She watches Bollywood movies at home and
Hollywood movies with her friends.

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An elevator ride to a birthday party turns into a shared experience bursting with joy in this multicultural story about community, togetherness and the special feeling of belonging. Today is Olive's birthday party, and Sophie and her dad have baked cookies. Sophie's dad holds the platter so Sophie can push the elevator button for the tenth floor. But on the way up, the elevator stops to let the Santucci brothers get on. Then on the next floor, Vicky, Babs and their dog, Norman, get in. And as the elevator ascends, it keeps stopping, and more neighbors squeeze into the crowded space: the Habibs, the Flores family, Mr. Kwan, Vi Tweedle with her Chihuahua, Minx. Everyone is going to the party!

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Eleven-year-old Isabella is mixed-race: her father is black, and her mother is white. But that doesn’t mean she likes the comments about it. And now that her parents are divorced, it means she is split between houses, with different nicknames, backpacks, houses, and identities wherever she goes. If you are only half of this and half of that, how can you ever feel whole?

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A bold and colorful exploration of all the ways that people navigate through the spaces around them and a celebration of the relationships we build along the way. We Move Together follows a mixed-ability group of kids as they creatively negotiate everyday barriers and find joy and connection in disability culture and community. A perfect tool for families, schools, and libraries to facilitate conversations about disability, accessibility, social justice and community
building.

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This New York Times Bestseller, and Newberry Honour Award Winner by Thanhha Lai tells the story of ten-year-old Hà, who is forced from her life in Saigon, and made to flee to Alabama, in search of hope and safety away from
the Vietnam War. Alabama is foreign, and Hà discovers the coldness of its people, the dullness of its food... and the strength of her own family.

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Giizis—the sun—rises. What’s hiding in the trees? It’s a Mitig! guides young readers through the forest while introducing them to Ojibwe words for nature. From sunup to sundown, encounter an amik playing with sticks and swimming in
the river, a prickly gaag hiding in the bushes and a big, bark-covered mitig. Featuring vibrant and playful artwork, an illustrated Ojibwe-to-English glossary and a simple introduction to the double-vowel pronunciation system, plus
accompanying online recordings, It’s a Mitig! is one of the first books of its kind. It was created for young children and their families with the heartfelt desire to spark
a lifelong interest in learning language.

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A mother bear shares with her cubs how to be grateful for all they have in the natural world. The Bear's Medicine shows the interconnectedness of all things in the world they live in and how each season brings changes and blessings for
the bears. It is a story of a mother's love for her children as she teaches them how to survive.

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Diwali has arrived! Rangoli art decorates the floor and strings of flowers hangaround the doors. Now it's time to ring the bells, light the lamps, and welcome thenew year with family and friends. A sweet introduction to the Hindu festival oflights.

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May isn't having fun on her trip through Chinatown with her grandfather. Gong Gong doesn't speak much English, and May can't understand Chinese. She's hungry, and bored with Gong Gong's errands. Plus, it seems like Gong Gong'sfriends are making fun of her! But just when May can’t take any more, Gong Gong surprises her with a gift that reveals he’s been paying more attention thanshe thought. With lighthearted, expressive illustrations by Elaine Chen, thischarming debut expertly captures life in the city and shows how small, sharedmoments of patience and care—and a dumpling or two—can help a child andgrandparent bridge the generational and cultural gaps between them.

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Off the northern tip of Haida Gwaii, a boy goes fishing with his Tsinii, hisgrandfather. As they watch the weather, jig for halibut, and row with the tides,there's more to learn from Tsinii than how to catch a fish.

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Evelyn Del Rey is Daniela’s best friend. They do everything together andeven live in twin apartments across the street from each other: Daniela withher mami and hamster, and Evelyn with her mami, papi, and cat. But not aftertoday—not after Evelyn moves away. Until then, the girls play amid themoving boxes until it’s time to say goodbye, making promises to keep intouch, because they know that their friendship will always be special.

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On a snowy Lunar New Year’s Eve in Northeastern China, it’s Dandan’s last nightwith Yueyue. Tomorrow, she moves to America. The two best friends have afavorite wintertime tradition: crafting paper-cut snowflakes, freezing them outside,and hanging them as ornaments.As they say goodbye, Yueyue presses red paper and a spool of thread intoDandan’s hands so that she can carry on their tradition. But in her new home,Dandan has no one to enjoy the gift with―until a friend comes along.

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With her new backpack and light-up shoes, Faizah knows the first day ofschool is going to be special. It's the start of a brand new year and, best of all,it's her older sister Asiya's first day of hijab--a hijab of beautiful blue fabric, likethe ocean waving to the sky. But not everyone sees hijab as beautiful, and inthe face of hurtful, confusing words, Faizah will find new ways to be strong.

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In 2010 a Winnipeg-based charity raised funds to build and ship a mosque toInuvik, one of the most northern towns in Canada’s Arctic. A small but growing Muslim community there had been using a cramped trailer for their services,but there just wasn't enough space. The mosque traveled over 4,000kilometers on a journey fraught with poor weather, incomplete bridges, narrowroads, low traffic wires and a deadline to get on the last barge heading up the Mackenzie River before the first winter freeze. But it made it just in time and isnow one of the most northern mosques in the world.

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Just the thought of Eid makes Amira warm and tingly inside. From wearing new clothes to handing out goody bags at the mosque, Amira can't wait for the festivities to begin. But when a flier on the fridge catches her eye, Amira's stomach goes cold. Not only is it Eid, it's also school picture day. How will her classmates remember her if she's not in her class picture? Won't her teacher wonder where she is? Though the day's celebrations at the mosque are
everything Amira was dreaming of, her absence at picture day weighs on her. A last-minute idea on the car ride home might just provide the solution to everything in this delightful story from acclaimed author Reem Faruqi, illustrated with vibrant color by Fahmida Azim.

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Faizah is excited to go shopping with her sister, Asiya, to help her buy her first-day hijab. The blue hijab represents beauty and strength. On the first day of school, sisters, Asiya and Faizah walk hand in hand.

When Faizah's classmate questions what Asiya is wearing, she worries about her sister. Faizah hears hurtful comments made to Asiya by children who don't understand why she is wearing a hijab. Faizah admires her sister's beautiful blue hijab and doesn't understand why some children don't understand its beauty and strength.

Concerned, she watches for her sister's reaction, who turns away from the bullies. Faizah remembers her mother's advice to "drop" the hurtful words of others. Faizah learns the bullies do not upset Asiya, and she continues to wear her hijab with pride. She follows her sister's examples and ignores the bullies. As the sisters head home, Faizah can't wait to wear her own blue first-day hijab.

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The Proudest Blue Activities and Comprehension Questions

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Faizah is excited to go shopping with her sister, Asiya, to help her buy her first-day hijab. The blue hijab represents beauty and strength. On the first day of school, sisters, Asiya and Faizah walk hand in hand. When Faizah's classmate questions what Asiya is wearing, she worries about her sister.

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This review was originally published in School Library Journal in March, 2021. Additional illustrations and an activity have been added to this post.

K-Gr 2-Amira feels conflicted when she realizes that school picture day is the same day as Eid. Spotting the crescent moon marking the end of Ramadan, Amira and her brother Ziyad know it means that there will be prayers, celebrations, and skipping school the following day. Amira's mom decorates the girl's hands with mehndi. Amira and Ziyad prepare goody bags for the kids at the masjid, while her mother irons Amira's Eid outfit, a beautiful blue and gold mirrored shalwar kameez. Though Eid is full of the joy and community she loves, missing picture day puts a damper on the celebration, until Amira thinks of a possible solution. Deceptively simple, Faruqi's narrative gently addresses the impact that the celebration of non-dominant cultures and holidays has on children and choices families make to uphold traditions. Moreover, Amira's conflicted feelings and insistence on finding a solution create opportunities for dialogue about the importance of acknowledging spaces that matter to children, especially while families try to foster positive identity. Azim's illustrations are fun and colorful, with tiny details reflecting the family's personality, while the people attending Eid celebrations at Amira's masjid are racially and culturally diverse, with varied skin tones, body types, and expressions of fashion and style. Back matter features an author's note and glossary of terms, referencing Urdu and Amira and her family's Pakistani roots.

VERDICT A lovely addition to the collection of books about Eid that can be used all year long.

Extended Activity & Lesson

As stated in the review above Amira's Picture Day is an opportunity to talk to elementary students about identity and how holidays reflect identity and values. It is also an opportunity to talk about equity in holiday recognition, school calendars, and what it means to matter in all the spaces we are.

Here are some suggested questions to ask students while reading this book:

How do you think Amira feels about missing picture day? Have you ever had to choose between two things that are important to you?

Do you think Amira's parents understand how she feels at first? Is Eid or picture day more important to Amira's parents?

How do you know that Amira's parents want the children to be involved in the community?

What is Amira's masjid like? Does everyone look similar in body shape, skin tone, or dress or are they different? What do you observe about Amira's Muslim community?

How do you think Amira feels when she is at school wearing her shalwar kameez? How do you think she might feel about her friends seeing her in her shalwar kameez instead of her pink dress?

Pair this book with these videos about recognizing holidays.

Questions:

For the people in the videos what does it means to have their holiday recognized by their schools?

What would it mean to have no holidays recognized? If winter and spring breaks stayed the same, what would it mean for holidays like Christmas or Easter? Is not recognizing any holidays but still keeping the same breaks really being fair to everyone?

Have you ever had to go to school on a holiday that was important to you? How do you think it would feel to have to go to school on a holidays that was really important to you or your family?

How do you think it would feel to have to choose between a holidays that is important to you and a big test that would impact your next school year?

How did Linda's daughter feel about seeing her holidays on the school calendar? What does it mean to have schools recognize your holidays?

How does it feel to have schools recognize your identity, culture, and history?

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Review & Extended Activity: Amira's Picture Day

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This review was originally published in School Library Journal in March, 2021. Additional illustrations and an activity have been added to this post. K-Gr 2-Amira feels conflicted when she realizes that school picture day is the same day as Eid.

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BookPage | Discover your next great book!

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Tips for Teachers is a monthly column in which experienced teacher and children's librarian Emmie Stuart shares book recommendations and a corresponding teaching guide for fellow elementary school teachers.
One of my favorite movies is John Crowley's 2015 film, Brooklyn, adapted for film by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibin's novel of the same name. It's the story of Eilis Lacey, a young woman played by Saoirse Ronan, who leaves her home in a small Irish village for a new life in New York City in the early 1950s. It's tender, unassuming and deeply moving.

In the final lines of the film, Eilis gives some advice to another young woman who's making the same journey that she did from Ireland to America:

"You'll feel so homesick that you'll want to die, and there's nothing you can do about it apart from endure it. But you will, and it won't kill you. And one day the sun'll come out. You might not even notice straight away, it'll be that faint. And then you'll catch yourself thinking about something or someone who has no connection with the past, someone who's only yours. And you'll realize that this is where your life is."

These lines, delivered in Ronan's Irish brogue, kept running through my mind as I read these books aloud with my students.

Leaving home is hard and, as Eilis experienced, many immigrants feel caught between two places and struggle to define what home means. As they validate how challenging adjusting to a new home can be, these three picture books offer hope for children who have immigrated to a new country and light for all those still in the opening chapters of their life's story.

Home Is in Between
By Mitali Perkins
Illustrated by Lavanya Naidu

"Goodbye, home!" Shanti shouts as she waves to her grandmother, Didu, and the familiar surroundings of her village in India. When her plane lands, she discovers that her new home is "a town with cold rain / And orange and yellow leaves." Adjusting is challenging. Shanti celebrates Indian traditions and customs and learns new American ones, always "remembering the village. Learning the town. Again and again. In Between." At first, Shanti skips buoyantly through new experiences, such as Hollywood movies and Halloween, but eventually Shanti becomes exhausted from traversing between two cultures. "Where was she from? Village? Town?" she wonders. Resting in this question restores Shanti's spirit and reminds her that perhaps the best home is actually in between. Accessible and sincere, Shanti's story shines a light on the challenges and joys of inhabiting, embracing and celebrating two cultures.

Discuss the concept of a picture book's gutter, the vertical seam between the left (or verso) and right (or recto) pages formed by the book's binding. Share examples of books that effectively use the gutter to extend the narrative or to add meaning to the story. I used Chris Raschka's Yo! Yes?, Matthew Cordell's Hello! Hello!, Jon Agee's The Wall in the Middle of the Book and Suzy Lee's Wave.

Reread Home Is in Between and let students articulate how Naidu uses the gutter to differentiate between the two cultures depicted in the book. Naidu places Shanti's apartment, full of keepsakes and reminders of her life in India, on the left side of the gutter, while on the right are Shanti's experiences in her new American town. Ask students, "What do you notice about Shanti's position on the pages? What does this tell us about Shanti's thoughts about her two homes?"

Shanti calls her family in India on the day of the Holi festival. Read aloud an informational book about Holi and invite students to share ideas for how Holi could be celebrated in the classroom. Next, divide students into small groups and provide books or online resources that explain a variety of cultural celebrations and holidays. Each group will choose a celebration to present to the class. Presentations must include information about the history of the celebration and where and how it is celebrated. Each group will also plan two to three ways to acknowledge the celebration in the classroom and choose a date that the celebration will occur.

When Shanti leaves India, Shanti tells her grandmother goodbye, but she also waves goodbye to "warm monsoon rains. And the green palm trees of her village." Before dismissing children for the day, gather them together and tell them that their homework is to notice what they especially love about their community, town or geographical region. Show them a few pictures of places that are significantly different from your area (I used pictures of the Arizona desert and the Australian coast). Ask them to draw on their five senses and brainstorm about what they know and love about their corner of the world. What are two things they would miss if they had to move away from this area? The next day, invite students to share their brainstorming and provide paper for them to write and illustrate their goodbyes on.

Watercress
By Andrea Wang
Illustrated byJason Chin

A young girl is annoyed when her parents pull their car over to the side of the road in the middle of an Ohio corn field to gather watercress. The uncomfortable, tedious process transforms the girl's annoyance into disgust and embarrassment. When the watercress is served at dinner that night, she crosses her arms and refuses to eat. But when her mother shares the heartbreaking story of the famine that took her brother's life during her childhood in China, the girl views the watercress on her family table with new understanding and deep appreciation. Using a single event to illustrate the misunderstandings that can happen between first-generation immigrants and their children, Watercress illuminates the importance of knowing, embracing and valuing cultural heritage.

Watercress is much more than just a vegetable to the girl's mother. It brings back memories and is a "delicate and slightly bitter" symbol of her childhood in China. Invite students to consider a food or dish that symbolizes a family tradition or holds strong memories. Give them time to free write, then guide them through turning their thoughts into a short essay rich with sensory language. This exercise is a good opportunity for teaching students how to incorporate figurative language into narrative writing.

The girl's mother praises watercress for being free, but to the girl, "Free is bad. Free is hand-me-down clothes and roadside trash-heap furniture and now, dinner from a ditch." Lead students in a discussion about the word free. Based on the mother's story and the history of China, what do they think free symbolizes for her? Write the word at the top of a piece of chart paper and make a T-chart. Making inferences from the book's text and illustrations, fill one column with the mother's definition and thoughts about the word and the other column with the daughter's ideas and connotations.

Though the family lives in Ohio, the girl's parents are intentional about honoring their Chinese heritage. Take a picture walk through the book and ask students to identify specific details in the illustrations that signify the family's heritage. My classes found several examples in the dining room scenes. Encourage students to notice cultural elements present in their own homes or in the home of relatives. Invite older students to journal about the ways their home decor or family routines reflect their heritage or their family's values. If time allows, read books that contain pictures of homes around the world and discuss similarities and differences.
Coquí in the City
By Nomar Perez
Miguel loves his life in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He loves flying kites by el Morro, the old fort; playing baseball with his friends at the park; buying quesitos, his favorite treat, from the bakery; and listening to his abuelo's stories. Most of all, he loves his pet frog, Coquí, who accompanies him on all of these activities, because he is "part of the familia." When Miguel's parents tell him that they will be moving to the U.S. mainland, Miguel worries about missing all his favorite things, but most of all, he knows he will miss Coquí, who must stay behind. When Miguel and Mama venture into their New York City neighborhood for the first time, Miguel is overwhelmed by "the newness of everything." His spirits lift when they find a park and he discovers familiar sights and sounds, including a pond with several frogs. On the journey home, they pass a bakery selling quesitos. Drifting off to sleep that night, Miguel realizes that San Juan will always be a part of him. Though some things are "definitely different in New York," other things are "just the same."

This book offers a wonderful opportunity to introduce young students to Venn diagrams. As a class, create a Venn diagram that compares Miguel's life in San Juan and New York City. Be sure to leave enough room in the overlapping section in the center to list similarities. Use the diagram to spark a conversation about similarities and differences between cities around the world. If any of the students in your class are immigrants themselves, invite them to share experiences and traditions they remember from their home cities and to reflect on which experiences are different and which are "just the same" as their experiences in the United States.

There is an abundance of wonderful books about children who leave home and move to another place. Extend Miguel's experience by sharing more immigration stories with students. My favorites include Junot Díaz and Leo Espinosa's Islandborn, Aliki's Marianthe's Story, Riki Levinson and Diane Goode's Watch the Stars Come Out and Thrity Umrigar and Khoa Le's Sugar in Milk. For older readers, I recommend Jasmine Warga's Other Words for Home and Bette Bao Lord and Marc Simon's In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson.

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Tips for Teachers: Leaving home, finding home

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Leaving home is hard and many immigrants feel caught between two places and struggle to define what home means.