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Spanish easy readers, parallel texts and online lessons | EasyReaders.Org

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Learn Spanish with online Spanish lessons and interesting, original materials! Download free samples of Spanish easy readers and Spanish-English parallel texts.

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Parallel Texts

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Short-story anthologies, with facing-page translations, showcasing fiction by well-known and emerging writers and allowing language learners at all levels to enjoy contemporary literature in both English...

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Where can you find diverse books? Right here! We've compiled the following list of sites that offer recommendations for diverse titles. Our list is not exhaustive, and we welcome suggestions ...

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Chicken Little

A modern adaptation of the classic tale: What happens when a completely normal chicken believes everything he reads on the internet? This story is written in the present tense, because it's a good thing to learn.

The Bird and the Whale

Our first ever original story, about a bird and a whale and their shared love of little fish. Inspired by a song by Tom Waits, and an episode of Adventure Time.

The Three Little Pigs

The classic tale of shoddy building materials, DIY folly, and the perils of emparedados de tocino (a.k.a bacon sandwiches). No pigs or wolves were harmed in the making of this story.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Why you should probably lock your door when you go out for a walk, even if you live en medio de un gran bosque. Why are the three bowls of sopa different temperatures when they were poured at the same time? Science, is why.

Little Red Riding Hood

A deeply troubling investigation into what happens when you let your children walk somewhere alone: Caperucita Roja eats fresas, picks margaritas and talks to el Gran Lobo Feroz on the way to Grandma's house. (Warning: Contains highly improbable medical scenes.)

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Spanish Children's Stories - The Spanish Experiment

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Well-known childrens stories translated into Spanish and spoken by a native Spanish speaker. Read along in Spanish or English. Great for adults too!

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The Diversity Gap in Children's Book Publishing 2018

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The Diversity Gap in Children's Book Publishing 2018

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In February, the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) released its statistics on the number of children's books by and about people of color published in 2017. In 2016, we witnessed a substantial increase in the number of diverse books being published. Diversity remains an ever-evolving topic in publishing when it comes to books as well as the diversity among the authors and illustrators creating them.

So what has changed since last year?

The number is steadily increasing...

Starting in 2014, the number of diverse books being published increased substantially. And in 2016, the number jumped to 28%. This year shows that number is steadily increasing, hitting 31% - now the highest year on record since 1994. Like 2016, there were major award wins for authors of color in 2017, including a Newbery Medal for Erin Entrada Kelly, a Newbery Honor for Jason Reynolds, Renée Watson, Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James, and a Morris Award and Printz Honor for Angie Thomas.

But still...

Even as the number of diverse books increases substantially, the number of books written by people of color still has not kept pace. Not much has changed since last year when Black, Latinx, and Native authors combined wrote just 6% of new children's books published. This year the number is only 7%.

Like last year and many of the years before, the majority of books (diverse or not) are still written by white authors. We wrote about this phenomenon back in 2015, and the numbers haven't changed much since then.

As KT Horning noted last year, there is still a particular resistance to allowing African American creators to tell their own stories. According to detailed CCBC statistics, only 29% of books about African/African American people were by Black authors/illustrators. Also, only 34% of books about Latinx folks were written/illustrated by Latinx people whereas last year the percentage was 61%.

Other #ownvoices books by other cultural groups aren't much better; 39% of books about Asian Pacific/Asian Pacific Americans were created by Asian Pacific creators; 53% of books with Native content/characters were written/illustrated by Native creators.

So What Happens Now?

It's great that the number of diverse books continues to increase, but we're still left with similar questions from last year:

Why are we still giving preference to white authors telling diverse stories rather than authors of color/Native authors?

Why are Black, Brown, and Native authors and illustrators still so underrepresented?

What efforts (if any) are publishers making to diversify the creators they work with?

We're looking forward to the day creators of color will be able to tell their own stories and be given the same opportunities to write stories with animal characters or talking inanimate objects that white authors are given. As the CCBC begins to track books with LGBTQIA+ content, we hope to see more LGBTQ+ characters of color and more intersectionality in regards to characters of color with disabilities. But change will only happen when publishing recognizes that equity is crucial, that the world is rapidly changing, and that creators of color deserve the chance to have their voices heard too.

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The Diversity Gap in Children's Book Publishing, 2018

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In February, the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) released its statistics on the number of children's books by and about people of color published in 2017. In 2016, we witnessed a substantial increase in the number of diverse books being published.

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Article from Cult of Pedagogy

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This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.

I have been using Microsoft products for decades, and honestly, I really didn't think they could surprise me anymore.

I was wrong.

Over the last couple of years, Microsoft has been quietly adding some incredible capabilities to their products, new layers that make the software we already use more powerful and accessible for people with reading difficulties, those with visual or hearing impairments, English learners, or people who simply want to customize the way they take in information and communicate their ideas.

This shift toward greater inclusivity has occurred under the leadership of Satya Nadella, who became CEO in 2014 and whose first child was born with special needs. Looking at the innovations that have come from Microsoft in the last few years, it's obvious that the company is committed to using technology to improve access for everyone.

And that's good news for teachers, because quality differentiation is a constant challenge for all of us. If you want to give your students richer, more personalized learning experiences, take a few minutes now to learn about these four fantastic ways Microsoft tools can make that happen.

1. Learning Tools

Learning Tools is the name for a set of free tools that help users improve their reading and writing experience in Microsoft OneNote, Word, Outlook, and the Edge browser. Although the original intent of these tools was to help students with reading difficulties or dyslexia, they enable us to design our instruction more universally, so that all students can access materials in whatever way works best for them.

In most places, the tools appear under the name Immersive Reader, which allows users to switch to a distraction-free reading environment, change font size and spacing, break words into syllables, highlight parts of speech, narrow the line display so only a few lines show at once, listen to the text read out loud, and use the new Picture Dictionary which allows users to hover over single words and see a picture of the word or hear it read out loud.

You can try Immersive Reader yourself by going to this page, or watch how it works in OneNote:

So far, research on the effectiveness of Learning Tools has been promising. An independent study published in 2017 showed that students who used Learning Tools showed greater rates of growth in reading comprehension compared to previous cohorts that didn't use the tools.

Ideas for Classroom Use:

Upload any PDF into OneNote (or use OneNote Class Notebook to share handouts or notes with the whole class). Once the text is in OneNote, students can use the Immersive Reader to dial in the precise reading conditions that work best for them.

Have students compose their own writing pieces in Microsoft Word or OneNote, then use the Read Aloud feature to listen to what they wrote. In the 2017 study, students who used this feature demonstrated noticeable improvements in their writing: With the ability to hear their writing read aloud at any stage of the writing process, students showed more motivation to revise and edit their writing than in previous years.

If you use the Microsoft Edge browser, you can send students to any web page and they can have the text read aloud to them or switch to distraction-free reading view, where they can enlarge the font for easier reading, highlight the text, and even take notes that can be saved for later. Edge can also be used to read any PDF or ePub file: When you right-click on these files in Windows 10, just scroll down to "Open with" and choose Edge.

2. Dictate

This simple add-in for Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook allows users to dictate what they want to write. The dictation tool is excellent at accurately recognizing speech, makes pretty good guesses on punctuation and capitalization, and supports more than 20 languages.

Soon you won't even need to grab the add-in: Over the next few weeks, dictation is going to come built-in to most Office tools, and it's ready to go on all Windows 10 computers-just press the Windows key + H and try it!

Ideas for Classroom Use:

Help struggling writers get their ideas on paper through dictation. Once they have drafted something through dictation, they can then move on to editing the written work.

Offer dictation as a writing option for students with dysgraphia.

Engage English learners by having them dictate some responses in their own language, then work to translate those into English. This will allow them to put their ideas together with more sophisticated language constructions without being hampered by limited English.

3. Editor

You may not have noticed it, but the "Check Spelling" feature in Word and PowerPoint has gotten a huge upgrade. Now, when you check spelling, you get a whole lot more than just a list of suggested words: Each suggested word is defined with a few synonyms to help the writer determine which spelling matches the meaning they're going for. It also allows users to hear the word read aloud, which can also help in choosing the right one.

If you teach students how to use this tool well, it can help all learners work more independently and take more ownership of their writing. It can also provide outstanding support for English learners and students with dyslexia, who may struggle to match letters with the sounds of words they want to use.

4. Translator

As the population of English learners in our schools grows larger and more diverse, teachers are struggling to meet their needs. For these teachers, Microsoft Translator will be a real game-changer. Using artificial intelligence, Translator transcribes and translates teachers' PowerPoint presentations into other languages in real time; in other words, the transcription is built while the teacher is presenting. Using an app on their phones, students read the transcript in whatever language they choose, and they can type or speak into the app to contribute their own comments or questions; these will automatically be translated back to the language of the presenter.

Watch it in action here:

Ideas for Classroom Use:

Give non-English speakers the ability to understand direct instruction and participate in class discussions, even if no one in the room speaks their language. Teachers can even use PowerPoints to accomplish regular "housekeeping" tasks like discussing upcoming field trips, so that Translator can keep non-English speakers in the loop.

Help emerging English learners better understand spoken language by using Translator to provide English subtitles during presentations.

Engage non-English speaking parents and family members by using Translator for parent-teacher conferences, open house, or during any school events where family participation is encouraged.

Give students who are deaf or hard of hearing better access to classroom discussions.

Microsoft's new mission statement is "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." By taking the tools most of us have been using for years and giving them more muscle, they are definitely fulfilling that mission. As someone who has been knee-deep in Google products for the last few years, I'll admit I haven't been paying much attention to what Microsoft was up to. If you've been in the same boat, I urge you to take a closer look: I bet you'll be surprised, too. ♦

To learn more about all the ways Microsoft is making learning more accessible, visit microsoft.com/accessibility.

Come back for more.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined-come on in.

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4 Ways Microsoft is Making Learning More Accessible

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This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own. I have been using Microsoft products for decades, and honestly, I really didn't think they could surprise me anymore. I was wrong.

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Breaking Language & Communication Barriers

Schools are increasingly diverse. Teachers manage many types of learners, including students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) who require assistive technology, and language learners who may not speak or understand the language of the classroom well.

A diverse student body includes family members too, who may not share a language with teachers or school staff, making school enrollment, teacher-parent conferences, and conversations with school staff a challenge.

Microsoft Translator helps bridge these communication gaps, supporting accessible classroom learning with live captioning, cross-language understanding, and even multilingual casual conversations to help with student integration.

Microsoft Translator in the Classroom

Microsoft Translator in the Classroom

Live Transcription & Translation

Presentations: Add live captions to PowerPoint Presentations (Windows only)
Presentation Translator provides live transcripts of a teacher's lectures in many languages including English. These subtitles enable people deaf, hard of hearing students, and language learners to follow and participate in group discussions using a personal computer, laptop, tablet or smart phone.

Presentation Translator can also learn and adapt to the speaker's vocabulary - such as the technical terminology associated with a specific subject area (such as chemistry or history) - which improves the quality of the speech recognition. This can be done automatically using the content of the slides and slide notes. Currently, this feature supports English and Chinese only.

Tip: to enable terminology adaptation, customize your presentation 5 minutes prior to the discussion, as outlined below. This will ensure that you are ready to go when you start your class or lecture.

For Teachers: How To Create Live Subtitles

Click the button below to install Presentation Translator (Windows only)

Open the PowerPoint deck to be presented

Click on the Slide Show tab

Click Start Subtitles

To enable adaptation to the content of the slides, click the box next to 'Customize speech recognition' (below, circled in orange)

To enable Q&A mode, click on the title bar Settings menu and click "unmute audience".

For Students: How To Join The Conversation

Download the Microsoft Translator app for Android, iOS, or Windows 10

Join a conversation by entering the conversation code or scanning the conversation's QR code

Choose a language and enter the conversation.

Join the discussion by pressing the microphone icon (below, circled in orange) and speaking, or by typing directly into the text box. Translator automatically translates all comments into the user's language - even if other users are speaking in a different language.

Please note that the student will not be able to speak or type from their device until the teacher un-mutes the audience.

Classroom Conversations: Language Learners & Students who are DHH

By using the Microsoft Translator live feature, students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) can follow live, classroom conversations by reading discussion transcripts. Students can also ask questions from their own device by pressing the microphone button or typing into the conversation window. Conversations may be saved for later reference.

Similarly, language learning students can follow classroom discussions by receiving transcripts in their own language. They can also ask questions in their language by pressing the microphone button on a smart device to speak, or by typing their question in the conversation window.

Students see all comments in their native language and can also see them simultaneously in the language of the classroom. Bilingual transcripts aid student language learning and comprehension. Conversations may be saved for later reference.

Videos

Microsoft Translator live feature

At Chinook Middle School in Bellevue, Washington, Mr. Russell White - Chinook's principal - uses Microsoft Translator to communicate with parents who speak multiple languages. Using the Translator live feature and the Presentation Translator PowerPoint add-in, he's able to speak in English while parents follow along on their own device, in their chosen language. Check out this video produced by Microsoft Education highlighting how Chinook Middle School is fostering an open, multilingual dialog with parents from around the world.

Want to have real conversations with people across different languages even if you can't speak their language? With the Microsoft Translator live feature, your device becomes your own personal universal translator. Check out our Get Started video to start using the app.

In this demo video, English, French, and German are spoken and translated into Italian speech and text. Microsoft Translator supports many more languages than just those three! Visit http://translate.it to learn more.

Presentation Translator for PowerPoint

For this demo, English is the chosen speech and captioned language - highlighting the use of live captioning for the deaf or hard of hearing community. Users could also join and participate in other languages (not shown in this video).

Learn how to get started with Presentation Translator, an Office add-in for PowerPoint that enables presenters to display live, translated subtitles in any one of more than 60 supported text languages.

Additional Resources

Products that feature Microsoft Translator

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Schools are increasingly diverse. Teachers manage many types of learners, including students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) who require assistive technology, and language learners who may not speak or understand the language of the classroom well.

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Open eBooks is a partnership between the Digital Public Library of America, The New York Public Library, and First Book, with content support from digital books distributor Baker & Taylor and login support from Clever. This effort is made possible by generous commitments of publishers with funding support provided in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Alfred P.

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School Librarian Talks to Students About ‘Whitewashing’ Children’s Book Covers

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School Librarian Talks to Students About ‘Whitewashing’ Children’s Book Covers

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It all started with a complicated question with a complicated answer. I'd been asked by a humanities teacher, Jamie Steinfeld, at the school I work at-the Bank Street School for Children-to booktalk some realistic fiction titles for her class in early October 2013. As I held up Julia Alvarez's Return to Sender (Knopf, 2009), a girl raised her hand.

"Why is there a bird on that cover, when every other book you've shown us has had a picture of the main character?"

There were only 10 minutes left before lunch, and I was tempted to shrug her question off with, "Good question─but we don't have time to talk about it right now."

However, Bank Street's director of diversity and community, Anshu Wahi, had previously advised me to handle difficult questions honestly rather than trying to brush them under the rug.

So I said, "That's a complicated question with a complicated answer. Let's talk about it."

I found a paperback version of Return to Sender and showed them how on the cover, sunlight falls upon the white main character (Tyler), illuminating his face and blonde hair, while the Latina character (Mari) has her back turned, so only her ponytail is visible.

"Can you tell that this book features a character of color?" I asked.

No, they answered. I held up the hardcover version of Return to Sender, featuring a picture of a bird. "What about this version-can you tell it features a character of color?"

The answer was no.

Then, I asked them the same question about the character featured on the book Heat (Penguin, 2006) by Mike Lupica.

No again. I did the same with Jacqueline Woodson's Locomotion (Putnam, 2003). By this point, most of the kids were incredulous.

"They don't want people to know that the book is about a black kid?" someone had asked.

"It's impossible to know for sure what goes into the decisions about any cover," I answered. "But yes, in a lot of cases, publishers hesitate to put characters of color on covers."

Then, came the collective "Why?"

"Why do you think?" I answered.

They all looked at each other. Then, one brave girl volunteered. "Do they think it won't make as much money?"

Bingo.

To give us a common vocabulary, I introduced the word "whitewashing" and pulled up the infamous images of the galley of Justine Larbalestier's Liar (Crows Nest, 2009), which originally featured a white girl rather than a girl of color, despite what the book explicitly states. (The cover has since been changed and reprints now feature a girl of color.)

In her reflection on that discussion in that evening's homework, one sixth grader wrote, "Society is almost afraid of putting a dark-skinned or Asian character on the cover of a book. I feel like these are minor forms of segregation."

To follow up with that lesson, I put together a slideshow of problematic book covers that reduced characters of color to abstract images. We talked about hair, and how often the hair from a black character is covered, as in Chains (S & S, 2008) by Laurie Halse Anderson-or simply concealed by a silhouette, like in Bird in a Box (Little, Brown 2011) by Andrea Davis Pinkney.

"Now I kind of want to be a publisher so that I can break some of these stereotypes," wrote one student.

Over subsequent months, (the teacher) Jamie and I held student-directed diversity sessions about various topics: book covers, gender bias, what sorts of actions they can take to protest injustices, a field trip to Barnes & Noble, and a class visit from two editors at Knopf.

Some of the most memorable student reflections came from the Barnes & Noble field trip:

"I know some girls who will want to read 'just for boys' books, because maybe they like sports, or aliens, or trucks. But they will not want to read that book, because it says 'just for boys.' "

"I saw very few books about diverse sexual orientations..."

"On the covers, I saw thin, pretty girls. I didn't see any overweight girls or anyone with acne. I think that these covers shape an idea of perfect in a girls mind, and make them want to be like that, even though everyone was born perfect."

"I didn't see a book with a biracial main character... it is not fair in any way."

"All the teen books showed girls as if they always had problems that they needed a guy's help with in order to solve."

The exchange with the Knopf children's book editors Erin Clarke and Michelle Frey allowed the kids to see the complexities involved in cover-making. Clarke and Frey brought covers they liked, covers they didn't, and books that had had dozens of covers bandied about. The kids got to pass around six potential covers for one not-yet-published title and give feedback on what worked and didn't work. They also learned that editors are also sometimes frustrated by cover decisions; Erin and Michelle shared one book that had could have had an artistic, colorful cover, but was given a "pretty girl" cover, to both of their frustration. The kids found that the discussion validated their concerns and made them feel that their opinions were valued.

The school year-long project concluded with the kids writing "This I Believe" essays about an aspect of the project that had captured their interest and imagination. I was glad I had not ignored that young girl's difficult question that had─months ago─opened this so-called Pandora's Box. Addressing this complicated question about skewed publishing practices allowed the kids to think critically and develop their own opinions about books, toys, movies, television, and the entire world around them. At the end of the learning unit, the kids had new eyes and greater perspectives.

"I never really noticed all the stereotypes in the book world until this project," wrote one student. "I don't think I'll ever think about books the same way!"
Allie Jane Bruce is Children's Librarian at the Bank Street College of Education. She earned her library degree from The Pratt Institute and tweets from @alliejanebruce.

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School Librarian Talks to Students About 'Whitewashing' Children's Book Covers

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It all started with a complicated question with a complicated answer. I'd been asked by a humanities teacher, Jamie Steinfeld, at the school I work at-the Bank Street School for Children-to booktalk some realistic fiction titles for her class in early October 2013.

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South Dakota State Library: School Libraries

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SD State Library

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What’s making the rural American West more diverse

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Wieser Educational: Resources for Struggling Learners

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Wieser Educational: Resources for Struggling Learners

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Dedicated to providing the best possible instructional materials to meet the needs of students with learning differences or who are struggling to learn.

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Free Audio Books! Books Should be Free. Best Online Audiobook Downloads for Android, iPhone & mp3. Listen to Audible & Talking Books on Tape. eBooks in English, French, Spanish, Tamil, Portuguese, German & more.

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RESOURCES FOR DIVERISTY IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY.pdf

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Classrooms | Common Sense Education

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Classrooms is a list of 36 apps, games, and websites curated by Common Sense Education editors.

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Stories and lessons for growing minds

We are a free multimedia platform for educators and students. Through our immersive storytelling and curricula, we aim to plant seeds of empathy, interconnectedness, and a sacred relationship with our planet. Use our award-winning films, photo essays, and essays to learn about social, cultural, and environmental issues from individuals and communities worldwide. For grades 3-12, our stories and lessons encourage students to broaden their perspectives and worldviews while fostering universal human values and respect for the living world. We aim to bring universal values into the lives of educators and students.

Experience Our Storytelling

Watch this short video to learn more about the stories we tell.

Student Winners and Finalists: The Environment Is in You

In what ways is climate change impacting the place where you live?

In this contest, students documented the fragility, hope, and future of our planet's ecosystem due to climate change. Inspired by four environmental writers-Linda Hogan, Robert Hass, Wendell Berry, and Dara McAnulty-students explored changes to local systems, how the environment shapes our identity, and how our actions and awareness today can impact the future.

View Winners and Finalists

Feature

These five shorts films follows five Native American communities who are restoring their traditional land management practices.

Learn More

Essay

How might stories act as keys allowing us access to challenge, examine, uproot, and illumine our habits and fears?

Learn More

Feature

This feature shares the stories of four Indigenous communities in California who are working to revitalize their languages and cultures in order to pass them on to the next generation.

Learn More

"This film has historic relevancy. I can see myself using it to encourage students to think about the value of the space program and how it speaks to the American Spirit and how we are often looking forward in our progress. This film begs to be used as an exploration of what it means to be a global citizen, how students can learn from people not like themselves, and what actions students can take in their everyday lives to make the world a better place."

Michael Dunn, Director of College Counseling at Eagle Rock School & Professional Development Center

Stories Exploring Climate Change

Celebrating Student Artwork: New Student Gallery

Encourage thoughtful and meaningful conversations in the classroom with our student gallery. Use the gallery as a tool to foster curiosity, observation skills, and perspective-taking.

The gallery encourages students to learn from each other's perspectives. How are students witnessing and engaging with the world in new ways since the start of Covid-19? Search by theme, previous Global Oneness Project contests, or from locations around the world. The gallery is accompanied by an image analysis activity, including a Visible Thinking Routine from Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

View Student Gallery

Receive our newsletter to learn about new stories and companion lesson plans.

Who Is Using Our Materials

Our materials provide opportunities for an interdisciplinary approach to learning across disciplines from social sciences and humanities to environmental sciences. Education stakeholders, including K-12 educators, university professors, librarians, tech/media specialists, parents, and students are using our materials in multiple learning environments.

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Understanding how school discipline policies can contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline is essential for educators and families. Harsh punishments, automatic out-of-class time and police involvement for discipline can push young people out of classrooms and into the criminal legal system. But educators, parents and caregivers can help to change this harmful system by advocating for and implementing practices that prioritize mental health and well-being.

We offer this new resource page that highlights LFJ articles and content to open dialogue, shift practices and foster change to benefit all young people.

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Learning for Justice | Education Resources

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Learning for Justice provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Diversity in literature goes beyond ethnicity. Diversity may include the various facets of sexuality and gender, cultural, and societal groups. Whether characters in the books we read reflect others or ourselves, what is most important is connecting with them in ways that help us understand who we are today. Sometimes learning about our history through the eyes of diverse characters can be unsettling or even painful, but it also can be an awakening to the unknown. In this collection, I focus on books that reflect multiple cultures in the text or illustrations, sometimes subtle, other times more direct. I believe these books reflect the mosaic beauty of our world.
Ages 4-8
Ada has been an inquisitive child from the time she could crawl. At first, her insatiable curiosity, constant questions, and taking things apart to see how they work frustrate her parents, but soon they nurture Ada's quest for answers instead. As her search for knowledge flourishes, Ada also realizes she might encourage other kindred budding scientists by taking her latest experiment to her classroom. Features reflecting diversity in the rhyming text and expressive mixed-media illustrations include the race of this young girl scientist and the racial makeup of her classroom.

If you need a book to explain airports to children (or adults) who are new to flying this book is perfect because of the range of perspectives Lisa Brown captures through her detailed ink-and-watercolor illustrations, narrative text, and cartoon bubble conversations. Clearly Brown has spent some time coming from, going to, and being in airports. Her depiction of the variety of people (including the featured biracial family going on a trip), movement, sounds, conversations, vendors, crying babies, limited seat space, and more at the airport are impeccable. Her sense of humor comes through in some unexpected details. Look closely!

This delightful picture book describes the life of two people who love ballet: Emma, a beginner, and Julia, a professional. Similarities between these two characters' daily routines and lessons, presented in both the text and softly colored illustrations, provide the perfect staging for the relationship that unfolds at the end of the story. Emma gets to meet Julia backstage, and their encounter is heartwarming. This book is a nice reflection of how two different, yet similar, people come together naturally. A good companion book is Allegra Kent's Ballerina Gets Ready (2016), which also features an African American dancer.

This insightful and realistic story is told through the eyes of Hee Jun, a recent arrival in America from South Korea. Hee Jun, his family, and his grandmother left behind their home and friends. Everything looks, sounds, and feels different in their new surroundings, and everyone is having a difficult time adjusting to living in West Virginia. Things begin to look up when his grandmother visits his sister's kindergarten class to help her transition and he meets a friend. In his new friend's yard, Hee Jun is surprised to find mugunghwa (the Korean national flower that is called Rose of Sharon in the United States). For Hee Jun and his grandmother, the flower is "a piece of home," a remembrance of Korea.
Who We Are!: All About Being the Same and Being Different (Let's Talk About You and Me series). Robie H. Harris. Ill. Nadine Bernard Westcott. 2016. Candlewick. Ages 9-11
Similarities and differences are real among the people in our world. This fifth book in the Let's Talk About You and Me series captures the beauty of diversity within a family and in the broader world. Everything from physical appearance to likes and dislikes, with an emphasis on the importance of accepting-and celebrating-who you are, is clearly presented in the narrative text and cartoon illustrations. A charming companion book is Mixed Me! (2015)by Taye Diggs, a story about a young boy in a biracial family.
Elizabeth Started All the Trouble. Doreen Rappaport. Ill. Matt Faulkner. 2016. Disney/Hyperion.
Following the same engaging format as the original Children Just Like Me, which was published in 1995, this new edition is an engaging visual celebration of children around the world. Each of the six sections (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Southeast Asia, and Australia) features an abundance of captioned photographs, carefully selected images of children, diverse families, world religions, homes, food, hobbies, and interesting facts, which will hold readers' attention for hours. A cool activity would be to compare the original version with this new book. How have things changed?

Spunk and determination abound in this delightful picture book about the women's suffrage movement. Although Abigail Adams pressed her husband, John Adams, to make sure the Founding Fathers included women in the Declaration of Independence, women were not mentioned. However, the fight for women's rights did not end. Years later, in 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton took up the cause for women's right to vote. Her movement gained a large following of women across the United States. Wyoming became the first state to give women the right to vote in 1869, but it was not until 1920 that women across the nation were allowed to vote. Readers will meet many of the key players throughout history that helped the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women the right to vote. This is a timely book, with the Democratic Party being the first major political party to nominate a woman for president.
Ages 12-14
Determination, patience, and diligence paid off for Mary Garber, who crossed the gender barrier to become the first and longest working female sports writer in U.S. history. She gained her reputation from writing truthfully about the exceptional ability of Jackie Robinson, the first African American major league baseball player. Her sports writing career spanned more than 50 years. Mary Garber was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Sportscaster and Sportswriters Association in 2008, just months before she died at age 92.

Given the ongoing occurrence of veteran-related news, the timing of this book is perfect. Robert C. Snyder, a veteran, does a good job of capturing the crux of what it meant to be a veteran in the past and what it means today in a factual, yet gentle, tone. Through expressive watercolor illustrations and accessible text, this book provides a good overview of veterans in the United States, those who served in the military and have returned to civilian life, as well as mentioning those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Imagine traveling to or even living in space someday. Already, more than 200 astronauts from more than a dozen nations, cultures, and religions have visited the International Space Station. With a narrator who represents humanity throughout history, this intriguing nonfiction book presents a chronological survey of what humans have believed and learned about the universe. Reading this book will likely leave readers with an increased curiosity about the future of space exploration. With recent emphasis on science and math in schools, this book has many applications, including aviation, space exploration, astronomy, astrophysics, women in science, and more. This book is also available in a Spanish edition, Yo Soy la Humanidad (2016).
Ages 15+
In this page-turning mystery and humorous tale, Gidwitz remarkably threads medieval history through stories within a story. Unfortunate circumstances and perceived unnatural powers bring an unlikely group of children and a dog together. King Louis IX issues a death warrant, as it is rumored these children may possess supernatural powers considered blasphemous by the church and state. Jeanne, whose life was saved by Gwenforte, the dog, has seizures and sees into the future. William, a well-read, dark-skinned oblate, has Hulk-like strength. Jacob was forced to leave his Jewish community when a group of anti-Semitic teens sets fire to homes. Gidwitz gives readers much to think about in the parallels implied through the racial bigotry and persecution of the past compared with the present.
Stan Steiner teaches Children's/Young Adult Literature at Boise State University. He has had a long relationship with bringing awareness to multicultural literature through his teaching and publications.
Our world has been changed for the better by women. However, most of the time their accomplishments and contributions have been slighted in the history books. This carefully selected and diverse collection of women who paved the way, including such figures as Pocahontas, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Beyoncé, and Hillary Clinton, would be a good addition to libraries and classrooms. Fifty one-page biographies of American women, arranged chronologically, include facts, family status, and major accomplishments that have made an impact on the world. A portrait and an illustration highlight the entry for each woman. An additional sixteen women are listed along with a glossary at the end of the book.

With recent Supreme Court decisions on gay and lesbian rights, this book is a fitting addition to libraries. Historical background and global perspective serve as an awakening to the growing number of voices that were silenced in the past but are now a unified call for equality. Photographs of smiling participants and bystanders flourish in this perceptive nonfiction book, reflecting Pride activism around the world. The book is organized in four sections: The History of Pride, Pride and Identity, Celebrating Pride Today, and Activism Around the World. Back matter includes a glossary, references, resources, and an index.

These reviews are submitted by members of the International Literacy Association's Children's Literature and Reading Special Interest Group (CL/R SIG) and are published weekly on Literacy Daily.

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Multicultural Literature: Reflecting Diversity in Literature for Youth

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Diversity in literature goes beyond ethnicity. Diversity may include the various facets of sexuality and gender, cultural, and societal groups. Whether characters in the books we read reflect others or ourselves, what is most important is connecting with them in ways that help us understand who we are today.

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Serving Diverse Teens @ Your Library - YALSA

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The YALSA Cultural Competence Taskforce builds on the work of the earlier Diversity Taskforce. Our mission over the next year is to help you learn how to incorporate cultural competence into your everyday work, and to increase the relevance and value of our libraries as partners in our communities.

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wiki with tons of resources

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The YALSA Cultural Competence Taskforce built on the work of the earlier Diversity Taskforce. Our mission was to help library staff incorporate cultural competence into your everyday work, and to increase the relevance and value of libraries as partners in the community.

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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"I look forward to logging in, every day. Whether I need a quick video about a current event, a pre-made learning activity for a lesson, or using Quiz to poll my class, there's always something useful. I feel like Discovery Education has really listened to what educators need."

Amy Erb STEAM Teacher

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Discovery Education | Your Daily Learning Platform

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Discovery Education inspires educators to go beyond traditional learning with award-winning digital content and professional development. Learn more today!

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The Multiracial Population Is Growing, But Kid Lit Isn’t Keeping Up

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The Multiracial Population Is Growing, But Kid Lit Isn’t Keeping Up

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By Monica Brown on

Let me begin by recounting a story I heard from Melodia, the daughter of two African-American parents, who, like my book's character Marisol McDonald (from the "Marisol McDonald" series published by Lee & Low), has peach skin and bright red hair.

Melodia tells me that she identifies as "black and proud."

When a girl in Melodia's class referred to her as "white," Melodia corrected her only to be told, "You're white to me."

"Yes, but I'm black to me," Melodia said.

When Melodia came home and told her mom the story, she ended it by announcing that she would be "wearing an afro tomorrow."

When she is with her African-American parents, Melodia tells me she's been asked if she's adopted or albino.

Melodia says, "That's the way people are. They have to label everything, and if they don't know you, they have to make stuff up."

When it comes to race, our culture is obsessed with labels and boxes. For those of us whose backgrounds and faces do not fall under a neat label, the impulse can be to exclude, erase, or question authenticity. Labels are rooted in racist ideas about "blood quantum" and in the legalese of the "one-drop rule." From a 21st-century perspective, labels associated with ethnic identity and perceptions of authenticity often use the colonizer's language and paradigm.

The multiracial population is undeniably growing. According to the 2010 United States Census, nine million people marked more than one race. In fact, the multiracial population grew by 32 percent since 2000, in contrast to the nine percent growth of the population marking a single race. Using the language of the U.S. Census, "interracial or interethnic" families grew by 28 percent. However, the Children's Cooperative Book Center released the statistic that of the books published in 2013, a mere 253 out of 3,200 were about children of color. I look at these statistics and wonder how many of these 253 books feature protagonists who might fall into more than one of the categories used-African-American, American-Indian, Pacific Islander/Asian-American, or Latino. I suspect very few.

There are many words associated with multiracial people, some negative and some positive. For myself, the daughter of a North American father and a South American mother, I prefer "mestiza," because it encompasses my European and Peruvian indigenous origins. But, that's technically (or at least historically) incorrect, because while I have Spanish and indigenous Peruvian origins on my mother's side, I also have African and Romanian Jewish origins.

On my father's side, I have Scottish, Italian, and Hungarian Jewish origins. Some people prefer the terms "mixed" and others "biracial." President Obama has jokingly called himself a "mutt," and there are other terms meant to be humorous that I feel uncomfortable with. Of the limited choices available, I choose "multiracial" with an emphasis on the multi-I am made of multitudes, not fractions.

Although I've described myself as "half-Peruvian" or "half-Jewish" as a shortcut in the past, I fully reject those terms now. I am not half of anything. I am whole in myself, as are my daughters. I am the Latina daughter of a Latina woman. I am bilingual. Melodia is the African-American daughter of African-American parents. She is also Guatemalan and Scottish. We are the face of a complex, multiracial, multilingual, and diverse past, present, and future.

The time has long passed for our children's literature to develop more complex and realistic representations of race. Our kids' books need to represent the biracial or multiracial experience, and not only in black and white. Multiracial characters do not need to have one white parent-they can be Native American and Latino, for example, or Asian-American and African-American.

In my writing for children, and certainly in my "Marisol McDonald" series, I present an ethos of wholeness for children like my own. It is my hope that dialogues like this will encourage us all to write (and edit and publish) toward wholeness for our multiracial children.

Monica Brown ( www.monicabrown.net) is the author of more than a dozen picture books, including "Tito Puente: Mambo King/Rey del mambo" (HarperCollins) and the award-winning "Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match/no combina" (Lee & Low).

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The Multiracial Population Is Growing, But Kid Lit Isn't Keeping Up

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By Monica Brown on Let me begin by recounting a story I heard from Melodia, the daughter of two African-American parents, who, like my book's character Marisol McDonald (from the "Marisol McDonald" series published by Lee & Low), has peach skin and bright red hair. Melodia tells me that she identifies as "black and proud."

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Cult of Pedagogy

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
A note on terminology: The acronym ESL is used less often now in schools than it used to be, because we recognize that many students who are learning English already speak several other languages, so English would not be a "second" language. I use it several times in the post because schools sometimes refer to the teachers as ESL teachers, and the term is still widely used as a search term for this topic. My intent in using the acronym is to make this post easier to find online.

You have a new student, and he speaks no English. His family has just moved to your town from Japan, and though he receives English as a Second Language (ESL) support, he will also be sitting in your room every day to give him more exposure to his new language. How can you be a good teacher to someone who barely understands you?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities. Although many of these students start off in high-intensity, whole-day English programs, most are integrated into mainstream classrooms within a year, well before their English language skills would be considered proficient.

How prepared are you to teach these students? If you're like most classroom teachers, you have little to no training in the most effective methods for working with English language learners (Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). So that means we have a problem here: Lots of ELL kids in regular classrooms, and no teacher training to ensure the success of that placement.

Below, three ESL teachers tell us what they know about the things regular classroom teachers can do to improve instruction for ELL students. These 12 strategies are simple, they are not very time consuming, and best of all, they will help everyone in your class learn better:

1. Make it Visual

"Avoid giving instructions in the air," says Melissa Eddington, an Ohio-based ESL teacher. "ELL kids have a harder time processing spoken language." So instructions - even basic directions for classroom procedures - should be written on the board whenever possible. Challenging concepts should be diagrammed or supported with pictures. And modeling the steps of a process or showing students what a finished product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. "Sometimes showing our students what to do is all they need in order to do it," Eddington says. Not only will this kind of nonlinguistic representation improve comprehension for ELL students, it will help all of your students grasp concepts better.

2. Build in more group work.

"Kids aren't just empty glasses that we pour stuff into and then at the end of the day they dump it back onto a test," says Kim, an ESL teacher who was the subject of my very first podcast interview. "If you really want the kids to learn, they've got to be engaged." That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. And if ELL students attend your class with a resource teacher, make use of that person: In most cases the resource teacher doesn't have to work exclusively with the ESL students; they can work with smaller groups that happen to contain these students, helping to improve the teacher-student ratio and give kids more time to practice.

3. Communicate with the ESL teacher.

Mary Yurkosky, a former ESL teacher in Massachusetts, credits much of her students' success to the strong relationship she had with the regular classroom teachers. "The classroom teachers were always talking to me about what they were doing in their classes," she says. "They made it so easy for me to support them: If a teacher was going to be doing a unit on plants, I could make sure we used some of that same vocabulary in the ESL class."

Ideally, this could be systematized, where ESL teachers could regularly get copies of lesson plans or collaborate with regular classroom teachers to build solid back-and-forth support, but "it doesn't have to be that much work," Yurkosky insists. "Just talk to each other. Talk about what's going on in your classrooms, invite each other to special presentations, share what your students are learning, and the words will naturally find their way into the ESL class."

4. Honor the "silent period."

Many new language learners go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. "Don't force them to talk if they don't want to," says Eddington, "A lot of students who come from cultures outside of America want to be perfect when they speak, so they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they're perfect." Just knowing that this is a normal stage in second language acquisition should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward talking too quickly.

5. Allow some scaffolding with the native language.

Although it has been a hotly debated topic in the language-learning community, allowing students some use of their first language (L1) in second-language (L2) classrooms is gaining acceptance. When a student is still very new to a language, it's okay to pair him with other students who speak his native language. "Some students are afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of sounding stupid or just not knowing the words to use," Yurkosky says. "Letting them explain things or ask questions in their first language gets them to relax and feel like a part of the class."

And this doesn't only apply to spoken language. If you give students a written assignment, but the ELL student doesn't yet have the proficiency to handle writing his response in English, "Don't make them just sit there and do nothing," Eddington says. "Allow them to write in their first language if they're able. This allows them to still participate in journal writing or a math extended response, even if you can't read what they write." There has even been some evidence that allowing second-language learners to pre-write and brainstorm in L1 results in higher-quality writing in L2 in later stages of the writing process (Yigzaw, 2012).

6. Look out for culturally unique vocabulary.

"For most of these kids, their background knowledge is lacking, especially with things that are unique to American or westernized culture," says Eddington. It's important to directly teach certain vocabulary words: "Show them videos of what it looks like to toss pizza dough, show pictures of a juke box or a clothing rack - things that are not common in their own language."

One way to differentiate for ELL students is to consider the whole list of terms you're going to teach for a unit, and if you think an ELL student may be overwhelmed by such a long list, omit those that are not essential to understanding the larger topic at hand.

7. Use sentence frames to give students practice with academic language.

All students, not just English language learners, need practice with academic conversations. Sentence frames - partially completed sentences like "I disagree with what _________ said because..." - show students how to structure language in a formal way. Keep these posted in a highly visible spot in your classroom and require students to refer to them during discussions and while they write.

For this kind of language to really sink in, though, Kim says it has to become a regular part of class. "They won't do it if it's not the norm in the class, because they'll be embarrassed to use it among their peers," she says. "But if they can put it off on the teacher and say, Oh, well, you know, Miss Kim makes me talk like this, then they don't look as hoity-toity as they would otherwise."

8. Pre-teach whenever possible.

If you're going to be reading a certain article next week, give ESL students a copy of it now. If you plan to show a YouTube video tomorrow, send a link to your ESL students today. Any chance you can give these students to preview material will increase the odds that they'll understand it on the day you present it to everyone else. "That kind of thing is wonderful," Yurkosky says. "The kids feel so empowered if they've had a chance to look at the material ahead of time."

9. Learn about the cultural background of your students...

Our second-language populations grow more diverse every year. Taking the time to learn the basics of where a child comes from - exactly, not 'somewhere in the Middle East/South America/Asia/Africa' - tells the student that you respect her enough to bother. Kim remembers one time when she had to set the record straight about the diverse South American population at her school: "I was listening to the teachers talking about the 'Mexican' kids in our building," she says, "and I was like, 'We don't have any Mexicans.'" Not taking the time to at least correctly identify a child's country of origin, much like not bothering to pronounce their name correctly, is a kind of microaggression, a small, subtle insult that communicates hostility toward people of color. Make a commitment to be someone who bothers to get it right.

Once you have the country straight, take things up a notch by learning about students' religious and cultural practices. If he is a practicing Muslim, he should be told if one of the pizzas you ordered for the class party has sausage on it. If she comes from a culture where eye contact with adults is viewed as disrespectful, you'll know not to force her to look you in the eye when she's talking.

10. ...but don't make a child speak for his entire culture.

In her podcast interview, Kim shared a story about watching a teacher ask a new Iraqi student how he felt about the war in his country, right in the middle of class. "That's not cultural inclusiveness," she explains. "I've seen teachers do this and then pat themselves on the back. The students' English is limited so they can't express themselves very well, and they don't want to 'represent'; they just want to be there." If you anticipate a theme coming up in your class that's going to be relevant to one of your students, have a conversation with them in advance, or check with your ESL teacher to see if they think it's appropriate for in-class discussion.

11. Show them how to take themselves less seriously...

By modeling the risk-taking that's required to learn a new language, you help students develop the courage to take their own risks, and to have a sense of humor about it. "I tried to say the word 'paint' ( pinta) in Portuguese and instead I said the word for 'penis' ( pinto). They all roared with laughter while I stood there with a What?? look on my face," Yurkosky says. "When they explained what I'd said, I laughed so hard! I told them that laughing was fine because sometimes mistakes are really funny, but ridicule is never okay."

12. ...but always take them seriously.

One of Kim's pet peeves about how teachers interact with English language learners is the way they often see students' efforts as 'cute,' missing the whole point of what the student is trying to say. "A student will be desperate to communicate, and the teacher will get distracted by the delivery and miss the message," she says. "That's painful for me to watch." It bothers her when teachers mistake a lack of language for a lack of intelligence or maturity. When a child can't express themselves as well as they would in their native language, it's far too easy to assume the concepts just aren't in their heads.

"It breaks my heart when I hear teachers say (ELL kids) don't know anything," says Eddington. "These are brilliant kids and they know a lot. They just can't tell us in English yet." Make a conscious effort to see past the accent and the mispronunciations and treat every interaction - every student - with the respect they deserve.

"They're doing twice the job of everybody else in the class," Kim adds, "even though the result looks like half as much." ♦

Further Reading

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide is one of the highest-rated books on teaching English-language learners available. In addition to offering an overview of the research on second-language learners and best practices in teaching ESL, it also includes a whole section on teaching ESL in the content areas and another specifically geared toward teaching ELL students in mainstream classrooms.
References:
Walker, A., Shafer, J., & Iiams, M. (2004). "Not in my classroom": Teacher attitudes towards English language learners in the mainstream classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1), 130-160.

Yigzaw, A. (2012). Impact of L1 use in L2 English writing classes. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 8(1), 11-27.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Advice from three ESL teachers on the things regular classroom teachers can do to help English language learners thrive in mainstream classrooms.

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Below is a list of resources for educators and librarians to enrich their students' reading.

Please feel free to contact us at cbcdiversity@cbcbooks.org as you discover additional resources!
Book Lists and Bibliographies

We Publish Diverse Children's and YA Books, More than 40 Publishers Share Their 2016 Titles: A handout which details the diverse books presented by publishers during this ALA Annual session

African-American Culture Reading List: Discover titles by August House's African-American authors and illustrators.

Women's History Month Reading List: Books for and about strong women, written and illustrated by strong women - from August House.

101 Ways to Combat Prejudice (PDF): Barnes & Noble and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) first launched the Close the Book on Hate campaign in September 2000. They compiled this free informational pamphlet (PDF) to "break the cycle of hate through reading."

"Close the Book on Hate," Reading List (PDF): These works of fiction, non-fiction, photography, and poetry help to spark discussion surrounding diversity.

I'm Your Neighbor: A recommended reading list, sorted by country and culture of origin, of titles featuring recent refugees and immigrants.

Multicultural Books for Adults: A comprehensive list for educators about the how race, education, and multiculturalism come together. Compiled by the Bankstreet College of Education.

Multicultural Books for Younger Children: A list of picture books that promote diversity and multiculturalism compiled by the Bankstreet College of Education.

Multicultural Books for Older Children: A list of middle-grade books that promote diversity and multiculturalism compiled by the Bankstreet College of Education.

Top Black History Books for Youth: Every year the editors of Booklist highlight the top books of the year that "offer unique ways of presenting the African American experience, then and now."

Library Book List: An amazing array of titles for children and young adults, organized by such topics as Ethnicity & Race, Religion, Gender, Sexuality and Disability.

Multicultural Children's Literature: An annotated bibliography of children's multicultural books maintained by Dr. Robert F. Smith, Professor Emeritus, Towson University, Towson, MD.

Great Gay Teen Books: Young adult author Alex Sanchez has compiled a book list of LGBTQ books.

Lesson Plans and Discussion Guides Nonprofit Organizations with Book Resources

ALA's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT): Perhaps the number one resource for librarians seeking information about LGBT books and authors.

Asian American Writers Workshop: The preeminent literary arts organization dedicated to exceptional Asian American writing.

PacificRim Voices: PRV aims to encourage and promote greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia.

Paper Tigers: PaperTigers.org, part of Pacific Rim Voices, celebrates literary voices from and about the Pacific Rim and South Asia.

We Need Diverse Books: A grassroots organization created to address the lack of diverse, non-majority narratives in children's literature.

Lambda Literary Foundation: The Lambda Literary Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of emerging writers.

Great Articles about Multicultural Book Topics Publications and Blogs

AALBC: The African American Literature Book Club is the largest and most frequently visited web site dedicated to books and film by and about people of African descent.

American Indians in Children's Literature: Established in 2006, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society.

Reading in Color: A book blog that reviews YA and middle-grade books about people of color.

The Brown Bookshelf: An online community devoted to promoting young adult fiction by African-American authors and illustrators.

Color Online Blog: Founded in 2005, the Color Online blog focuses on female writers of color.

Diversity in YA: Founded by YA authors Malinda Lo and Cindy Pon, this blog celebrates diverse stories.

The Happy Nappy Bookseller: The blog includes book reviews for middle grade, young adult, and picture books.

The Latina Book Club: Spearheaded by Maria Ferrer, The Latina Book Club's goal is to promote Latino authors and literacy by reading at least one Latino book a month. The blog features interviews, guest blogs, reviews, and other useful links.

Paper Tigers Blog: News and views on multicultural children's and YA books, and literacy issues from around the world.

La Bloga: A blog dedicated to Latino and Hispanic literature for both grown-ups and not so grown-ups.

I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I Read: Lee Wind's blog is a forum for teens to discuss their favorite LGBT YA titles.

Awards and Prizes

Américas Book Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature: Given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction (from picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. The award is sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP).

American Indian Youth Literature Award: Established as a way to identify and honor the very best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians. Books selected to receive the award will present American Indians in the fullness of their humanity in the present and past contexts. The award is sponsored by the American Indian Library Association.

Asian/Pacific American Literature Award (APALA): The goal of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature is to honor and recognize individual work about Asian/Pacific Americans and their heritage, based on literary and artistic merit.

Christopher Awards (Religious Affiliation): First presented in 1949, the Christopher Awards were established by Christopher founder Father James Keller to salute media that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit." Their goal is to encourage men, women and children to pursue excellence in creative arenas that have the potential to influence a mass audience positively.

Coretta Scott King Book Awards: Given to African American authors and illustrators for outstanding inspirational and educational contributions, the Coretta Scott King Book Award titles promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream of a pluralistic society.

ALA - EMIERT Multicultural Awards: EMIERT offers two awards to encourage and recognize multiculturalism in libraries and the library profession.

Lambda Literary Award: Given every year (since 1992) to the best Children's and Young Adult Literature. Previous winners include Jacqueline Woodson, Nancy Garden, and Kevin Jennings and David Levithan.

New Voices Award: Publisher Lee & Low Books sponsors this award for a children's picture book manuscript by a writer of color.

Pura Belpré Medal: Named after the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library, the Pura Belpré Award, established in 1996, honors a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.

Stonewall Book Awards: The first and most enduring award for GLBT books, sponsored by the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table.

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Style Hatch - http://stylehatch.co | @stylehatch

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Below is a list of resources for educators and librarians to enrich their students' reading. Please feel free to contact us at cbcdiversity@cbcbooks.org as you discover additional resources!

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free audio books

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The SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Daytime Emmy-nominated, Storyline Online, features celebrated actors reading children's books to inspire a love of reading in millions of children worldwide.

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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Imagine your students learning about the massive prehistoric creatures that used to walk the earth and being able to look them in the eye. Or imagine your class studying van Gogh's art and being able to look closely enough to study his brushstrokes.

We're not describing an episode of The Magic School Bus; we're talking about the reality that is Google Arts & Culture.

Similar to its foray into virtual reality via Google Cardboard and Google Expeditions, the tech giant announced in September that it had partnered with more than 50 natural history museums across the world to create a catalog of hundreds of interactive stories, photos, videos and virtual tours.

Included in the catalog are 360-degree views of creatures like Rhomaleosaurus, a 180-million-year-old sea dragon currently on display at London's Natural History Museum. Students can get the 360-degree view in the video below or on Google Cardboard.

"We wanted to give you a glimpse of how these colossal creatures actually looked," Amit Sood, the director of the Google Cultural Institute wrote in a Google for Education blog post. "So we worked with ecologists, paleontologists and biologists to put virtual skin and flesh on the preserved skeletons."

In addition to providing students with scientifically accurate experiences, Google Arts & Culture's offerings have potential for future lesson plans.

1. Providing Efficient and Immersive Museum Exploration

In addition to the individual exhibits already mentioned, Google Arts & Culture's Natural History collection has virtual tours of entire museums. Leveraging the technology of Street View, students can now take a tour of museums from New York to London to Australia.

When Google started offering virtual tours and up-close looks at art museums a few years ago, educator Samantha Peters blogged on TeachHub.com about how teachers could use Google Art Project to more easily take their students on more field trips - albeit virtually.

"Essentially, it can be treated just as a normal field trip would - by splitting students into groups, asking them to look at various genres of painting, requesting observational notes or comparisons of some sort," she wrote.

A virtual field trip of a museum of natural history could be taken with the same approach.

Google Basics for Teaching has a step-by-step guide for using the Google Cultural Institute as a virtual field trip. The guide suggests that teachers have students act as museum curators and create their own exhibitions by compiling related pieces.

In a post on The Art of Education, Apex High School teacher Melissa Purtee wrote that in addition to the museum collection, teachers can, with the help of Places, send their students on a virtual tour of a location they are studying.

"In a lesson about ancient Egyptian art, take a kids on a tour of the Great Pyramids at Giza," Purtee wrote. "This will give your lesson context and help students make the cross-curricular connections to make learning stick."

2. Getting Up-Close-and-Personal Access to Great Works of Art

Just as the natural history exhibit lets you get face to face with a sea dragon, Google Places has a zoom feature that allows students to get closer than ever before to the work of greats like Vincent van Gogh.

In her article, Purtee suggested that art teachers have students access Google Art when studying things like color theory.

"Try zooming in on a van Gogh painting and challenging students to match 10 of the colors they find. Your kids will develop a whole new appreciation for his application of color," she wrote.

Purtee also noted that students can learn how sculptures and other physical works are created by utilizing the 360-degree views.

3. Experiencing History Firsthand with Exclusive Museum Access

You won't have to spend hours traveling to Washington, D.C., and then waiting in line to check out the Smithsonian's newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Thanks to a grant from Google, the museum is set to become the most technologically advanced in the world, Google software engineer Travis McPhail wrote in a blog on Google for Education.

From its inception, the NMAAHC was designed by Google and the museum's director, Dr. Lonnie Bunch, to have a number of digital experiences.

"We worked closely with the museum to build an interactive exhibit to house artifacts from decades of African American history and let visitors explore and learn about them," McPhail wrote. "With 3D scanning, 360 video, multiple screens and other technologies, visitors can see artifacts like a powder horn or handmade dish from all angles.

McPhail wrote that Google has also created an expedition of the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which commemorates the 1965 Voting Rights March.

Although the museum is now open, the digital components won't be available until the spring of 2017.

To explore everything we've talked about, visit the Google Arts & Culture.

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3 Ways Google Arts & Culture Can Enrich Your Lessons

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Imagine your students learning about the massive prehistoric creatures that used to walk the earth and being able to look them in the eye. Or imagine your class studying van Gogh's art and being able to look closely enough to study his brushstrokes.

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Bilingual Materials

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Children's Bilingual Books & Audio Books, Foreign Language, Dual Language Books, Bilingual Toys- Language Lizard

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Language Lizard offers award-winning bilingual children's products in over 40 languages! Dual language books, audio books for kids, language posters, a free newsletter and free lesson plans -a great way for teaching English as a second language (ESL) and foreign languages.

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We Need Diverse Books™ is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and a grassroots organization of children's book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people.

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We Need Diverse Books™ is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and a grassroots organization of children's book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people.

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Download past episodes or subscribe to future episodes of TED Radio Hour by NPR for free.

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It is harder now for high school students to focus on and make sense of long, complex texts, particularly the underserved students who were already struggling with reading.

The 24-hour news and entertainment cycle, cellphones, work schedules and family problems are just a few of the pressures competing for teens' attention. That means when teachers assign the reading of literature for homework and use class time for lectures and quizzes, they may not be providing the engagement necessary to compete with such distractions.

One strong solution is to have teachers read aloud to their classes, then move into leading inquiry-based discussions about texts.

In this shared-experience vision of reading aloud, students are following along, taking notes with old-school technology: a pencil.
Related: Students can't learn if they don't show up at school
The benefits of reading aloud to students have been known for decades. A landmark report called " Becoming a Nation of Readers " identified listening as "the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading." This report by the National Academy of Education, the National Institute of Education, and the Center for the Study of Reading may have been published more than 30 years ago, but that truth is timeless.

"In this shared-experience vision of reading aloud, students are following along, taking notes with old-school technology: a pencil."

More recent research indicates that for students - even those in high school - hearing literature aloud helps model fluency in diction and tone, build background knowledge, and develop language acquisition skills. So, for better literature comprehension and appreciation from their high school students, teachers should continue to read aloud to their classes.

Here are five reasons why:

1) Even if a text is above a student's reading level, that doesn't mean it's above their comprehension level. Some students are able to listen to high-level texts that they could not read on their own. In turn, the students push their own complex ideas further when they're read to aloud. Listening to a piece read at someone else's pace allows high school students the freedom to follow their own curiosity as they absorb a text. Their attention is no longer split between decoding and critical thinking. To further support their lines of thought, teachers can encourage students to mark their texts as they listen, which can help teachers know what questions students have and maximize their engagement with a text.

2) Teachers can access a wide range of reading levels within one classroom. The opportunity to listen to a text - instead of reading it independently - makes literature accessible to students who struggle to read on their own. If learners follow along with a text as they listen, it will allow them to gain a better understanding of unfamiliar words and the language as a whole. Reading aloud is also a tool to support, rather than call out or section off, those who read independently at a slower pace or are still emerging fluent readers.

3) Reading aloud is an effective replacement for both "popcorn" and "round-robin" reading. Though the merits of these approaches have been argued for many years, both approaches require focus on decoding a text rather than thinking about the narrative itself. Therefore, a reader's ability to discuss thoroughly is diminished. Further, if students are anticipating, or even dreading, their turns to read, they're not truly comprehending the words on the page. And constantly changing voices, speeds and tones is not a natural way to hear a story.

4) Hearing a text read aloud also supports students' ability to remember key information. This enables them to think critically about the text, and formulate and express their own reflections, which allows the students the ability to share their thoughts in writing or discussion.

5) Listening to a story can be more relaxing for busy high school students, and can lead to a lifelong appreciation for storytelling and literature. As everyone listens silently to the same story at once, it's a fun, communal experience. For many high school students, reading a book they're not interested in for class becomes an aversive experience reinforced by similar ways of approaching a text. All too often, this can lead to a disdain for reading later in life.
Related: A school once known for gang activity is now sending kids to college
A talented, expressive teacher can bring a poem, story or other written work to life and allow listeners to experience things they may not have noticed had they simply read the piece to themselves.
Macbeth: But what if we fail - Lady Macbeth: We, fail?
That makes it easier to understand a story and empathize with characters, thus boosting appreciation for the story as well as comprehension of it.

A teacher can also model multiple interpretations of a text by reading aloud. For example, consider these lines from Macbeth, Act I, Scene 7:

Lady Macbeth's interruption can be understood in many ways. One interpretation could be "There is no we - only you," to Macbeth. In other words, she is telling Macbeth before the journey begins that if the overthrow is a failure, he will die alone. Another way to read the line could be a foolhardy and resounding, "We won't fail, you dolt. I, unlike you, have thought this out. We're going to end up ruling." Finally, a potentially less confident Lady Macbeth could respond with a cracked, high alto of "Why would you say that to me when I'm already nervous enough?"

By reading these lines aloud to a classroom, teachers can illustrate the possibilities of this response so students can choose the lens through which they'll interpret a text, putting students back in charge of their own minds and building upon the engaging experience of hearing a story aloud.

However, simply listening to an audiobook isn't enough. It's also crucial for students to interact and follow along with the words on the page as they listen.
This story was produced by Danielle Martin, an education consultant with the Great Books Foundation, has more than 15 years of experience in the education sector. She began her work as a teaching artist in Philadelphia, winning a Barrymore Award for her ability to create inclusive learning environments. The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our newsletter.
Students should participate in critical, inquiry-based classroom discussions led by their teacher to further comprehend and appreciate works of fiction and non-fiction.

The discussions encourage students to slow down, pick up a book and relax with a great story, regardless of what else might be going on in their lives. This fosters an interest and engagement in literature that is exciting for all students.

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OPINION: Here's a way teachers can help break down equity barriers in high school: reading aloud to students - The Hechinger Report

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It is harder now for high school students to focus on and make sense of long, complex texts, particularly the underserved students who were already struggling with reading. The 24-hour news and entertainment cycle, cellphones, work schedules and family problems are just a few of the pressures competing for teens' attention.

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Lists about: Non-Caucasian Protagonists in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Paranormal Romance, Diversity in Young Adult and Middle Grade, Diversity...

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Multicultural Children's Books

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Subject Guides: Multicultural Children's Books: Home

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Subject Guides: Multicultural Children's Books: Home

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Here are more than 50 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. Africa Afro-Latinx American Indians Arabs and Arab Americans Asian Americans Black History Board Books Central America Changemakers Civil Rights Teaching Cuba Different Abilities Dominican Republic Early Childhood Anti-Bias Early Elementary Chapter Books Economic Class Education El Salvador ...

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At the CCBC, we define "multicultural" literature as books by and about people of color and First/Native Nations individuals: African and African Americans, American Indians, Asian/Pacifics and Asian Pacific Americans, and Latinos. This listing introduces 30 essential books and a range of authors for teens. Interested in multicultural literature for younger readers?

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What do we mean by diversity?

After compiling the list of the 2015 Top Ten Challenged Books, the staff at the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) noticed that once again, a high percentage of the titles fell into the category of "diverse content." What do we mean by diversity?

Some definitions

Let's start with the definition in the American Library Association's policy manual.
"The American Library Association (ALA) promotes equal access to information for all persons and recognizes the ongoing need to increase awareness of and responsiveness to the diversity of the communities we serve. ALA recognizes the critical need for access to library and information resources, services, and technologies by all people, especially those who may experience language or literacy-related barriers; economic distress; cultural or social isolation; physical or attitudinal barriers; racism; discrimination on the basis of appearance, ethnicity, immigrant status, religious background, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression; or barriers to equal education, employment, and housing."
OIF has pointed to the work of Malinda Lo, who wrote that diverse content means "books by and about people of color, LGBT people, and/or disabled people." In our infographic from 2015, we unpacked that to: "non-white main and/or secondary characters; LGBT main and/or secondary characters; disabled main and/or secondary characters; issues about race or racism; LGBT issues; issues about religion, which encompass in this situation the Holocaust and terrorism; issues about disability and/or mental illness; non-Western settings, in which the West is North America and Europe." This language is long for an infographic and we struggled with the omission of neurodiversity.

Finally, one of our partners in the Banned Books Week coalition is We Need Diverse Books, which offers this definition in their mission statement:
"We recognize all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities*, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities. "*We subscribe to a broad definition of disability, which includes but is not limited to physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities, chronic conditions, and mental illnesses (this may also include addiction). Furthermore, we subscribe to a social model of disability, which presents disability as created by barriers in the social environment, due to lack of equal access, stereotyping, and other forms of marginalization."
The overall goal, as Martin Garnar, co-chair of ALA's Task Force for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, wrote:

"We are striving for social justice for ALL - and with these definitions desire to achieve a larger rather than smaller common and inclusive denominator."

Applying the definitions to this year's challenges

In regards to the mission of our office, diversity is about what is not mainstream in libraries and classrooms. Omitted and suppressed information and stories are often a reflection of the dominant players in today's publishing and distribution systems. As OIF wrote in a (2014?) document entitled " Black Words Matter:"

"According to the University of Wisconsin's Cooperative Children's Book Center, only 3% of the 3,200 books written for children in 2013 were about black people and only 2% were written by African American authors. Publisher Lee & Low, using the CCBC's statistics from 1994 - 2012, found that while 37% of the U.S. population are people of color, only 10% of the books include multicultural content."

While "diversity" is seldom given as a reason for a challenge, it may in fact be an underlying and unspoken factor: the work is about people and issues others would prefer not to consider. Often, content addresses concerns of groups who have suffered historic and ongoing discrimination. For instance, a book that often recurs in previous years' top ten challenges is Toni Morrison's Beloved. While it has sex in it, and that's often the complaint, many other books also have sex, and are not challenged. Is the underlying motivation for the challenge racism? Sometimes, it surely is. In other cases, of course, a complaint genuinely may be about precisely what the challenger says it is.

In collaboration with other sponsors of Banned Books Week, we are highlighting the diverse content in the list of 2015 Top Ten Most Challenged Books. Talking about this commonality may offer some insights into the current concerns of those who challenge materials.

For instance, four of this year's titles clearly fall into the LGBT category: Beyond Magenta, Fun Home, I Am Jazz, and Two Boys Kissing. Three books deal with religion, and challengers' suspicion of it: Islam in Habibi and Nasreen's Secret School; and Judeo-Christianity in the Bible. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time centers on the disability of the main character, who is autistic. Call it neuro-atypical: a mode of cognitive processing and emotional responsiveness that falls somewhat outside of the norm. OIF staff agree that all of the above fall well into our common understanding of diversity.

We disagreed about Looking for Alaska. One character suffers from depression to the point of suicide, and mental illness is certainly a disability. Others of us felt that this may be stretching the point; the book is mainly about privileged white people, and the complaints about it don't really focus on the mental illness. But a secondary character with a disability fits our the definition we used last year. I opted to include it in the name of consistency. I can see how others might disagree. Similarly, we talked about whether the Bible - certainly not hard to find in our culture - really fits the definition of diversity. But if challenges to materials about Islam qualify as worthy of note; then attacks against another religion should be tracked, too, even if it is better known in our society.

So that leaves us with just one title - Fifty Shades of Grey - that none of us could see as a diverse book under any of our referenced definitions. So here's the bottom line: even if you dispute the two we argued about ourselves, we're still looking at a clear majority of titles that deal with diverse people and ideas.

So what?

In years past, the Top Ten Most Challenged Books have generated a lot of discussion. That's good. As a society, considering an "index of complaints" helps us to understand who we are and where we're going. Cultures change over time, and the things we fear, or celebrate, change with them.

We should say, too, that this list of challenged titles is not comprehensive. Not every serious attempt to have a book removed from a library makes it to us, nor every challenge to a movie, program, or exhibit. In fact, where challenges are most successful in removing or restricting access to ideas, no one talks about it at all.

Censorship thrives in silence; silence is its aim.

This year's top ten list is very much the tip of the iceberg, with a lot more going on outside our field of vision. But it could be that the shape and composition of the iceberg can be discerned from what we can see. Your comments are welcome. Thank you for reviewing, and contributing, to our thinking on this topic.
James LaRue, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom

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What do we mean by diversity? After compiling the list of the 2015 Top Ten Challenged Books, the staff at the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) noticed that once again, a high percentage of the titles fell into the category of "diverse content." What do we mean by diversity?

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Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults

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Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults

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LibGuides: Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults: Websites

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LibGuides: Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults: Websites

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Resources | Dia! Diversity in Action - El día de los niños, El día de los libros

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These articles address various aspects of El día de los niños / El día de los libros and preserve the history of the celebration. When possible, links to the articles have been provided, and additional articles will be added over time.

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The Coretta Scott King Book Awards are given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values. The award commemorates the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and honors his wife, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, for her courage and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.

NEW CSK BLOG: Follow the latest news and information from CSK on the brand new CSK Blog! To learn more, visit www.olos.ala.org/csk.

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards.

Volunteer for a CSK Committee

Once you've joined EMIERT and the CSK Book Awards Community, complete this online form to volunteer for one of our Standing Committees, including:

Archives and History Standing Committee

Book Grant Standing Committee

CSK Breakfast Standing Committee

Marketing Standing Committee

Membership Standing Committee

Nominating Standing Committee

Programs Standing Committee

Public Relations/Fundraising Standing Committee

Publications Standing Committee

Technology Standing Committee

2019 Author Winner

The 2019 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author Winner is Claire Hartfield, author of "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919," published by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" is a meticulously researched exposition of the socio-economic landscape and racial tensions that led to the death of a black teen who wanted to swim, and the violent clash that resulted. In twenty chapters, Hartfield's balanced, eye-opening account contextualizes a range of social justice issues that persist to this day

2019 Illustrator Winner

The 2019 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Illustrator Winner is Ekua Holmes, illustrator of "The Stuff of Stars" written by Marion Dane Bauer and published by Candlewick Press. In "The Stuff of Stars," Holmes uses hand marbled paper and collage to create a lush explosion of color that brings to life the formation of the universe while distinctly reflecting the essence of the African diaspora.

Ekua Holmes is a native and current resident of Boston, Massachusetts, who has worked as an artist, curator, and active member of Boston's art community. She was influenced by the need to fill the void of what she perceived as an absence of positive Black images in her childhood neighborhoods.

2019 John Steptoe Award for New Talent (Author)

The 2019 Coretta Scott King Book Awards John Steptoe Award for New Talent Author goes to Tiffany D. Jackon, author of "Monday's Not Coming," published by Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. In the timely thriller "Monday's Not Coming," Jackson examines friendship, child abuse, and family relationships. In alternating chapters, the reader is immediately pulled into the angst that Claudia feels as she struggles to piece together thisfragmented tale that concludes with a mind-blowing resolution of Monday's disappearance.

2019 John Steptoe Award for New Talent (Illustrator)

The 2019 Coretta Scott King Book Awards John Steptoe Award for New Talent Illustrator is Oge Mora, illustrator and author of "Thank You, Omu," published by Little, Brown Young Readers. "Thank You, Omu!" is a fresh take on a timeless tale of altruism and community-mindedness. Mora's collage work is skillfully pieced together with acrylic, marker, pastels, patterned paper, and old book clippings, creating a visual smorgasbord. Mora brings to life an amalgamation of many grandmothers and captures the African spirit of generosity and community.

2019 Author Honor Books

"Finding Langston" by Lesa Cline-Ransome, published by Holiday House.

"The Parker inheritance" by Varian Johnson, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.

"The season of Styx Malone" by Kekla Magoon, published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

2019 Illustrator Honor Books

"Hidden Figures" illustrated by Laura Freeman, written by Margot Lee Shetterly, published by HarperCollins Children's Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers.

"Let the Children March" illustrated by Frank Morrison, written by Monica Clark-Robinson, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

"Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop" illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, written by Alice Faye Duncan, published by Calkins Creek, an imprint of Highlights.

2019 Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement (Practitioner)

Dr. Pauletta Bracy is Professor of Library Science and Director of the Office of University Accreditation at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). She has successfully merged scholarship and service with publications such as "Libraries, Literacy and African American Youth "(co-edited with Sandra Hughes Hassell and Casey H. Rawson) as well as her work with the Coretta Scott King Book Awards and with workshops and conferences dedicated to promoting African American books for children and teens. She recently served as co-organizer for Celebrating Our Voices: Black Children's Literature Symposium and Book Festival held at NCCU.

(c) 2019
The Coretta Scott King Book Awards seal images and award names are solely and exclusively owned by the American Library Association.

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-ethnic and multicultural information exchange round table

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The Coretta Scott King Book Awards are given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values. The award commemorates the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and honors his wife, Mrs.

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Five-Minute Film Festival: Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Five-Minute Film Festival: Culturally Responsive Teaching

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The changing racial and cultural landscape of America is certainly a much-discussed topic -- some researchers studying U.S. Census data and demographics even say that America could be a "minority majority" country as early as 2050. While the barriers between countries continue to come down, and globalization continues, how can teachers address the needs of students from a variety of cultural backgrounds and upbringings? This collection of videos introduces culturally responsive teaching (CRT), and includes some techniques that you can use to help students from diverse backgrounds succeed together.

Video Playlist: Culturally Responsive Teaching

Watch the first video below, or watch the whole playlist on YouTube.

1. Valerie Purdie-Vaughns on Unintentional Bias (3:04)
In this short video from Big Think, researcher Valerie Purdie-Vaughns explains how bias and assumptions can unconsciously affect the way you act. Although it's geared toward diversity awareness in the workplace, this is a good primer on cultural discrimination.

2. Expanding Teacher Self-Knowledge (1:27)
Since bias is often unconscious, one of the first things a culturally responsive teacher can do is be aware of assumptions about themselves and their students. This quick tip from the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance initiative explains the value of self-reflection.

3. Office Chat: Culturally Responsive Teaching (9:24)
In this interview, Dr. Kavatas Newell, a faculty member at the University of Mary Washington, introduces some initial ways that teachers can incorporate culturally responsive teaching methods into their classrooms. The audio quality here is a bit low, but the tips are worth it.

4. The Danger of a Single Story (19:16)
Author Chimamanda Adichie's amazing TED talk introduces "The Danger of a Single Story." Teaching students of other cultures may require that you look past familiar stories and narratives to find school materials that resonate with your students' experiences and lives.

5. Building Trust With Families (14:12)
Many students from other cultures are English-language Learners (ELL). Although this video is long at 14 minutes, the panel of teachers and principals organized by Colorin Colorado offers great tips for connecting with the families of ELLs.

6. Recognizing Individual Characteristics (1:10)
This quick video, also from the Teaching Tolerance initiative, reminds viewers to respect students' individuality, even as you learn more about cultural differences and introduce more responsive practices into the classroom.

7. Education: Culture Matters (14:25)
This video from the Kamehameha Schools showcases the importance of culturally responsive educational programs. Students from the native Hawaiian population thrive when they learn in programs that incorporate their cultural heritage and traditions.

More Resources on Culturally Responsive Teaching

Whether you've been teaching diverse learners for years, or you're just starting to think about how to incorporate CRT into your classroom, these organizations and articles can help.

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5-Minute Film Festival: Culturally Responsive Teaching | Edutopia

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The changing racial and cultural landscape of America is certainly a much-discussed topic -- some researchers studying U.S. Census data and demographics even say that America could be a "minority majority" country as early as 2050. While the barriers between countries continue to come down, and globalization continues, how can teachers address the needs of students from a variety of cultural backgrounds and upbringings?

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ICDL - International Children’s Digital Library

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Multiculturalism in the Modern World: Jen Holladay at TEDxDenverTeachers

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Multiculturalism in the Modern World: Jen Holladay at TEDxDenverTeachers

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Multiculturalism in the Modern World: Jen Holladay at TEDxDenverTeachers

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School Library Journal -The Diversity Issue

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School Library Journal -The Diversity Issue

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The world's largest reviewer of books, multimedia, and technology for children and teens