I had the best afternoon with adult education teachers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Sandra Chupkai and I presented a workshop on Tell Me a Cuento, a book club for ESOL students reading illustrated children's books.
Northeast SABES, System for Adult Education Support, hosted the workshop. The Lawrence (MA) Public Library and Mass Humanities made it possible for me to present and for each teacher to recieve a copy of Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa by Veronica Chambers. We did a model discussion. Many teachers had actually met Celia in NYC or she sang at their graduations. The discussion was an amazing testimonial to the power of Celia's music to translate a culture and the pride in salsa music as a symbol of Latino cultures in counties around the world. Thank you to all the teachers who shared your stories. Sandra and I presented the workshop to give teachers ideas for running their own Book Clubs for adult ESOL students or for parent groups. I hope the handouts on Tips for Teacher-Led Discussionswill inspire teachers to offer their own programs. If teachers would like support in presenting a Tell Me a Cuento program or variation on it, please e-mail me. We also spent some time talking about selecting multicultural books with cultural authenticity. I showed some slides of my powerpoint on multicultual books. Another question that was asked - how long does the book club last? A discussion usually lasts 1 to 1 1/2 hours and we do a series of three. However, Sandy's students devoted a day each week for book discussion. Participants also asked about supporting non-English speaking parents in a book club or monthly training. This is a large question and I will wait and do a separate blog on this for Lori Jorge of "Rasing a Reader." But I wanted to get these handouts posted. More to come.
A group of twelve people from Amesbury are in Amesbury's sister city, Esabalu in western Kenya this week. Some of the visitors will work on the literacy project that several of us began the last time we were in Esabalu. The project is called Mleta Hadithi, Stories are Coming. Wilson Reading funded the design and printing of this poster. Aron Fine, a new designer with Wilson, created the poster as his first project. The words in Swahili say, Reading Begins at Home. The book pictured is For You Are a Kenyan Child by Kelly Cunnane, illustrated by Ana Juan. In Esabalu young women who have graduated from college but don't yet have jobs take books in Swahili, Luhya, the mother tongue, and English into village homes and read to children. I will write updates here about how the Mleta Hadithi girls are doing in the village.
"Living in this world of media saturation, it is easy to think that all the important things are happening somewhere else. Making books about our own stories and our own lives reminds us that we are the center of our own lives."
After Susan created The Elephant Rag logo, she told me more about her art, her passion for books, her exploration of the bindings and paper used around the world, and her belief in inviting others to make art.
Terry: Based on the number of workshops you do, you must think it’s important for kids – and adults – to make their own books, and probably fill them with their own stories. Susan: I absolutely think it's important. When I started to make books on a regular basis, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher as well as a doer. Because I work with a lot of simple forms, the construction is simple and the materials are easy to gather (especially now that I focus on recycled ones). To me making books is the perfect introduction to art and creative exercise. I think it is important that we take the time to tell our own stories. Living in this world of media saturation, it is easy to think that all the important things are happening somewhere else. Making books about our own stories and our own lives reminds us that we are the center of our own lives and helps us to value ourselves and our families and friends. However I also have another sense of the book which comes more from the art side of things: the book as an object. I have books in my collection that are in languages I can't read and yet I take great pleasure in looking at them and turning the pages. It is the book as book and the pattern of the marks on the page that I find so beautiful. I like to think of books as celebrations. They can celebrate a memory or a story but they can also celebrate your particular interaction with that particular collection of materials at that particular time. Terry: How did you come to work with paper from all over the world in your art? Susan: I started as an artist doing calligraphy. I was an English literature major in college. My initial interest in calligraphy was as a way to present the words I loved. When my early lettered books gave way to textless and imageless ones with an emphasis on natural materials, I sought out papers that were shades of brown or gray and looked and felt natural rather than processed. This more limited palette led me to handmade papers from around the world. I use amate paper from Mexico which is made from the inner bark of the fig tree, paper from banana fibers from Costa Rica, paper from Daphne fibers from Nepal and Bhutan, and paper from Africa from local grasses and plants. Read the full text of the interview.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Rubia is a nonprofit organization that supports women in Afghanistan to create and sell their traditional handwork and to develop literacy skills. The Director is artist and photographer Rachel Lehr. Rachel created a reading list of books to support a program she presents for students and teachers through the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, The Heart of the Silk Road.
Silk Road explores the "ancient caravan routes along which luxury goods as well as technology, religion and ideas were traded between East and West." See Rachel's bibliography of resources about Afghanistan and other countries along the Silk Road including Mongolia, Persia, and China. Rachel is in Afghanistan today as I write this. Above is the cover of Rubia's 2009 Calendar.
“The outer brown is mashamba paper from Africa. The elephant is on a background created from a scanned page from a book from Bhutan, plus Spanish from a Mexican book and Japanese from a book from Japan. All are muted so they blend together. A light opacity of the amity paper from Mexico is laid over it all.”
The Worcester Review asked me to write an essay about Robert Cormier for an issue celebrating his work. He was a Worcester and Fitchburg (MA) journalist before critics called him "the single most important writer in the whole history of young adult literature." He was deeply respected by teens and everybody in Leominster, his home town, and was a trustee of the Leominster Library where I was the children's librarian. That's how I came to write the essay, remembering those years. I love what Diane Sanabria says about him. She is the young adult librarian in the center named for Bob after his death, The Robert Cormier Center for Young Adults. Diane said, "I always feel like he's at my back, saying 'Trust your judgment.' I just want to see him come up those stairs one more time."
Here is a beginning of a list of books about children and teens from many cultures. Some of these are brand new. Some are classics. Some are my long time favorites and some are new favorites contributed by my fellow writers and illustrators on the New England Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators list serve.See links to the right for other lists of good books on multicultural themes.
Write me with your favorites and we'll make this list grow.
Picture Books and Folktales
ALVAREZ, Julia. illus by Fabian Negrin, The Secret Footprints. Dell Dragonfly, c2000.
A folktale about Dominican ciguapas, mythical creatures who live on the land and in the sea.
BARTONE, Elisa, illus by Ted Lewin, Peppe the Lamplighter. Lothrop, Lee, & Shepard, 1993. Set in New York City’s Little Italy at the turn of the century.
BROWN, Monica, illus by John Parra, My Name is Gabriella* Me llamo Gabriela, the Life of Gabriella Mistral, Luna Rising, 2006.
A picture book biography of the Chileanwriter and Nobel Prize winner.
BULION, Leslie. Fatuma’sNew Cloth, MoonMountain, 2002.A little girl in East Africa shops with her mother for a cloth to make a kanga.Includes a recipe for East African tea.
BUNTING, Eve. How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story, illus by Beth Peck.
CHAMBERS, Veronica. Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa, illus by Julie Maren, Dial, 2005.
Biography of Celia and her childhood world that influenced the making of salsa, illustrated in brilliant colors.
CONNOR, Leslie. Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, illus by Mary Azarian, HM, 2004.
Miss Bridie comes to America in 1856 and shows the fortitude and ingenuity ofimmigrants.
CUNNANE, Kelly. For You Are a Kenyan Child, illus by Ana Juan, Atheneum, 2006.
A little boy in search of cows calls out to people in his Kenyan village to the refrain of “Hodi? Anybody home?”andthey answer “Karibu! Welcome!”
HEST, Amy.When Jessie Came Across the Sea, illus by P.J. Lynch, Candlewick, 1997.
Jessie immigrates from Eastern Europe to New York City at the turn of the century.
LORD, Michelle.A Song for Cambodia.Lee and Low, 2008
Biography of Arn Chorn-Pond who played the khim. (Film Connection:The Flute Player.)
KURTZ, Jane, illus by Lee Christiansen. Fire on the Mountain.Simon & Schuster, 1994.
A retelling of an Ethiopian folktale.
MICHELSON, Richard.Grandpa’s Gamble, illus by Barry Moser, Marshall Cavendish, 1999.
Story of a Polish grandpa and grandchild that captures “the tough, brazen immigrant culture...” Booklist.
NORMAN Lissette.My Feet Are Laughing, F, S, & G, 2006.
Narrative poems about a girl in NYC whose parents are from the Dominican Republic.
Film connection:Mad Hot Ballroom, a gorgeous story about competitive ballroom dancers in NYC elementary schools. Many of the kids are Hispanic.
NIVOLA, Claire. Planting the Trees of Kenya,Frances Foster Books, 2008.A biography of Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Set in India in the 1940s, this is the story of a young woman's struggle for freedom which plays out against the backdrop of World War II and India's coming independence.
SCHMIDT, Gary. Trouble. Clarion, 2008
YA novel, a Cambodian American and a native boy are in deep trouble in this adventure story of climbing Mt.Katahdin.
Tan, Shaun.The Arrival, Arthur Levine, 2006.A wordless, graphic story told in surreal drawings to capture the unknown and often frightening things of a new place to immigrants.
TESTA, Maria.Something About America, Candlewick, 2005.
A short verse novel about a girl from Serbia who comes to Maine. It climaxes when 6,000 people rally in support ofimmigrants in Lewiston.
The Elephant Rag features children's books with voices from around the world. You'll find links to book lists, interviews, talk about cultures, and stories from amazing people. The elephant banner is created bySusan Kapuscinski Gaylord.She wrote Multicultural Books to Make and Share for kids, parents, and teachers. But please take a moment to see this elephant drawing.
Welcome, readers. I am Terry Farish. I write books for children and teens and coordinate a reading and discussion program for immigrants. My first job out of college was working in Vietnam and ever since, I've been interested in life in different cultures. I hope you can jump into the lives of families around the world here. Thanks for visiting. Leave me a note from your corner of the world.
