The following are some of our favorites:
#1. All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon
This book is fantastic! It follows a mixed race brother and sister (white mom and black dad) as they learn connections to nature, their own bodies, buildings, animals, food and finally families. "Everything you hear, smell, see. All the world is everything. Everything is you and me. Hope and peace and love and trust... All the world is all of us." It's simply written and Eva likes the flow; she's a fan of any book where she can guess the next word that's coming, because then she feels as though she's actively reading to me :-)
#2. The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes
You really can't go wrong with Langston Hughes. This book is beautifully illustrated along with Hughes' famous poem. It pays tribute to the fact that the very first people on this earth were African and that they have persevered ever since.
#3. Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Weatherford
This book is a little on the long side for Eva but it's so wonderful. It gives a Biblical twist on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad (i.e. Moses leading his people out of Egypt and Harriet leading slaves out of the South) and I don't know if it's from church or Sunday School but Eva loves books about God lately. Reading this book spins her off into long blab sessions about God and Jesus and God and God... and then more about God. It's pretty sweet. "And then God helped them because God doesn't like the mean guys or the mean girls." Sounds about right to me!
#4. Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptol
The day has finally come. I was walking through the library and I saw this book and the memory of kindergartner me walking through the library and seeing this book came rushing back. I remember the exact day I first saw this book and now, as a mother, I am reading it to my child. And to me, this book is different than the many other classics, such as Corduroy, that I also read as a child as they had been around long before me. This book was published in 1987, the year before I started kindergarten, so it has a very special place in my heart. It's an African version of Cinderella, but in it both sisters are beautiful on the outside. One sister is good and kind and the other cruel. In the end the prince, who had disguised himself as a poor hungry boy, marries the sister who stopped to give him food. It's a great tale of inner beauty being more important than outer beauty and Eva again says super deep things like, "I don't like her cuz her was mean to the little boy and her should share." (we're working on pronouns!)
Note: I know some people complain that we don't have a White History Month, yet to them I'd say every single day of every other month is White History Month. History is written by the victors and whites- both in America and abroad- have been, without question, the victors of every conflict in modern history. To be white in America is to not have to think about. The least we can do for our friends, family, co-workers and neighbors of color is to openly acknowledge the unequal burdens they have endured and work to remind ourselves and our children of the wonderful, world-changing, peaceful and beautiful things black people have done for this country.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~ Maya Angelou
“Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
~ Maya Angelou
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