history – Peaceful Reader

My heroes

I don’t know the whole story of the stand-off between the young “Make America Great Again” hat wearing Catholic student, Jake Sandmann and Native American, Vietnam Vet Nathan Phillips or any of the other students involved but what I can recognize is a clear smirk on Jake’s face and his choice to stand as close as possible to Nathan, which to me is a sign of disrespect. He is attempting to stand down and act superior to the Native elder person in front of him. It’s just one more unbelievable moment in time showcasing how much work we have before us. It feels like it is a constant battle whether peacefully done or not. I bare witness to it in school when young people choose to leave the one black student to sit at a table on their own, or when head-scarfed young mothers have trouble fitting in to our school culture. Will it always be this way? I am one who is filled with an unbearable amount of hope and yet I wonder.

I have a few heroes that I look to when I wonder. How would Dr. King view our world today? Would Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, or Maya Angelou feel we’ve made positive strides compared to their early days or would they feel like I do that we are traveling back in time. I see a new slew of representatives in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamala Harris, Hodan Hossan (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MN); these are women who quite possible can make a change in government. Right now with our current administration we need ALL the help we can get and it’s more than just good representation. We need a mindset shift so the haters don’t get out of hand. Everything Dr. King tried so desperately to teach us had to do with the power of love. How am I carrying that torch? What are we doing as a nation to carry the torch? the first step would be to end the current administration, the entire lot. Or we could build a wall around the White House.

International Women's Day

The first International Women’s Day was celebrated on March 19, 1911.
This first event included meetings and organized events and was successful in
countries like Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland.
The March 19th date was chosen because it commemorated the day that the Prussian King promised to give women the right to vote. He didn’t follow through on his promise and the date was later changed to March 8th in 1913.

In some countries, this is a national holiday and government offices are closed as well as some businesses. It seems that as we continue to push for more equality in this country and around the world that this day would grow in importance. This year the theme is #PressforProgress which combined with the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns make it feel like we are getting closer to gender equality.

There are no major events that I know of celebrating this day in my small
area of Iowa so I plan to talk up and celebrate women’s achievements,
set up a book display showcasing strong female leaders and other achievers and celebrate me and other strong role models.

Check and see if your area features any cool
events, International Women’s Day site And read this excellent article from
The Times entitled The New Vanguard that highlights women writers in this century who’ve helped to change and reconstruct our thinking. The first book on the list is

Chimamanda Adichie’s novel Americanah-one of my favorite inspiring reads.

Happy International Women’s Day 2018! I hope this year will truly be a year of spectacular change for humans for as we lift ourselves up men can only become more self-aware.

Post note: Man-what a day to have weird formatting issues.
I had one 1/2 of another blog post disappear and now this one doesn’t want to make correct paragraphs.
Oh, how I wish blogger saved like a google doc.

October books

I read two excellent books this month; Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and LaRose by Louise Erdrich. Both are family sagas retelling the stories of several generations.

Homegoing traces two half-sisters born into two different villages at a difficult time in Ghana’s history. Tribes are busy waging war against each other and collecting slaves to make money and win favor from the white Europeans.

Effia is forced to marry an Englishman and goes to live in the Cape Coast Castle. The marriage is a business deal arranged by Effia’s mother to bring fortune to the village and to push her daughter away from the village and her intended husband, the chief Abeeku so that she may have a more profitable life.

Abeeku stood up so that he was facing her. He ran his fingers along the full landscape of her face, the hills of her cheeks, the caves of her nostrils. “A more beautiful woman has never been born,” he said finally. He turned to Baaba. “But I see that you are right. If the white man wants her, he may have her. All the better for the village.” (15)

Effia’s half sister Esi is also promised in marriage to a man in her village. Her father is is a brave warrior, a Big Man, and she’s grown up in being adored by her family and community. One night warriors come to her village and she is told to run into the woods where she sits in a tree but is still found and with pelting rocks hitting her she falls to the ground.

She was tied to others; how many, she didn’t know. She didn’t see anyone from her compound. Not her stepmothers or half siblings. Not her mother. the rope around her wrists held her palms out in supplication. Esi studied the lines on those palms. They led nowhere. She had never felt so hopeless in her life. (43)

And thus both sisters’ fortunes are changed even as both are sold as product. Esi is chained up in the basement dungeon of Cape Coast Castle while her sister lives above. Eventually Esi is shipped off to work the American slave trade. Each chapter relays the tale of a descendent of each sister and in this way you are awarded this amazingly rich historical yet very personal account.

The New Yorker review (I liked it more than they liked it but it does a beautiful job of describing the era)

In LaRose Louise Erdrich gives the reader many parallels to Homegoing’s history. American English did their best to negate both cultures. LaRose, told mostly through the present, tells the story of Landreaux and Emmeline’s grief after a tragic accident kills their friend and neighbor’s son, Dusty. Through back and forth chapters we understand the depth of the grief felt by both couples and through side stories Erdrich interjects the history of Emmeline’s family and how tragedy and wisdom often walk together. The characters Erdrich brings to life are interesting and multidimensional.

Outside the circle of warmth, the snow squeaked and the stars pulsed in the impenetrable heavens. The girl sat between them, not drinking. She thought her own burdensome thought. From time to time, both of the men looked at her profile in the firelight. her dirty face was brushed with raw gold. As the wine was drunk, the bread was baked. Reverently, they removed the loaves and put them, hot, inside their coats. The girl opened her blanket to accept a loaf from Wolfred. As he gave it to her, he realized that her dress was torn down the middle. He looked into her eyes and her eyes slid to Mackinnon. The she ducked her head and held the dress together with her elbow while she accepted the loaf. (99)

Both novels illustrate the simple fact that women have been battling men for centuries. How brave and bold it is that we hope to raise our children to accept a different norm. I know I expect my daughter to be strong and resourceful and I expect my son to treat all women with due respect.

We read LaRose for book club this month and I celebrated by making this Wild Rice Salad. It was delicious and I would make it again. I’ll read anything with Erdrich’s name on it-I love her young reader’s Birchbark House series-and read it with my school book club every year. One of my life goals is to read all of Erdrich’s stories and to make it to her Minneapolis book store.

New York Times review for LaRose.

Happy October!!

29 days of book love…

Finding Fortune

Delia Ray

2015

An almost ghost town mixed with the long gone button factories that lived along the Mississippi River and you have just two parts of Delia Ray’s new story for elementary and middle school students.

12-year-old Ren is fascinated by the old school in the almost empty next town over curiously named Fortune. An older woman is fixing up the school as a boarding house and a button museum and Ren gets mixed up with their stories instead of her own.

Her dad, serving in Afghanistan, will be home soon and Ren feels like her mother needs to be more excited about his upcoming arrival. Her older sister is busy working and dating a French foreign exchange student. It’s easy for Ren to find life a little more thrilling with Hugh, Hildy, Mime, and the rest of the museum characters.

Mystery and intrigue-perfect for kids wanting just a bit of a scare.

29 days of book love…

A classic collection of poems by a master of American verse

Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

This book contains a selection of the poems of Langston Hughes chosen by himself from his earlier volumes.

I bought this book years ago while I was student teaching. I used it to teach at a difficult high school with struggling students. Some of the students got into Langston, some of them were bored, and one student fell in LOVE. He’d never heard of Langston and was amazed-truly-to discover a black artist with such talent. It was a good moment for me as a young teacher to see the light shine in his eyes.

Harlem Night Song

Come,

Let us roam the night together

Singing.

I Love you.

Across

the Harlem roof-tops

Moon is shining.

Night sky is blue.

Stars are great drops

of golden dew.

Down the street

A band is playing.

I love you.

Come,

Let us roam the night together

Singing.

I think he has an interesting eye, poetic sarcasm, and the ability to say it like it is but in beautiful verse.

Democracy

Democracy will not come

Today, this year

Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

To stand

On my own two feet

And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course.

Tomorrow is another day.

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Freedom

Is a strong seed

Planted

In great need.

I live here, too.

I want freedom

Just as you.

Sadly Langston’s poems still resonate today as relevant not historical. We need to consistently be working on the racism that prevails in our country. Today. Now. We can’t wait for future generations, we can’t let more young black men or women die just because of the color of their skin.

His poetry is powerful stuff. This is the book I pick up when I need some inspiration.

29 days of book love…

This book has been a favorite of mine for years. An organization in Little Rock gave me a copy to use at my library there and I fell in love with this special biography about Henry Brown.

He story begins:

“Henry Brown wasn’t sure how old he was, Henry was a slave. And slaves weren’t allowed to know their birthdays.” This intrigues kids right away because they want to know why? I answer honestly that it kept them “less than human” to the slaveholders.

Very quickly we learn that Henry’s master is dying and instead of freeing him on his deathbed he “gives” Henry to his son. He is still young and yet is torn from his mother and family. His new master owns a factory and Henry works there steadily but unhappily. Eventually in town he meets another slave named Nancy and they fall in love and get permission to marry. They have a few children and life seems good enough until Nancy’s master sells her and the children away from Henry.

He spends many weeks mourning his family and then he makes a decision. He will do what he can to be free. His plan…he sends himself to freedom in a box (a large wooden crate). Henry in the box takes a pretty incredible journey north. Thus proving people enslaved will go to great lengths to experience freedom.

The watercolor illustrations by the fabulous Kadir Nelson are beautifully done. Thanks to Ellen Levine for bringing this story to young readers.

Celebrating Eleanor Roosevelt on International Women's Day

It’s wonderful to have a day to celebrate women and won’t it be great when we can celebrate accomplishments like equal pay. It seems crazy to me that this is still an issue. Why don’t women get paid more when we DO more? It’s not enough that we hold down full-time jobs and do them amazingly and then go home and throw together a healthy dinner that appeals to all members of the the family. My family. It’s not easy. We have to worry about sick kids, paying bills, staying safe, and making people happy.

It’s a lot to accomplish.

Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my female heroes, is someone who accomplished a lot and was always a beacon for women’s issues. She was born in NYC, the niece of Theodore Roosevelt, who lost both of her parent’s at a young age. She was sent to England for schooling and it seemed to cure her shyness. She married her distant cousin Franklin and they had six children. She was a busy housewife but she made time during WWI to work for the Red Cross.

Franklin contracted polio in 1921 and Eleanor stepped up and assisted him with his political career. She changed the role of First Lady as she fully involved herself in press conferences, spoke out for human rights, women’s issues, and children’s causes. She had her own newspaper column and worked with The League of Women Voter’s. All through Franklin’s presidency she worked for change. Upon her husband’s death she said she was done but went on to work for the United Nations. She helped to craft the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which she considered to be her greatest achievement. She died of cancer in 1962-the year I was born.

We’ve had amazing advocates like Eleanor so what’s the hold-up on women’s issues? My answer is too many men making laws/rules.

Women's History Month

We still have a few days left in March to celebrate the powerful women that came before us, clearing the way for equal rights (someday we’ll truly get there) because we have come so far. Groovy Girl and I have been reading Lives of Extraordinary Women; Rulers and Rebels (and what the neighbors thought) by Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt.

Krull’s introduction begins “Not all governments have been run by men. Here, in chronological order, are twenty women who wielded political power, as queens, warriors, prime ministers, revolutionary leaders, Indian chiefs, first ladies, or other government officials.”

The first person in the book is Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, and I have to say I thought I knew about Cleopatra but there was much to be revealed in her three page spread. Her family loved ruling Egypt so much that they intermarried each other to keep it in the family. She was forced to marry her 10-year-old brother and she dealt with it by ignoring him, like a normal older sibling, really! She traveled extensively and often looted foreign libraries for their papyrus rolls so she could add to her own library. She loved to spend time in her library (of stolen materials…) and may have even written a volume on cosmetics. In the end she killed herself by letting a snake bite her. I don’t think she is someone to look up to exactly but she did lead an interesting life and she tried to be nice to ordinary Egyptians.

Eleanor of Aquitaine is the second ruler in this volume and she was queen of both France and England. Her father died when she was 15 but he had taught her much during her short life. She understood what it took to be powerful, she could read and write, and she was worth a lot of money at that time because of her land holdings. She married Louis VII, the King of France, later divorced him because he was boring. Later she married Henry who later became Henry the II, King of England. They had 8 children together and when she was fed up with Henry’s affairs she moved out and established her own court across town where they made fun of men! Henry eventually had her committed to a convent and after his death she was released.

This book is easy to read, has about three pages per extraordinary woman, and has lots of fun comments in the text. Check out Kathleen Krull’s website.

As a March activity in the library we hung a picture quiz for students to identify famous American women. See how you do…

This is just a select few but not many of our elementary students know these choices. The two they do know is Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, a victory for modern women.

Fifty Cents and a Dream; Young Booker T. Washington

I love books. Most books. This biography of Booker T. Washington is informative and beautifull. I’m so happy we have such a variety of biographies available to us now like Doreen Rappaport’s series. Strangely many low end readers though will still choose classic style biographies over picture book choices. Older versions are less complex, they have time lines in the back that give easy information so don’t get rid of the old; just make room for the new.

Picture book style biographies thrill me though. I love reading them outloud to a class. The words vibrate and the phenomenal illustrations bring this person’s life…to life!

Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington by Jabari Asim; illustrated by the amazing Bryan Collier is a a well-told tale of Washington’s early life as he went from slavery to a college-educated young man. I’ve read other versions about him and this one gave me more details about Washington’s life. I had no idea he walked 500 miles from where his family lived to get to Hampton Institute where he was able to study as a young man.

Excerpt:

“His money had run out
by the time he reached Richmond,
about eighty-two miles from Hampton.
He was so tired and hungry
that he could barely take another step.
The big city seemed scary and confusing.
So many shadows, and not a friend in sight! (21)

He keeps moving forward by getting a job to earn enough to eat and continue his journey. This book conveys Washington’s strong desire for education and his willingness to push himself to learn the alphabet, read, and go to school. He envisioned more for his life than what his parents had. It is hard to teach that willingness to throw yourself into education and I wish somehow I could time travel with (quite) a few select students back in time so they could see the reality of how special their public education is. No matter your color education is a priveledge previously only afforded to the wealthy and then mostly only males. While there is much reform that could be done to our educational system it is still a blessing to live in a world that educates all children.

Bryan Collier’s illustrations are explained in the back as images on watercolor and collage on paper. He added many fine details like as he begins his journey Washington wears a shirt made of map paper and bubbles float on many pages detailing Washington’s dreams.

Thankfully we have books like this to allow for deeper understanding of a great man’s life. We should know more than just the bare facts. Thank you to Little, Brown and Company for my review copy. While they provided me with a copy of the book; this review shares my own thoughts and I was in no way paid for my words. The book stands on it’s own and I highly recommend it for all readers and collections.

Click to CBC Diversity for an excellent review and
Publisher’s Weekly review.
Reading Rockets has a wonderful video of Bryan Collier to watch.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac

Code Talker

Joseph Bruchac

2005

224 pages

Kii Yazhi is six years old when he is taken from his mother, from his land to go to boarding school governed by the United States. His uncle drives him there in a wagon and gives him this advice:

Little Boy, he said, Sister’s first son, listen to me. You are not going to school for yourself. You are doing this for your family. To learn the ways of the bilagaanaa, the white people, is a good thing. Our Navajo language is sacred and beautiful. Yet all the laws of the United States, those laws that we now have to live by, they are in English. (8)

Boarding school takes away their beautiful Navajo clothes, their symbolic long hair, their language, and even their names. Kii Yazhi becomes Ned Begay. His school journey begins and ends with disrespectful and mean teachers yet he survives and does well. He chooses to follow the rules and gets sent on to secondary school. He is 16 when war breaks out and he wants to enlist but waits until the next year with his parent’s permission. The U.S. Marines have a special use for Navajo enlistees and he is able to be specially trained to send codes using the exact language he had been beaten for using at boarding school; a wonderful twist!

The story is told from Begay’s memory as he shares with his grandchildren. Ned’s journey shares such an overlooked part of history; one that I knew about but only on the barest surface. Bruchac inserts such wisdom among the awful horrors of boarding school and the war.

You know, grandchildren, for a long time even after the war, it was hard for me to have any good thoughts about the Japanese. What troubled me the most was the way they treated the native people of the islands they conquered. They believed only Japanese were real humans. Anyone else could be treated like a dog. Never forget, grandchildren, that we must always see all other people as human beings, worthy of respect. We must never forget, as the Japanese forgot, that all life is holy. (148)

This is great historical non-fiction and I plan to use it this year with a boy’s book club. They will love the war element and I will love that they are looking at it from a different angle.