Are you thinking of home schooling your child? Choosing to home school your child has its benefits and drawbacks. Some advantages to homeschooling your child include controlling what your child learns and what they are exposed to as well as having the ability to show your child that learning is exciting exciting by tailoring their experience to their interests and learning styles. When in an active public school environment teachers use a pace and method that will work for the majority of their students. A homeschooling parent can tailor lessons to their children’s needs, helping them to view learning as a stimulating activity.
What I’m Celebrating for Banned Books Week
I had an interesting discussion the other day. Let me just start off by saying that I feel pretty strongly anti-censorship and would never advocate the banning of books. But I was speaking with a friend about the second Twilight installment and how uncomfortable it made me. At the beginning, Vampire Edward leaves Bella, after which she spends a year putting herself in all kinds of danger just to bring him back. She actually comes close to killing herself so he’ll come back to her. That is not OK with me. I said to my friend, “I’m afraid that teen girls will look at Bella as a role model and see this as an ideal relationship,” and it seemed to me that this was a story that could do real damage to readers.
Benefits of Bilingual Books
It’s under debate whether or not raising a child bilingual is beneficial or confusing for the child. Choosing to raise your child in a bilingual environment can have benefits such as the child developing tolerance and more open ideas about other cultures, developing communication with a broader range of people, and more career opportunities available as an adult.
People who are bilingual develop the rare skill of processing information in two different languages. Globalization is increasing more and more every day therefore the children who are growing up bilingual will have a communication advantage over any person who only knows one language. Becoming bilingual is more than just learning to speak in another language, it is learning, understanding, and respecting another culture. Another benefit a child bilingual is that once one language is mastered it becomes that much easier to learn more languages.
This Week in Diversity: More Colorful
Happy Friday! We begin this week with some progress on the publishing front: lots of conversations going on right now among booksellers about how to sell multicultural titles, especially to white readers. Check out this great post by Elizabeth Bluemle as well as a discussion by the fine folks at Random House. It’s heartening to see so many different kinds of book people—publishers, booksellers, and readers—assuming responsibility and making it their mission to support diversity.
Video Thursday: Happy Birthday, Ray Charles
80 years ago today—September 23, 1930—Ray Charles was born, and over his 74 years of life he overcame segregation and blindness to become one of the most famous musicians in the country.
Hispanic Heritage Month: Reading Lists
It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, the only heritage month that is not contiguous with a calendar month! (It runs from September 15-October 15, because September 15 is the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and Mexico, Chile, and Belize also have independence days following September 15). That means it’s a great time to talk about favorite books featuring Hispanic/Latino characters!
Let’s see, picture books. I grew up on Tomie DePaula, so it’s no surprise that Adelita, his Mexican Cinderella, shows up on my list. And of our Latino books, I’m rather partial to Say Hola to Spanish, Under the Lemon Moon, and The Birthday Swap.
A YUMMY update
Just popping on the blog to share a little more good news: Yummy has received its fourth (yes, FOURTH!) star, from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books:
This Week in Diversity: Two Steps Forward, One Holding Back
September started last week, but at least in New York, it’s only today that it’s starting to feel like autumn. Even without the sudden burst of fall, September would bring two things to New York: Fashion Week and the new school year.
Fashion Week is taking us two steps forward, with a burst of prominent Asian American designers winning awards and recognition. This New York Times article traces a shift from a largely Jewish fashion industry to a largely Asian one, in each case spurred by immigrants who work in fashion “first as laborers, then as factory owners, manufacturers, retailers and, eventually, as designers.”
Two Books for Tu Books!
It’s official! Our new Tu Books imprint has acquired its first two books, which will be published in Fall 2011. Here’s the formal announcement:
Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has acquired the first novels for the Tu Books imprint, which launches in fall 2011. The imprint will focus on multicultural MG/YA science fiction and fantasy. For the launch list, Whitman has acquired World rights to a YA paranormal thriller tentatively titled Wolf Mark by Joseph Bruchac, author of Codetalker and Skeleton Man. When Lucas King’s black-ops father is kidnapped and his best friend, Meena, put in danger, Lucas’s only chance to save them is hidden away in an abandoned, monster-guarded mansion. The deal was done by Barbara Kouts of the Barbara S. Kouts Agency.
Video Thursday: Just Being Michael Jackson
From Colorlines, a moving video articulating what Michael Jackson meant to the African American community: