LLED 441 Assignment 3: Reflective Bibliography

Initially I thought I would organize my reflective bibliography as a journey through the modules. I would highlight one or two books that I found had insights or connections to the topic and comment on them. This ended up being too linear and I found it difficult to organize—sometimes a book seemed to fit into more than one topic. Sometimes a book did not fit into any category well but I wanted to include it anyway and found myself trying to get it to belong when it did not. After looking at the list I decided to organize this bibliography according to questions. The overriding question is from the Module 10 video by Linda Sue Park, “Can a children’s book change the world?” More specifically the questions that organize my bibliography are: 

Can a children’s book change the way people see themselves and each other?

One of the ideas that connected many of my choices was diversity. Many students do not see themselves in the canonical literature they are assigned to read. In her speech, “Books that are windows. Books that are doors” Patsy Aldana (2008) asks that we consider, “what is the long term effect on a child of a steady diet of books from which he is totally absent or present but falsely depicted?” How can students feel that they are valued in society if they are not represented? Rudine Sims Bishop’s (1990) metaphor, that books are sometimes windows, through which we see others, sometimes mirrors, reflecting ourselves, and sometimes doors, through which we can enter other realities, resonated with me.

I realized that many of the books on my list could be categorized into mirrors, doors and windows. Some books belonged in more than one category. I believe books that are diverse, help address the social justice issue of equity. Why should one culture be the only one represented? Culturally responsive texts are necessary. The books I’ve included in this category tell diverse stories. The Day War Came tells of one girl’s escape from war to a country where she faces challenges going to school. The children’s book, And Tango Makes Three provides a window into a family with two dads. The graphic novel, American Born Chinese illustrates the challenges of fitting in for a Chinese student who is the only Chinese person in the school. The YA science fiction novel Binti (the first in a trilogy) won both the 2015 Hugo and Nebula awards. It follows a Binti, a young woman, first of her people to be offered a place at the finest university in the galaxy. It is a time of war and Binti is the only one who is capable of ending it.

   

I included two additional resources with an indigenous focus, This Place: 150 Years Retold, and Jeremy Dutcher singing with the elders of his nation in the endangered Wolastoq language. This Place opens with a forward by Alicia Elliot that takes issue with the idea that only the history of victors is the history that should be written. These stories put Indigenous people and their stories of the past 150 years “front and centre on our own lands” (Elliot, 2019, v). The music of Jeremy Dutcher allows us to hear the recorded voices of elders speaking in a language that few currently speak.

         

The final book in this category is the YA book Belzhar, by Meg Wolitzer. It tells the story of 5 teens who end up a therapeutic boarding school after each suffers a traumatic event. This book shines—it reveals all the ways people fool themselves. Then it is masterful in showing what it takes for the characters to each face the truths of their lives. The ideas in these books and videos will influence the choices I make and possibly the collaborations I will work on during the school year.

Can a children’s book change the way we treat the planet?

In Module 7: Considerations: Fiction, Novels and the Young Adult Genre, I was influenced by the article by Beach on climate fiction. The article, “Literature and the Cli-Fi Imagination” starts off with an important question, “What will happen to the Earth and to human beings in a future shaped by global warming?” (Beach, 2017, 51).  I had never heard about climate fiction as a sub-genre of science fiction before. This article prompted me to reassess how I viewed other YA post-apocalyptic novel through a climate lens. Many YA texts are set in a post-apocalyptic world that suffers from a climate affected by a catastrophic event such as nuclear war. These books are scary but lack immediacy. The YA novel Dry, set in the California of the very near future, is scary for right now. In Manitoba and in many other provinces we are suffering some of the hottest summers on record. The idea that water could run out is something I think about every morning when I water the garden. I also included Shipbreaker on my list in this category. The descriptions of the storms that occur how the changed climate wreaks havoc on the people are frightening.  The book The Elders are Watching brings an Indigenous perspective to protection of the planet. People make mistakes and harm the planet. The Elders are angry, and it is time to hear their calls and save the land. Finally, in this section, I included the wordless picture book Belonging by Baker. In the authors’ note, Baker explains that people often think that land belongs to them. However, the book shows that “it is the other way around: we belong to the land. If we keep it healthy, it will sustain the web of life on which we depend” (Baker, 2004, Authors’ note). The urgency with which our planet needs help and the necessity of having students act in this regard is why addressing this question and getting people to take action to save the planet is so important. One way is to read about the problem. “Research on the impact of environmental literature suggests that cli-fi also can make a difference...The results indicated that reading one or more of these texts did predict increased awareness and propensity to take action” (Beach, 2017, 53).

                   

So then, can a children’s book change the world? According to Bishop, books can “help us to understand each other better by helping to change our attitudes towards difference. When there are enough bools available that can act as both mirrors an windows for all our children, they will see that we can celebrate both our differences and our similarities, because together they are what make us all human” (Bishop, 2019, paragraph 11).

After all this reading and learning, what is the focus for my professional development?  

In order to get students to read and to engage deeply with literature, I think it’s important to understand the ways constant access to information and entertainment have changed the brains of kids today. In the book, Reader Come Home, Maryanne Wolf (2018) examines how and why reading patterns are changing. She explores the struggles resulting because our students have constant access to feel good entertainment. This has sapped them of their desire to expend energy and time reading (75). 

A second professional development book on my list is 180 Days by Gallagher and Kittle. I agree with so many of the things they say in the book and with so many of the strategies they propose. “Unfortunately, too many adolescent readers suffer from an unhealthy school reading diet in which they fake or skim-read one whole-class novel, then another, then another. This agonizingly slow crawl through texts is continued month after month, year after year. Many give up believing that reading will not offer them anything except meaningless work” (Gallagher, 2018, 13).

A final professional development resource on my list is one recommended in the Course Resources: Maria Popova’s blob, BrainPickings. It is so rich in ideas, and books, and ideas about books that I am in awe. 

Bibliography

Aldana, P. (2008). Books that are windows, Books that are mirrors: How we can make sure that children see themselves in their books [Speech transcript]. Retrieved from http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=1008

Bacigalupi, P. (2010). Shipbreaker. New York, N. Y.: Little, Brown and Company.

Baker, J. (2004). Belonging. London: Walker Books Ltd.

Beach, R. et al. (2017). “Literature and the Cli-Fi imagination” in Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents (pp. 51-66). New York, NY: Routledge. DOI https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.4324/9781315276304

Bishop, R. (1990) The Ohio State University. "Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors" originally appeared in Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom (6)3.

Bouchard, D. and Vickers, R. H. (Illustrator). (2003). The elders are watching. Richmond, British Columbia: Raincoast Books.

Davis, N. & Cobb, R. (Illustrator) (2018).  The Day War Came. Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press.  

Dutcher, J. (March 4, 2018). Lintuwakon ‘ciw mehchinut. CBC Music. https://youtu.be/NnDJNoNVqGw

Elliot, A. (Editor). (2019). This place: 150 years retold. Winnipeg, Manitoba: HighWater Press.

Gallagher, K. and Kittle, P. (2018). 180 days: Two teachers and the quest to engage and empower adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Okorafor, N (2015).  Binti. New York, N. Y.: A Tom Doherty Associates Book.

Popova, M. BrainPickings (Blog). https://www.brainpickings.org/

Richardson, J. and Parnell, P. and Cole, H. (Illustrator). (2005). And Tango makes three. Toronto, Ontario: Simon & Shuster Books for Young Readers.

Shusterman, N. and Shusterman, J. (2018). Dry. New York: Simon & Shuster Children’s Publishing Division.

Wolf, M. (2018). Reader come home. New York, N. Y.: HarperCollins Publishers.

Wolitzer, M. (2014). Belzhar. New York, N. Y.: Dutton Books for Young Readers.

Yang, L. G. (2006). American born Chinese. New York, N. Y.: Square Fish, an imprint of MacMillan.