I\u2019m not sure if we can universally agree on this, but one of the best feelings for a librarian (if not THE best feeling) is finding that perfect book for someone. As a school librarian, I\u2019m always chasing this feeling for my students…but I\u2019m also chasing it for the classroom teachers in my school. A teacher will ask me, \u201cHey Laura, I\u2019m teaching a unit on neighborhoods – do you have any books you\u2019d recommend for me to share with my class?\u201d Or they\u2019ll ask if I can share the books myself during Library class to support the work they\u2019re doing throughout the day. It never fails to make my heart race excitedly when I know I\u2019ve found the best title to suit a lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
That happened recently when a class in my school was doing an \u201cAll About Me\u201d unit, which included discussion around hair and skin. This class was using various makeup foundations to mix colors and match their skin and the skin of their classmates (if you haven\u2019t tried this, I recommend it. The students loved matching the various skin colors. But be forewarned, it was shockingly messy!). When looking for book recommendations, I immediately tapped some of my \u201cusuals,\u201d like Don\u2019t Touch My Hair <\/em>by Sharee Miller and The Colors of Us<\/em> by Karen Katz, satisfied with my work. But then! But then! I went to my favorite local bookstore, Books of Wonder in New York City and discovered Brown: The Many Shades of Love<\/em> by Nancy Johnson James, illustrated by Constance Moore. It was PERFECT! The teachers were ecstatic – they also declared it \u201cperfect\u201d for the lesson – and I heard applause in my head and angels rejoicing! I kid, of course. But it did feel great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It got me thinking about books that fit in this \u201cAll About Me\u201d category of lesson plans in schools, as well as books featuring Black and Brown children and multiple identities. I recently had a kindergarten class in my school doing a unit around hair – different types of hair, how hair makes us feel, hair care, etc. I suggested Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut<\/em> by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James, Hair Love<\/em> by Matthew Cherry, illustrated by Vashti Harrison, and multiple other titles. The teacher created a lesson around comparing and contrasting Hair Love <\/em>with Crown<\/em>. How did the various characters feel about their hair? How do you think their hair will turn out in the end? What do you notice that is the same about the characters\u2019 hair? What do you notice that\u2019s different? It was such a rich discussion, and I just felt really excited about the literature becoming increasingly available to support learning in the classroom around our identities, diversity, and inclusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are some other recent titles that I love using around this work (including the ones mentioned above):<\/p>\n\n\n\n Posted on behalf of ALSC\u2019s School-Age Programs and Services Committee by Laura Lutz, Corlears School in New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This post addresses the following ALSC Core Competencies: II. Reference and User Services IV. Collection Knowledge and Management V. Outreach and Advocacy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m not sure if we can universally agree on this, but one of the best feelings for a librarian (if not THE best feeling) is finding that perfect book for someone. As a school librarian, I\u2019m always chasing this feeling for my students…but I\u2019m also chasing it for the classroom teachers in my school. A teacher will ask me, \u201cHey Laura, I\u2019m teaching a unit on neighborhoods – do you have any books you\u2019d recommend for me to share with my class?\u201d Or they\u2019ll ask if I can share the books myself during Library class to support the work they\u2019re doing throughout the day. It never fails to make my heart race excitedly when I know I\u2019ve found the best title to suit a lesson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[287,765,1614,1611,1606],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-school-age-programs-and-services-committee","category-collaboration","category-knowledge-curation-and-management-of-materials","category-outreach-and-advocacy","category-reference-and-user-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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