Shelf Representation

Two or three years ago I began a quest to find books that represent my student population for my classrooms. It came after reading the book, Year of the Dog by Grace Lin as a read aloud to my class. In this sweet book, a young girl walks us through her struggle of being one of the few Chinese American students in her school. Through her eyes, we learn what it is like not to see yourself or your culture represented in books, plays, or other printed works. It is even more amazing when you realize that "Grace" from the book, is Grace Lin as a child.

It got me thinking about the books on my own shelves. I work hard to have a wide variety of books, but was I doing enough? I set off on a quest to bring culture to my shelves and to my classroom. I thought I was doing pretty well.

I wanted to do more, so I roped another amazing teacher from my school, Julie Pham, who is also passionate about spotlighting culture, to help me start a new club. Together we set off on a year long journey of learning what works and what does not work. Nine months of books were picked that highlighted a different culture each month. The goal being to read books where the main character was around our students' age (10-11 year olds) that took place in the culture being spotlighted. Most were spot on and gave use a glimpse into the culture through the eyes of a child.

Their top three favorites for this year were:

When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

An amazing story of a young boy and his brother who are living in a refugee camp in Kenya. Bonus: it is a graphic novel

The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman

Another heart wrenching story of a girl and her special needs sister who find themselves living on the streets of India. Told in letter format, it hit our students hard and stayed with them.

Efren Divided by Ernesto Ciscneros

This one is told from the perspective of a boy whose mom was deported. Our students learned a lot about the Mexican culture, the importance of family, and not being quick to judge others.

Thanks to the Katy ISD Educational Foundation, we (Ms. Pham, Ms. Clark, Mrs. Flynt, and myself) were awarded a grant to continue Culture Club, now titled "T.R.I.P" for another year. Mrs. Flynt, Ms. Pham, and I began the search for culturally rich books that are set in other cultures. What we found is that most are very heavy in subject matter (like The Bridge Home and When Star are Scattered), which is important and relevant, please do not misunderstand where I am coming from. But what we are struggling to find are realistic fiction books that show that life is good and fun in other countries, just like in the United States. All the books that we came across for Europe and Asia for this age group are, for the most part, historical fiction and focus on a war. All the books that we found that take place in Africa focus on refugees or extreme poverty. Again, very powerful books that are stories that need to be told, but no joy.

Today, I found myself in a bookstore in Johannesburg, South Africa. What I found were all of the books I would find at home. The entire Artemis Fowl series (which, by the way, we read this year when we were focusing on Ireland), pretty much every book that James Patterson has ever written, The Lightning Thief series (in English and Afrikaans, and more. We even found three of the My Weird School books. After searching, I asked the clerk if they had any books by African authors or where the setting was in Africa. She had to think for a moment and then handed me the ones that met the criteria. I bought them all. Only 2 authors for middle readers (I would like to note, that there were several picture books and there were adult books, but still not many).

The first author, Wilbur Smith, a South African novelist had three books: Cloudburst, set in the Congo; Thunderbolt, where the characters are captured by Somali Pirates, and Shockwave, which is set in the Arctic (alright, I should have read the backs first, but it still has promise!)

The second author is Jaco Jacobs. This author is also from South Africa. Mr. Jacobs had two different series available.

- The Waldo series - from what I can gather these are fantasy books that are more on a 8-10 year old level. Not sure how much of the South African culture is in these books, but I like that Waldo's friend, who appears on all of the covers with him, is a girl in a wheel chair. It is about time that an author shows that disabilities do not have to stop us from being the heroes of the story!

-The Zack Attack and Zack is Back These look like they might be fantasy as well.

Nine books. Only 9 books set in the culture of the country that we are in. I am now on a quest to find fun, adventurous, middle reader books from around the world that show my kids back home that kids are kids no matter where you go.

Almost finished, promise, and thank you for staying with me this long. On one of the last days of school, I had a conversation with my class about my frustration in not being able to find books that take place in present day in other cultures. One of my students, who is from Egypt, asked what I was talking about. Here is how our conversation went:

"How many of the books that you have read this year are set in Egypt?"

"None" he replied.

"Don't you think there should be?" I asked.

He paused, and then replied, "Yeah, I do."

And then I asked him, "What are you going to do about it?"

Puzzled, he just looked at me.

"What have I taught you this year? If you see a problem, you have two choices: you can complain about it or you can do something about it. So what can you do to fix this problem?"

He smiled and said, "I could write a book!"

I then told him that when he publishes his book he needs to dedicate it to me and come read it to my class. I am going to hold him to it!

In case you are curious, here are the books I just mentioned:

I am continuing my quest! Please feel free to leave a comment if you have books that meet this criteria!