The Everyone Book

'If you can make people laugh, you can tell them anything...comedy cuts deeper', says Rushdie.

Here is Salman Rushdie talking with Mitchell Kaplan about his new book Quichotte. Towards the end of his fascinating, meandering chat where he reveals some of his inspiration for his novel and the multiple threads that intertwine in it, he comes up with the term an 'everything book'. Sounds like a just blog title! I like the wittiness and all the depth it encompasses. He confesses that that's the book he has been trying to write all his life.
In fact, an everything book, in my mind, reflects and tries to showcase or speak to as much of reality as possible. Maybe instead of diversity books, we can have the 'everyone book' ;)!

Sycamore Wings

Shake me empty
the bowels overflow
 a river of tears,
rage pushed in a vortex.
I long to be free.
Shake me still,
then let me be,
blinding words infested wounds,
navigate my head
piercing blue light
inhale exhale a smile
rage swimming forth
breathing hard
out of breath
echoing void


Jekyll hydes waiting for the kill
looking through the glass pane
nobody knows he is there
just an angel with a spear
open arms smiling clear

but the see-through rage cannot cover up
the smears
of the authorities
the ondulating fence
of barbed wire,
of splintered wood,
of mossy insignificance
longing for respite
pierce the fear,
 it's empty, you see

Perch on that perfect sycamore seed,
grip the fragile blades,
ignore the greed
tumble dizzily
safe landing mission completed

wait for new buds to sprout,
bring out the talking cricket
and the rhino
the roots hold down and push
OUT
this magical being
levitating
and the air still stinks

'All of us look alike to white people', Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

'I think we need to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable', says Adichie

An extract from the novel Americanah, which offers a pointed analysis of race and being Black in America:

'At the checkout, the blonde cashier asked- 'Did anybody help you?'
Yes, Ginika said
Chelcy or Jennifer?
'I'm sorry. I don't remember her name'-
'Was it the one with long hair?', the cashier asked
'Well, both of them had long hair'
'the one with dark hair?'
Both of them had dark hair.
... Ifemelu said, 'I was waiting for her to ask, 'Was it the one with two eyes or the one with two legs?'
'Why didn't she just ask - was it the Black girl or the White girl?'
...'Because this is America. You're supposed to pretend that you don't notice certain things' (Extract from pg. 126-7, Americanah by Chimamanda N. Adichie)


We are caught up and preoccupied and tied up with words. Words hurt or twist or veil reality, descriptions define and encase, reinforce or subvert; words bring people closer or create a chasm between them. This is the danger of being politically correct - our mentalities do not change, prejudices aren't adequately addressed, discriminations are swept under the carpet and we try to hide the obvious because we don't want to or are not ready or cannot face lived and living history.

'Identity is something one always negotiates, but it's also often something external', notes Adichie.
'To read literature is to become alive in a body that is not your own', she adds in her chat with The Economist's Sacha Nauta.
'In talking about diversity, we have to make room for discomfort', she underlines in the same chat.


Americanah caught my attention for several reasons:

Its refreshing insight into slices of Nigeria, USA and to a lesser degree, England; the young, educated mobile characters trying to pave a path for themselves in the midst of uncertainty, capitalist wrecklessness and oscillating fortunes

The desolating hypocrisies of race in the US and all the nuances of being Black there; the identity crisis of non-American Blacks and how they fare in their adopted society.

The humorous yet revealing layers of changing accents and situating oneself - the fluid, flowing, fragile identities and the awakening of a grounded, confident self after much self contemplation

The trials of an immigrant, both legal and undocumented; the slow dehumanising process, the steady ascent, the travails of everyday life, the small pleasures and the lucky/unlucky outcomes.

All the different female profiles it provides - of women both defeated and triumphant, subservient and empowered, fighting to stay human, to stay beautiful, to become independent.

                                                                    ***

And in the spirit of this blog, which focuses so much on (the lack of) positive figures for non-White children in (mostly) German picture books, it is worth quoting Adichie's non-fiction book, Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. It's a response to how you can make your daughter a feminist, asked by one of her friends. Some of her answers extend beyond creating a 'feminist' child. They are 'suggestions' for creating a whole individual, confident in her skin, unafraid to stand out because she may have a different opinion, taste and yes, skin colour - 

Be a full person; motherhood should not define you as a person, as important and precious as it is; Rejecting likability, your job is not to make yourself liked but to be your FULL SELF, 'a self that is honest and aware of the equal humanity of other people'; 

Teaching difference and making it ordinary and normal, teaching without attaching value to difference.

These 'suggestions' are not only for our kids of course. If we keep them in mind, the glasses we wear and through which we see the world, will suddenly make us see, not only ourselves, but others with a different clarity and light.

The Paper Dolls - Creativity at its Best!

Julia Donaldson's imaginative story in The Paper Dolls (illustration Rebecca Cobb) reaches out to the young and old.



You Tube Reading by Little Loves Library

'They were Ticky and Tacky and Jackie the Backie and Jim with two noses and Jo with the bow'.

'You can't catch us. Oh no no no!
We're holding hands and we won't let go.'

A beautiful tale of a little girl who makes five paper dolls with her mum and takes them on many adventures until they are snipped by a little boy. The paper dolls do not disappear, however, and the girl turns into a woman and a mother, who passes on the gift of play and creativity to her own daughter,

The illustrations are immediate, fantastical and flow wonderfully with the simplicity and magic of the text.

Why I like this story:

The repetitive, catchy 'chorus' is musical and melodic
The story is an opener for creative, simple games with kids
The book pays hommage to a child's imagination
There is strength in togetherness, there is power in a child's imagination!
The story can also be used to accompany a child suffering from loss or trauma (nothing is lost forever; using your memory to store and keep precious things long after they have gone).

Afrocentric Nursery School in Brooklyn - Counteracting White Education and Fostering Self Representation

Afrocentric Nursery School - Starting with a Positive Self Representation

'It's because we are a suffering people', says Founder Fela Barclift

We are not afraid of using the word race, says Barclift
Her curriculum's focus is on empowering ethnic minorities
Children of all races can attend the school
The school has been criticised for creating separation over integration.
How does the founder respond? - If people agree that such schools are okay, she says, 'that means there has to be a conversation about why it is okay, why is it needed?, why do we have something like this..instead of being able to all be together?''

A bold initiative to give tools to young children to build their self esteem and look in the mirror and be able to see and love themselves. Here in Cologne, nursery school girls who are dark-skinned are already wishing they had blond hair and blue eyes and are being told they are ugly. Blond hair and pink skin are more beautiful, my 4 year old daughter tells me. Another dark-skinned mother was told her skin was the colour of shit by a preschooler. These are real examples to drive home the point - there is a problem with the education system when children are allowed to play games like 'who is afraid of the Black Man?`, and when children in nursery schools cannot find positive representations of themselves.
If we are to begin the debate on integration, then this is a good place to start - introducing interculturality at the youngest levels, having trained, mixed staff who are conscious of discrimination and having libraries and professionals who can guide the staff and children about living and loving their diversity. There are many manuals and single initiatives in the different states and they are all laudable but there has to be a collective effort that trickles down to the nursery and primary schools and reaches the children most in need of it.

Do we also need ethnic-empowering schools in Germany? I believe everyone stands to benefit from such initiatives until the standard curriculum changes to include real diversity.

Being Bullied because you are dark-skinned

Aminah gehört zu uns (Aminah is part of us). Petra Mönter und Susanne Maier

published in 2017

The problem I see in this book is that the prejudice against dark-skinned children isn’t properly tackled; the girl Aminah is left with no tools to speak out or defend herself – instead, all the ‘white, normal’ kids from her class decide to protect her from the older kids, without letting her stand on her own. Indeed, she belongs to them and they have appropriated her voice. 
As I read somewhere in a racism in children's books manual (Reference: Sprache-Macht-Rassismus. Dokumentation der Fachtagung vom 22. Oktober 2014; Diakonie, Düsseldorf), this book should come with the subtitle - 'for whites only', since it is indeed a book by 'Whites' for 'whites'. It has nothing to do with giving non-Whites more representation or humanising them, but simply instilling in the supposedly all-White readership the need to be tolerant to difference, even though that difference may be shocking, pitiable or simply, unpleasant. Let’s take a closer look at the plot:

Henri and the blond, blue-eyed protagonist, Ida enter their classroom after the summer break and is speechless (‘verblüfft’) when they see a new child there – ‘die Neue sah einfach anders aus, als wir es gewöhnt waren. Sie hatte sehr dunkle Haut’ (the newcomer looked quite different from what we were used to. Her skin was very dark). She is asked very slowly what her name is, to which she replies -  ‘I am not stupid, you can speak normal to me!’ Aminah was born in Syria (never mind most people in Syria are fair-skinned!) and moved to Germany with her parents. The other kids enter the class and they are all illustrated in a state of shock, whispering or simply startled. 

Later at the playground, a group of older kids start heckling Aminah – we learn that this gang of three were accustomed to harassing the foreigners (read dark-skinned children) (die ausländischen Kinder) at school: ‘Wie siehst du denn aus?..bist du in einem Farbtopf gefallen?’ Aminah is furious when they make fun of her skin colour but a lot of the kids snigger. Henri and Ida take Aminah back to class. Later at the playground, the bullying trio are back and this time, their actions are more aggressive – ‘Ausländer haben hier nichts zu suchen’ and they run away with Aminah’s jacket. Aminah starts crying while her ‘friends’ stand helplessly by.

The following day Aminah is absent. Henri thinks Aminah is afraid to come to school alone. They gather everyone from their class together and try to find a way to help. The class prefect says they need to stick together and so, they devise a plan. The next morning, they pick Aminah up from her house. ‘We are going to pick you up every morning from now on’, says Henri. Aminah is never given the chance to face the older kids and defend herself. Later in the city, it’s Henri and Ida, the protagonists who meet the older girl from the gang and confront her with her racism – Lea is planning to go to Kenia and Henri mockingly notes that there, all the people are dark-skinned, hopefully they won’t be so mean to her as she was to Aminah. Does this change Lea’s thinking and behaviour? Does she apologise to Aminah? Is Aminah still a victim of their bullying?

Lea and her gang return the next day and are waiting to taunt Aminah. But they are in for a surprise - all the kids from Aminah’s class circle the three – Henri and Ida have their hands around a scared Aminah. Now the class speaks up for a silent, helpless Aminah – ‘Lasst unsere Freundin in Ruhe…sonst kriegt ihr es mit uns zu tun’. More and more kids join in to walk Aminah home and pick Aminah up on mornings -  ‘Aminah gehört zu uns. Wer sie wegen ihrer Hautfarbe ärgert, kriegt es mit uns zu tun.`‘ (Aminah is a part of us. Whoever annoys her because of her skin colour has to go through us). Aminah’s voice is effectively usurped, her body and colour absorbed by all the whiteness surrounding her. The daunting question is – what happens when the trio finds her alone?

This is no triumphant book against xenophobia. In fact, I would argue it reinforces xenophobic feelings through the following:

Aminah is singled out and deemed strange and undesirable simply because of her skin colour

What is the norm in the classroom in Germany? – white kids, full stop.

The white normal kids take up Aminah’s conflict and make it their own without dealing with the real problem – racism.
Aminah’s voice is nonexistent. There is no interaction or confrontation with her and the kids. She remains an ostracised secondary character who has to depend on the normal, white kids to be and feel safe.

As already mentioned in previous posts, it’s also disturbing to see how many books point to the child’s skin colour as an automatic sign of strangeness, not belonging, not being able to speak the German language etc. That darker-skinned persons continue to create such a stir and scandal in children’s books is not only very distressing but very worrying about the (self)representation that ‘Germany’ chooses for itself. It’s impossible to begin to open up the discussion about integration and what constitutes the national culture when everything that is non-white gets branded as foreign, strange and undesirable.

When Foreignness is synonymous with being Black, Turkish or Muslim

Welche Farbe hat die Freundschaft? by Ursel Scheffler und Jan Lieffering (2005, republished in 2018)

2005 Edition:

Republished in 2018 with a reader’s guide:

Max ist the main protagonist in this Kindergarten story. Through his eyes and his interaction with the other kids and especially the ‘foreign ones’, we encounter difference and how it is dealt with at this early age. Two kids especially stand out – Mira from Turkey and Joschua from Africa (it’s obviously not important to state his country; the Continent is enough to place him!). They are physically much darker than the other kids. Mira initially stood out because of her inability to speak German, while for Joschua, it was his skin colour. Mira is now well integrated in the kindergarten, in fact her German is a little better than Max’s, jokes the narrator. Later, the reader gets an insider look at Mira’s home when Max visits her one afternoon. Here, we are offered a crash course on Islam – we learn about the mosque, fasting (Ramadan) and Eid, about the Quran, praying etc. When Max is picked up by his father, he notes that each person is quite different from the other. In other words, the protagonist Max is now comfortable with Mira’s difference which doesn’t seem so strange or intimidating any more, whereas his own difference is left untouched. The Other is seen through the lens of the white ‘German’ child while the one doing the ‘Othering’ remains hegemonic.

There is a seemingly interesting exercise inserted in the book with the following message – we are all different and that is what makes us special: People in different countries are different and even here at home, we are all different. However, the message seems to get lost in the overarching paternalism and silencing of the Black voiceless character - only Joshua’s hands stick out at first, but then the kids realise that their fingerprints and the shapes of their hands are all different.

What is quite disturbing is the seemingly harmless but denigrating approach to children of a different skin colour – Joshua is asked if he can’t remove the dirt from his skin. Darkness is seen at once as frightening, very different and very foreign. Joschua seems to be part of the group but we hear nothing further about him and he isn’t given a voice – we just know he stands out in the Kasper puppet theatre game because of his darkness. Differences are not presented on an equal footing and this somehow reinforces biases.

‘What colour is friendship?` is meant to introduce children to diversity and different ‘skin colours’.

What is problematic about its approach? Difference focuses solely on being Black, Muslim or Turkish. These categories are othered and therefore, different from the German ‘WE’. The humanistic argument is – you are different and come from some other place, but we still accept you DESPITE how you may speak or look. The persistent association with difference and skin colour is detrimental to a society, both for its White and non-White kids. 

PS. The interesting reading project 'Book Towers'/büchertürme.de is the brainchild of the writer of this picture book, Ursel Scheffler.

Minority Characters in Picture Books - A Disheartening Representation

‘The Tied Shoe’ (‘Der Schuh ist zu’) from the collection Danke, Paulina! Geschicten vom Helfen, Trösten und Zusammenhalten by Achim Bröger and Betina Gotzen-Beek (with pedagogic support from Sandra Grimm)

Paulina and Lea are best friends in Kindergarten. Newcomer Ayse observes them some distance away on the swing. She avoids eye contact with the girls and is too shy to go over to them. Lea then announces – ‘Ich glaub, die spricht so komisch. Die kommt irgendwo aus der Türkei‘ (I think she speaks weird, she comes from some place in Turkey). Then there is a description of Ayse – Her skin colour is darker than the girls, she has black hair and dark eyes. Ayse is often silent and doesn’t play with anyone.

Paulina asks Ayse to join them much to Lea’s annoyance (‘she is strange’, she tells Paulina). Paulina helps Ayse tie her laces (that are loose) and Lea unties them again because she wants Ayse to learn for herself, even though Ayse has objected to this. After a few attempts, a glowing Ayse can now tie her shoelaces. ‘My mother always ties my shoes. Now I can finally do it myself. Thank you!’. To their surprise, both girls realise she speaks just like them. Ayse shares her sandwich with the girls and they all play at tying shoelaces. Her dark eyes sparkle.

Ayse is not yet integrated in the kindergarten (she is playing alone). Her speech, origin and appearance seem to be obstacles to making friends. Her skin, hair colour, dark eyes and silence are used in the text to make this minority figure stand out. In picture books and children’s literature, such images within a well-intentioned context (inclusion) do more harm than good for it reinforces in children’s minds the association between otherness and skin colour/language that is not German/migrant country, Turkey (in this case).

One might think – Even though Ayse DOES look different, the girls choose to include her in their games. Much to the girls’ astonishment, Ayse DOES speak like them. She is now part of the circle and integration has been achieved!

My argument – the dichotomy in German society is not questioned or subverted. Ayse is visibly different (DARK, OUTSIDER, FOREIGNER) because she isn’t one of US – she comes from a different (read strange and weird) place that is not featured in a positive light. There is acceptance but the ‘WE’ in German society still remains White (prefably blond and blue-eyed). With a good intention, the girls tie and untie Ayse’s shoes because THEY feel she needs to learn for herself. In the end, she is grateful – she is more independent thanks to their help. In return, Ayse offers them a piece of her sandwich – there is sharing, but an underlying paternalism where the ‘outsider’ needs to learn ‘OUR’ way in order to be part of ‘OUR’ group.

Such stories need to be opened up for discussion because of all the implicit biases they showcase. It’s not enough to have a happy ending; we need to shake up the inside and let non-white characters speak from this inside too. Are we ready for this or are fear and insecurity our barriers?

Confronting our Fear of Blackness

Black Dog by Levi Pinfold, recommended for ages 4 and up.

Pinfold has been praised and awarded for the illustrations in his book ‘Black Dog’. 'Black Dog' addresses the ingrained association between black and scary, black and evil, black and dangerous.

Here’s how the book starts – one day, a black dog comes to visit the Hope family. The father is the first to spot the black dog, he panics and calls the police at once. There is a black dog in front of my house, he is as big as a tiger, he exclaims. The police laughs and tells Mr Hope not to go out, before hanging up.

And the rest of the story adopts this witty pattern – each member spots the dog, panics and asks the others what they should do. Mr Hope advises Mrs Hope to turn the light off so the black dog (as big as an elephant) won’t know they are there. The parents advise Adeline Hope to pull the curtains so the black dog (now as big as Tyrannosaurus Rex) won’t see them. When Moritz Hope wakes up and spots the black dog (the size of a Big Jeffy), the others suggest they all hide under the covers.

Then, Small, the youngest member of the family, realising something is amiss, ventures out despite being warned about the Black Dog.

What Small encounters outside is a close-up of a black dog’s face, nostrils wide open, eyes fiery and bulging:

A game ensues between Small and the Black Dog – if you want to eat me, you first have to catch me, she calls out to the Black Dog, taunting him as she starts running. The dog becomes smaller and smaller with each of Small’s mocking chants, until she reaches back home and invites the dog to follow her in through the cat flap. By now, the Black Dog has shrunk to Small’s size. The Family is relieved to see Small and when asked about the Black Dog, she lifts the washing basket to reveal the small black creature. The anti-climactic end comes across as absurd – Mr Hope is the first to admit that now that he can properly see the Black Dog, it doesn’t look evil at all. The family acknowledges their silliness and praises Small for her courage. The SMALL black dog is no longer threatening.

I think my perspective would be different if all the characters in the book were black and the dog was white. Oops! But white is NEVER scary or evil, right? The idea of the book – creating a monster from our imagination and confronting it in order to overcome our fear – is indeed laudable. As it stands, I believe that the figure of the black dog (similar to Christine Nöstlinger’s Black Bogeyman) and all its connotations play into our prejudices about black being scary, evil and dangerous.

One might argue that the writer parodies people’s fear and association of black with evil and actually takes the reader through a process of questioning one’s prejudices, confronting them and recognising their absurdity.

The Black Dog must be tamed and domesticated before the White family can accept it and see that their fears were unwarranted. Even though the writer confronts the reader with her/his fear of Blackness, I was very uncomfortable with the first reading of this book and my immediate concern is that children and their malleable minds will simply absorb all the negative associations that make up more than three quarters of the book and miss the message that there is nothing to fear in Blackness, that the monsters and evil are simply in our heads and minds and imaginations.

For a more thorough reading of the book, see this post:https://www.slaphappylarry.com/picturebook-study-blackdog-by-levi-pinfold/

It's always astonishing to observe that for white writers, 'Black' rarely conjures up associations with skin colour or discrimination. It is just one of the many ressources they use to address a topic they want to focus on. But i think it's worth underlining its nefariousness and its ingrained tradition in literary and popular culture. We also need to address implicit biases if we want to foster respect and openness in our kids and societies.

Spectacularly Beautiful. A Refugee's Story. Recommended for Ages 3 and up

Story by Lisa Lucas, pictures by Laurie Stein

'I want you to draw a memory. But not any memory. This one has to come from the place you were born', says the teacher Ms. Truong.
This is a common activity to get kids to express different emotions and to also discuss trauma or talk about different realities and histories.

Spectacularly beautiful is about Shahad's drawing - a pile of broken bricks and crabby looking faces.
She explains that those bricks in her drawing made her eye 'look like this...and my leg...like this' (we see two small scratches)

The teacher points out what's perfect in Shahad and helps her to see that too - the braids in her perfectly combed hair, for example.
Then Shahad asks the teacher - Do you think I'm beautiful?, to which she replies, 'I think you are spectacularly beautiful'.

On the last day of school, Ms. Truong announces that over the summer, she will be teaching children in a country that has a few problems. They will remind her of the girls and boys she is saying goodbye to.

After the summer, Ms. Truong returns with a scar of her own and asks Shahad if she is beautiful. 'I think you are spectacularly beautiful', is her reply.

This is a 'refugee story' about overcoming pain and trauma. Children need to feel loved, welcomed and yes, beautiful and perfect, despite their inner and outer scars. And when we give them this love and offer them open arms, that's what we will receive in return  - grateful, confident beings who exude the same warmth and happiness they receive.

The use of different colours for the children and teacher (purple, blue, green etc) and real pictures of a school and classroom give the book and story a sense of truth and connection. The 'fantasy' colours of the people allow kids reading this book to openly talk about painful things or sad memories without identifying a single country, ethnicity or folk.

All of the children seem to have an immigrant background and the names aren't the names one is accustomed to reading in picture books (Tim, Lucy, John, Lena, Pete, etc) - they are Trivien, Tuyet, Tierney and Shahad. On the one hand, one might argue it 'others' the reality of the child refugee or immigrant and places her in a parallel reality/society. Nonetheless, the stories of the children, through their drawings, show that no matter where you are from or what your story is, children are all the same - they like playing outdoors, riding their bikes, they hate eating the same food every day and they are sad when their homes are destroyed.

All in all, a noteworthy book because it manages to broach a sensitive topic- war, fleeing, trauma, loss of childhood, migration and a new home - with simplicity and love. Children need to feel loved and welcomed and need to be told they are beautiful too. Nonetheless, the book offers a closed world of refugees in a parallel classroom with no or little contact with other native groups. I believe minds and hearts can only be changed with the interaction and incorporation of these kids in a broader context. This may at first seem a daunting task since the refugee child's needs are initially more demanding. However, children have shown enormous resilience and empathy if exposed to each other under fair circumstances. This allows for learning and healing and building empathy.

Another dubious aspect in this book is the socialisation of girls to think they need to be physically beautiful in order to be acknowledged or accepted. A female child refugee is thus doubly othered - for sticking out as both physically different and female. However, the general message of empathy and focusing on what is positive in each human being is not altogether lost.

'The Sweetest Song' and 'The Blue Coat' from the collection 'The Story Tree. Tales to Read Aloud'

The Sweetest Song is an African-American tale about a little girl who ventures out through the fence that her mama and papa have warned her about. She happily plucks her flowers moving further away with each one until she encounters the wolf, attracted by the sweetest, goodest song he has heard - Tray-bla, tray-bla, cum qua, kimo'. The little girl outsmarts the wolf through her sweet goodness, singing him her happy tune all the way back to her gate, where she is safe and sound once more.
Told with a beautiful cadence, sonorous repetition and a cunning simplicity, the tale invites you to defy the rules, confront challenges and assume responsibility for your actions.
The protagonist, known only as 'Little Daughter' is a happy carefree child who eagerly crosses over to the far side of the fence, attracted by all the bright, colourful flowers. Her mama and papa weren't watching and the flowers looked so tempting. She is undaunted by the appearance of the wolf who asks her to sing her sweetest, goodest song again. When the wolf closes its eyes, she tiptoes, tiptoes slowly back to the gate. This happens a few times till she manages to reach the gate and shut it, safe and sound from all the lurking dangers on the far side of the fence.

Why I Like This Story:

- It's pure music to the ears and lips with its repetition and build-up
- The girl is free in every sense of the word, she is a curious child who is determined to pluck those beautiful flowers that seem to be calling out to her despite her parents' warning not to cross the fence.
- Indeed, there are dangers lurking there and that's why her parents warned her about it
- There is no adult intervention or punishment in the story - the girl is not chastised for disobeying her parents.
- There is magic in music and song which have the power to see you through difficult situations
- You need to assume responsibility for the choices you make - the sooner you learn this, the better
- There is a happy ending - the girl can have her cake and eat it too! As they say, no risk, no fun (originally a German phrase from a candy company)!!!

The Blue Coat - a Jewish Story - also appears in the collection 'The Story Tree'

Turning a Coat into a Story - One day, a mother realises that her son, Tom, needs a coat. So she buys the material and sets to work, making him a beautiful blue coat. But with all the romping and through the seasons, the coat is all worn out and the mother sets to work, making a beautiful waistcoat from the beautiful blue coat. With more romping and frolicking through the seasons, the waistcoast is all worn out and the mother sets about to make a bow-tie from the pieces of the waistcoast. When this piece also becomes 'tattered and torn beyond all redemption', she sets about making him a button..and when this is all torn and broken, she is left with the story about the Blue Coat!

Why I Like This Story -

Its beauty lies in its simple repetitive layers, with a new simple addition (coat-waistcoat-bow-tie-button-story) each time
It's an ode to a mother's creativity and a son's joy at having something made with love and hard work
It's a story about up-cycling and re-using instead of dumping and accumulating.
It's also about the magic and power in story-telling and taking one object and following its transformative journey.
And finally, it's all about childhood and what makes children happy - not money, not having the latest brands, but having an object made and remade with love and being able to play freely in or with it.

A Normal PIG, Written and Illustrated by K-Fai Steele, Recommended for ages 4 to 8 years.

When is Normal Different? Normalising Difference:

Pip was a normal pig who did normal stuff. But at school, as the 'new pig' who visibly stands out (she has black dots on her pink skin), her (normal) lunch suddenly stinks and she is asked whether her mom (a grey pig) is her babysitter - 'Pip hadn't changed, but she started to feel different'.

At home, she whines about not having a 'normal' lunch for school. Then her mom has an idea - a city trip. There were so many languages there, all the pigs looked different, even the food was different.

She realised that what was weird for one pig was perfectly normal for another pig.

Back home, she is asked whether she wants a 'normal lunch' but she declines. 

At school, she sits at her usual place and when the other pigs protest about her weird lunch, she gathers up her courage and says - 'maybe it's weird for you, but not for me. I like my lunch...want to try it?' Some agree and they all dig in! 'And weirdly enough, by recess Pip felt pretty normal again'!

A book that takes a sensitive look at standing out for one reason or the other. What makes this book stand out is its starting point - Pip is a normal pig, although her 'normal' may be seen otherwise. Normal is relative and her parents lead her quietly through this process, not with words but with actions - in the city, there is another 'normal'. Pip the pig can now rethink how she feels about being singled out at school and how she wants to react to this. She takes responsibility for her feelings and stands up to the other kids; she is confident in her own skin and although her lunch may be different, she likes it!

Kids are very sensitive to being different from the rest and in this extremely formative phase in their development, it is well worth investing time in helping kids deal with differences and being comfortable in their own skin. A good book with lots of prompts to engage in a healthy discussion about anything from skin colour to food to languages and travel.

Struggling to stay diverse: If you want to diversify literature, diversify its gatekeepers

An extract from an essay by K-Fai Steele which looks at the huge obstacles for diversifying children's literature and the enormous burden of money:

One way we can talk about diversity as we all struggle, hustle, and pay a lot of money to get noticed by editors and agents, is to remember why diversity is a good thing. Chris Jackson, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the One World imprint at Random House described it masterfully in a piece he wrote for Literary Hub called “Diversity in Publishing” Doesn’t Exist—But Here’s How it Can:

“When we expand the range of the industry’s gatekeepers, we expand the range of our storytelling, which expands our ability to see each other, to talk and listen to each other, and to understand each other. It allows more people to see themselves represented in literature; and it allows the rest of us to listen in, to understand our neighbors and fellow citizens, their lives and concerns, their grievances and their beauty, their stories and ideas, their language. The empathic bridges this creates between us is one of the essential functions of literature in a democracy. But it can only happen if we widen the gates of literature and diversify the gatekeepers.””