Hi Kid Lit friends,
There have been lots of ways the kid lit community has rallied against the recently rescinded policy of separating children – some as young as four months old – from families who cross the border of the United States seeking refuge. Last Sunday, people in cities all across the nation marched in support of keeping families together.
Sponsored by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic.
Raina Telgemeier’s #1 New York Times bestselling, Eisner Award-winning companion to Smile!
Raina can’t wait to be a big sister. But once Amara is born, things aren’t quite how she expected them to be. Amara is cute, but she’s also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself. Their relationship doesn’t improve much over the years, but when a baby brother enters the picture and later, something doesn’t seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along. They are sisters, after all.
Raina uses her signature humor and charm in both present-day narrative and perfectly placed flashbacks to tell the story of her relationship with her sister, which unfolds during the course of a road trip from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado.
The group Kid Lit Says No Kids In Cages began with about twenty kid lit authors and has grown to thousands of supporters. They desired to heighten awareness of the issue by raising funds that would be distributed to six organizations working with immigrant advocacy and legal representation. You can sign the pledge in support of their statement here, and donate here.
Raising Our Voices is another group that formed in response to government’s recently rescinded policy of separating the children of undocumented immigrants from their families. Audio producer Julie Burstein and Pippin Properties creative director Holly McGhee created a website and loaded images created by children’s book illustrators that could be downloaded for free. There are instructions on the website about how to print the images onto signs for marches. Recently, postcard images that can be printed out and mailed to children who are still separated from their parents have been added to the website.
Families Belong Together by Peter H. Reynolds:
Asylum by Erin Entrada Kelly:
Where Are The Children by Edel Rodriguez:
Falling by Yvette Fedorova:
Art by Jennifer K. Mann:
I know I listed some children’s books with immigration themes in the last newsletter, and here are those links in case you missed it, plus a few more lists:
New Children’s Books with Immigration Themes, from Book Riot’s The Kids Are All Right newsletter
Children’s Books About the Immigrant Experience, via Book Riot
Fifteen Books for Kids About the Immigrant Experience in America, via Brightly
30 Multicultural Picture Books About Immigration, via Colours of Us
Six Middle Grade Books On the Immigrant Experience, via Book Riot
And this is a podcast from Scholastic Reads about immigration stories.
I love Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills by Renee Watson, illustrations by Christian Robinson. The language here is just gorgeous, and the bold colors really capture the energy and vibrancy of Florence Mills’s life.
Magnificent Creatures: Animals on the Move! by Anna Wright (Faber and Faber Children’s, 6/17) is so lovely. Wright’s delicate use of pen and ink, watercolor, and fabric collage works perfectly with scientific facts about each animal featured.
The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden (Sky Pony Press, 9/4) takes an honest look at housing insecurity. Seventh-grader Zoey has her hands full as she takes care of her much younger siblings after school every day while her mom works her shift at the pizza parlor. When Zoey joins the school debate team, she begins seeing the world in a different way and finds ways to make positive change in her life and in the people around her.
Giveaway Alert! Win $500 of the year’s best YA fiction and nonfiction so far. Link to enter here. Contest ends on July 31st.
As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, we are moving to a twice-a-week newsletter! New releases will now be in our Tuesday emails, and Sundays will be reserved for themed book lists, author interviews, features, and maybe some cover reveals… stay tuned!
I’d love to know what you are reading this week! Find me on Twitter at @KarinaYanGlaser, on Instagram at @KarinaIsReadingAndWriting, or email me at karina@bookriot.com.
Until next week!
Karina
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