Wow, I LOVE Reading! Mrs. Gibbs' Book Blog: Culture and Diversity

          Yep, L. (1991). THE STAR FISHER. Morrow Junior Books.   In 1927, 15-year-old Joan Lee moves with her family from Ohio to a small town in West Virginia. As the only Chinese Americans in town, the Lees face racism from townspeople who boycott the Lee family business. Joan herself feels tensions between the pressure at home to follow strict Chinese traditions and the pressure at school to assimilate into a white American mainstream. The book centers around the  Chinese folktale of the star fisher, a bird/woman caught between two worlds. Joan told the story to her sister, and comparisons are woven throughout the story. Joan finds a friend in Bernice, whose family is involved in the theater ( a big no-no). In the end, the town accepts their new neighbors because of an apple pie and a persistent landlady. The myth of the star fisher--half-bird, half-human, confined to the earth but yearning for the stars--weaves through the story. It is a meta...

Park, F., Park, G., & Choi, Y. (2002). GOODBYE, 382. National Geographic Society.   In this story, Jangmi moves from her home in Korea to a new home in the United States. At first, she is sad about leaving behind her friends and Korean customs and traditions, but once she arrives in America she begins to adjust. She becomes hopeful that someday America could feel like home, too.  The book is based on the experience of the authors' older sister, who moved with their parents from 382 Shin Dang Dong to 112 Foster Place in 1956. To make sure to get the pictures just right, the illustrator (who herself emigrated from Korea to the U.S. at the age of 19) returned to Seoul to paint the illustrations during the Monsoon season. https://www.amightygirl.com/good-bye-382-shin-dang-dong   As I read the book, I see many cultural markers. The main character is named Jangmi which means “Rose” in English. When Jangmi wakes up on the morning they are to leave, she thinks about the ...

       Say, A. (2011). DRAWING FROM MEMORY. Scholastic Press.   Top of Form DRAWING FROM MEMORY is Allen Say's own story of his path to becoming the renowned artist he is today. As a boy, he was shunned by his father, who didn't understand his son's artistic abilities. He was sent off to school in Tokyo where he meets Noro Shinpei, Japan's leading cartoonist and the man he came to love as his "spiritual father."  Shinpei takes him under his wing and begins to nurture his talent and love for art. He works hard in rigorous drawing classes, studies, trains, and eventually finds himself in his art.   The book is Say’s memoir of him growing up in Japan. It includes many of his cartoon drawings, watercolor paintings, vintage photographs, and maps. It demonstrates the real-life relationship between a mentor and his student. The author’s note gives you a look at Say’s life when he is older. He talks about Shinpei and his going back to Japan as an adult, to see...

          Boulley, A. (2021). FIREKEEPER’S DAUGHTER.  Henry Holt and Company.   Daunis Fontaine is torn between two worlds and families: her white French/Italian mother’s side and her father’s Ojibwe Firekeeper’s side. Some backstory: Daunis has experienced major loss and grief. Her father died when she was seven years old, her Uncle David (mother’s brother) died just a few months before the story begins, and her grandmother (mother’s mother) had a stroke shortly after Uncle David’s death. Daunis defers her upcoming enrollment at the University of Michigan to stay with her mother, who has taken both losing her brother and her mother’s illness very hard. The beginning of the story has a dark tone. You get a sense that something bad is going on in this community—Daunis’s best friend Lily’s ex-boyfriend is struggling with drugs, there is political unrest as the tribal election is underway, and it isn’t completely clear yet what happened to Uncl...

  Bruchac, J. & Amini-Holmes, L. (2018). CHESTER NEZ AND THE UNBREAKABLE      CODE: A NAVAJO CODE TALKER’S STORY.   Albert Whitman & Company.   As a young Navajo boy, Chester Nez had to leave the reservation and attend boarding school, where he was taught that his native language and culture were useless. Chester refused to give up his heritage. During the summers, Chester practiced his native language so it would not be lost forever.   Years later, during World War II, Chester—and other Navajo men like him—was recruited by the US Marines to use the Navajo language to create an unbreakable military code. Suddenly the language he had been told to forget was needed to fight a war. Platoon 382 became the Navaho Code Talkers.   Chester, along with twenty-eight other Navahos created this unbreakable code.   After the code was completed and approved, the platoon was shipped to the Pacific (minus two that stayed behind as instructors). ...

  Cohen, C.L. & Begay, S. (1988). THE MUD PONY.  (READING RAINBOW, 73.): A                         TRADITIONAL SKIDI PAWNEE TALE. Scholastic.   There was a  poor boy in an Indian camp. He didn't have a pony and he wanted one like the other boys, so he made one out of clay and then took care of it as if it were a real pony. One day  he is out with his clay pony and away from camp.  The camp is ready to leave to go hunt buffalo.  His parents look but can’t find the boy.  The camp leaves without him.  When he gets back to camp, he is upset because he doesn't know how to find them. The clay pony comes to life and leads him to his people. The war chief sees him and says there is another tribe attacking them, so they need the boy and his pony to help fight. The pony, who is part of Mother Earth, tells the boy to cover himself in di...

  Tingle, T. (2019). STONE RIVER CROSSING. Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, Inc.   Martha Tom knows better than to cross the Bok Chitto River to pick blackberries. The Bok Chitto is the only border between her town in the Choctaw Nation and the slave-owning plantation in Mississippi territory. The slaveowners could catch her, too. But crossing the river brings a surprise friendship with Lil Mo, a boy who is enslaved on the other side. When Lil Mo discovers that his mother is about to be sold and the rest of his family left behind, Martha Tom suggests they cross the Bok Chitto River and become free. The Choctaw help the family cross the river and escape the slave catchers. The Choctaw create a miracle--a magical night where things become unseen, and souls walk on water. By morning, Lil Mo discovers he and his family have begun a new life of tradition, community, and a little magic. But as Lil Mo and his family adjust to their new life, they face several dangers. Lil...

Tonatiuh, D. (2014). SEPARATE IS NEVER EQUAL: THE STORY OF SYLVIA MENDEZ & HER FAMILY’S FIGHT FOR DESEGREGATION. Abrams Books for Young Readers.   Almost 10 years before Brown vs. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Sylvia was denied enrollment to a "Whites only" school. She and her brothers had to go to the “Mexican School.”   This school was in a cow pasture. It had dirty halls and no playground. It was obviously inferior to the other local schools. Her parents acted by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.   I am disappointed to say that I am a social studies teacher and taught it for 15 years. Reading this book is the first time I have heard of Sylvia Mendez and the desegreg...

  Sanchez, E.L. (2017). I AM NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER.        Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers.   Julia’s parents, whom she calls Amá and Apa, are Mexican American immigrants who work thankless jobs to provide for their family. Twenty-two-year-old Olga was proper, obedient, and quiet, the ideal Mexican daughter. Julia, on the other hand, is loud, opinionated, and independent—characteristics that garner judgement and criticism from her devout and traditional family. When Olga gets hit by a truck and dies, the family’s grief further alienates Julia from her parents. A few weeks after Olga’s funeral, Amá shocks Julia by informing her she wants to throw her a quinceañera—an elaborate party for Latina girls at the age of fifteen that marks their transition into womanhood. Julia has no interest in having a party, especially because she is almost sixteen, but she knows that Amá regrets not having one for Olga. One night, Julia sneaks into...

  Mora, P., & López Rafael. (2007). YUM! ¡MMMM! ¡QUÉ RICO!: AMERICAS' SPROUTIN GS . Lee & Low Books Inc.   This picture book is about indigenous foods of the Americas.  They are celebrated in this collection of haiku, which also includes information about each food's origins.  Each food is featured in a two-page spread.  The beautiful artwork is spread across both pages.  On the left page is the information about the food’s origins.  On the right page is the haiku poem written about food.  It includes blueberries, chile, chocolate, corn, cranberries, papaya, peanuts, pecans, pineapple, potatoes, prickly pear, pumpkin, tomatoes, and vanilla.  Typing them all out, I realize they are in alphabetical order. The book is available in both English and Spanish. The illustrations are colorful and have an Aztec or Native American theme. In the descriptions, many of the foods were used by Native Americans first, so is a cultural marker.  ...

                 McCall, G.G. (2011). UNDER THE MESQUITE. Lee & Low Books.   Lupita is a Mexican American teenager, the eldest of eight children, and a devoted daughter to her parents. Immigrants from Mexico, the family has close ties to their language, culture, religion, and identity as family members. Lupita’s happy world comes crashing to a halt when she learns of her mother’s cancer diagnosis. Lupita, a budding actress, and poet struggles to understand her role as a teenager in a very adult world. When Mami undergoes surgery and chemotherapy, Lupita takes her summer of sophomore year off to take care of Mami. Though frightening, it seems that the cancer scare is gone, and Lupita begins to find success and joy in acting and poetry. But the family is torn apart when Mami’s cancer comes back, this time for good. Lupita convinces her father to take Mami to a treatment center far from home while she manages high school and cari...