by Julia López-Robertson, Gina Crosby-Quinatoa and Melissa Summer Wells, University of South Carolina
This month we invite you to join us as we discuss two YA novels we read as a part of a course on Reader Response theories this past spring; we will be discussing Enrique’s Journey (The Young Adult Adaptation): The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. Enrique’s Journey is the true story of a young teenager’s, Enrique, perilous voyage from his home in Honduras to find his mother in the United States. The author shares the real-life struggles of immigrant children and their families left behind by their mothers as they make the arduous choice to leave them to find work in the United States. Written in verse, Brown Girl Dreaming is the story of Jacqueline Woodson’s childhood. Woodson grew up in Columbus, Ohio; Greenville, South Carolina; and Brooklyn, New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Never really feeling a sense of belonging in any of those places, her poetry provides a peek into her life as she searches for her place in the world.
As educators, we (a teacher educator, a speech and language pathologist, and a reading coach) believe that it is of the utmost importance to discuss critical social issues with children of all ages and that the manner in which to do this is through critical literacy. Critical literacy “connects the political and the personal, the public and the private, the global and the local, the economic and the pedagogical, for rethinking our lives and for promoting justice in place of inequity” (Shor,1997, p. intro). Critical literacy provides children of all ages the opportunity to think about issues that may or may not affect them directly but that do have some bearing on their lives as global citizens. Because we believe that all children should have access to books about critical social issues, we also provide suggestions for books that can be used with younger children that center on similar themes.
As we prepared to write this blog we wondered what was it that brought these books together for us, how did they make a set, why would they be a good pairing? We considered a few things such as: the books centered around a young adult making choices, a young adult being brave in the face of the unknown, a young adult searching for their identity and sense of self, and a young adult ‘making it’ in spite of circumstances. Although Enrique and Jacqueline lead very different lives and live in different time periods we found many similarities between their lives, their circumstances and their personalities. We look forward to sharing our thoughts with you!
Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Journey through Worlds of Words during our open reading hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. To view our complete offerings of WOW Currents, please visit archival stream.
- Themes: Gina Crosby-Quinatoa, Julia López-Robertson, Melissa Summer Wells
- Descriptors: Student Connections, WOW Currents