By Violet Henderson and Mary Fahrenbruck, New Mexico State University
Mary and Violet continue to provide their takes on the 2019 Pura Belpré award winners and honor books. This week, they look at Dreamers by Yuyi Morales. The book was awarded the 2019 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award.
By María V. Acevedo, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
With Rebecca Ballenger, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
I read out loud All Around Us, by Xelena Gonzalez, illustrated by Adriana García, to a class of undergraduate students. When I read, “We eat what we’ve grown-crunchy lettuce, sweet carrots and spicy chiles,” one of my students said, “I love your Spanish accent.” Chiles is the only Spanish word in this picturebook and it is not italicized. The student’s comment made me think of picturebooks that highlight non-English words in one way or another and the implications of this practice to fictional characters and readers.
By Violet Henderson and Mary Fahrenbruck, New Mexico State University
Mary and Violet continue to provide their takes on the 2019 Pura Belpré award winners and honor books. This week, they look at They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles. The book won the Pura Belpré Honor Award for Authors for 2019.
By María V. Acevedo, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
For centuries, muralists from around the world have made art public and accessible for the people. From cavern painting during the Upper Paleolithic times to contemporary graffiti in the streets of Santurce, Puerto Rico, murals have made children, youth and adults stop, notice, think and even act. This post explores the power of murals and muralists in Latinx picturebooks.
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By Violet Henderson and Mary Fahrenbruck, New Mexico State University
Mary and Violet continue to provide their takes on the 2019 Pura Belpré award winners and honor books. This week, they look at The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. This book is Acevedo’s debut novel and won the Pura Belpré Author Award for 2019.
By María Acevedo-Aquino, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
When I think about Mother’s Day, I think about individuals with an extraordinary capacity for nurturing, protecting, guiding, knowing, caring and loving. I also think about my mom living far away; my sister who will become a mother very soon; one of my former preschool students who lost his mom when he was 4 years old; my friend Sonia, her wife, and their baby Oscar; Dani, who awaits in a foster care residency in Spain to go back home; and, a dear friend who recently lost her son. I think about the numerous complex stories that shape personal and collective views of motherhood and days like Mother’s Day. Through this post, I hope to offer questions, rather than answers, and opportunities for dialogue, instead of a list of concepts to teach.
By Mary L. Fahrenbruck and Violet Henderson, New Mexico State University
Throughout April 2019, Mary Fahrenbruck and Violet Henderson give their take on the 2019 Pura Belpré award winners and honor books (awarded to Latino/Latina writer and illustrator). In their first installment, Mary and Violet discuss Islandborn authored by Junot Díaz and illustrated by Leo Espinoza. The picturebook won the Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Award for 2019.
By Maria Acevedo-Aquino, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, in collaboration with graduate students
When conversing with graduate students about their experiences as early childhood educators and caregivers, they often describe curricula that supports views on literacy reduced to reading and writing. These perspectives tend to overlook the multiple ways in which children, make sense of their world and construct meaning in a daily basis. While this argument is not new, the process for integrating learning experiences in the classroom align with expansive ways of thinking about literacy is a persistent struggle. This post offers learning experiences that highlight broader views on literacy to further explore the picturebook All Around Us written by Xelena Gonzáles with illustrations by Adriana Garcia.
By Alexandria Hulslander, Worlds of Words Intern
David Bowles is a two-time Pura Belpré Award winner and professor at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. In his latest novel, They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems, David uncovers the realities of life in a border city. I was immediately drawn to this story in compiled poems as I also grew up in a border city. Though I am not Mexican-American, I watched some of my friends from childhood who are struggle to find their identity, as Güero does. I appreciated the opportunity to read about growing up in a border city, as these stories are not often shared. Continue reading
Saving time, wasting time, no time to lose. American English is full of collocated terms about time, emphasizing a value of events happening “on time” and not appreciating things happening “in time.” Perhaps we share this trait with Icelanders.
Andri Snær Magnason describes his book, The Casket of Time (trans. by Björg Arnadóttir and Andrew Cauthery), as a Sci-Fi/Fairytale hybrid. He uses social realism to critique our response to the world’s problems. Continue reading
