Forbidden Stories: The Best of the Best in Banned Books

This event has occurred in the past.

Decorative banner with photos of the three speakers

Book challenges in the U.S. doubled in 2022, a troubling statistic given the significance of books in telling the stories of diverse youth. In this workshop, we share our lists of “the best of the best” challenged YA and children’s books and provide resources for responding to these challenges.

Aida Salazar, author of The Moon Within and co-editor of Calling the Moon: 16 Period Stories by BIPOC Authors, will join us for a virtual talk. Registrants will receive a free copy of The Moon Within and afterward there will be a YA/Children’s book giveaway.

This event includes the following Presentations:
‣ The Best Banned YA Books by BIPOC Authors, Presented by Sybil Durand
‣ The Best Banned Children’s Books on Gender and Sexuality, Presented by Desirée Cueto
‣ The Best International Books that Challenge Book Banning in the U.S., Presented by Kathy Short
‣ Aida Salazar On Writing Forbidden Stories (Live Virtual Visit)

Paid parking is available at the Second Street Garage just west of the UArizona College of Education and in the parking lot north of First and Vine. The WOW Center is also located just off of the 2nd St. Streetcar stop, which is free.

To request disability-related accommodations that would ensure your full participation in this event, please email wow@arizona.edu or call 520.621.9340.

Event details may change.

WOW Dozen: A Dozen Ukrainian Books

By Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ and Kathleen Crawford-McKinney, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI

Although we are constantly bombarded with images of the war in Ukraine, many people know little about this country, its culture, or its long history of conflict with Russia/Soviet Union. This set of books reflects a range of perspectives on Ukrainian culture and history, many authored and illustrated by Ukrainians or people with Ukrainian heritage. The stories involve significant historical events, such as Stalin’s mass starvation of Ukrainian people in 1932, the Nazi occupation in 1941-1943, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, and the 2022 siege of Mariupol by Russian forces. Pairing these books with recent news articles connects this history to current events. The strength of Ukrainian people, especially the Jewish population, in the midst of suffering is thus a frequent theme, but the set does include several humorous folktales. Continue reading →

2022 Trends in Global Literature: Multilingualism and Language Learning

By Kathy Short, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

The increasing global mobility and multilingualism of our world are playing out in interesting ways in recent books for children. Some of these books focus on children learning to speak English or on English-speakers struggling to pronounce a child’s name. Still others naturally integrate multiple languages in a translingual book where characters weave additional languages into their dialogue, drawing from the multiple languages they speak and understand. Another trend is an increase in bilingual books with the entire text in two languages. Continue reading →

2022 Trends in Global Literature: Picturebooks about Relationships with Grandparents

By Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

The lack of books depicting contemporary global cultures has been an issue for many years with historical fiction, traditional literature and fantasy dominating the global books published in the U.S. This over-representation of history and traditions often results in stereotypes and misconceptions of these cultures as set back in time or no longer existing in the contemporary world. The recent emergence of picturebooks with contemporary depictions is thus a positive trend in providing books that invite children to make connections between their own culture and global cultures in today’s world. Continue reading →

Authors’ Corner: Wilson Ong

By Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Mary J. Wong recently donated the entire set of original oil illustrations for Paper Son: Lee’s Journey to America by Wilson Ong to the Worlds of Words Center along with his thumbnail sketches and color studies. In working on the exhibition, we wanted to include Wilson’s perspective and process in creating the illustrations and so interviewed him, gaining many useful insights into his process and the connection of the book to his family story. Continue reading →

Trends in Global Literature for Children and Adolescents

By Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

WOW Currents for this month highlights the trends in global books published and/or distributed in the U.S. between Summer 2021 and 2022. Each year, we examine the new books published in that period of time and check out review sources and awards to identify books we believe will be of most interest to K-12 educators for use in their contexts. This process allows us to update the K-12 global reading lists, fiction and nonfiction, to post on the Worlds of Words Center website. This immersion into the new books also helps identify publication trends and patterns over the past year. This post overviews these trends and the posts during the month of August examine one trend in more depth with examples of books. Continue reading →

Young Children Playing Their Way into Understanding the World

Join us to consider ways of creating global understandings with young children. This free workshop, sponsored by TREC and WOW, will be in-person in the Worlds of Words Center. Register on the TREC website.

Explore the ways in which young children can interact with global books through play to feel connected with global cultures and to develop open-minded perspectives about new ideas. Participants will have the opportunity to interact with new global books and examine what kinds of global books are appropriate for young children. We will also explore invitations for play that can be integrated into centers in the classroom.

Participants will receive book lists and a handout of play invitations as well as new global picturebooks to take back to their early childhood classrooms.

The workshop will be led by Kathy Short, Loren Reyes and Deonna Tourtellot.

For questions, please contact Tucson Regional Educator Collaborative.
Contact Name: Jen Kinser-Traut
Phone No: (520) 621-7511
Email Address: trecarizona@email.arizona.edu

Story as World Making: Connecting Children to Global Cultures – Day 2

Register today for an in-person workshop presented by Kathy G. Short and Dorea Kleker, University of Arizona, with participating authors, Rajani LaRocca and Carol Kim. For more information or to register, visit https://cercll.regfox.com/institutestoriesglobal. Registration closes May 31, 2022.

Join us for a two-day workshop to engage in experiences and books that invite children to immerse themselves in global cultures. In this interactive workshop, you will explore new global books for your work with children and participate in engagements with these books. You will also interact with several children’s authors who will join us to talk about their global books. Participants will receive copies of their picturebooks along with booklists and other materials.

Our work is framed around encouraging children to balance an understanding of their cultural locations and loyalties with a reflective openness to new ways of thinking and being in the world. This open mindedness can be created by inviting children into story worlds where they can experience the ways people live, feel, and think in global cultures. As children develop empathy and knowledge, they come to know their home cultures and the world beyond home. One challenge is to dig below the surface of a culture (e.g. food and festivals) to connect with deeper cultural values, including the significance of language. Through engagements with books, we can challenge children to engage with story as a means of bridging divides and creating intercultural understanding.

Kathy G. Short is a professor and endowed chair of global children’s literature in the UArizona College of Education with a focus on dialogue and inquiry and is Director of Worlds of Words: Center of Global Literacies and Literatures. She has worked extensively with teachers all over the world on literature-based approaches and has authored many books and articles, including Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers and Teaching Globally: Reading the World through Literature. She served as President of the National Council of Teachers of English and the US Board of Books for Young People.

Dorea Kleker is an early childhood teacher, educator and lecturer at the University of Arizona. Working with students and teachers across a wide variety of educational contexts in both the U.S. and Latin America, her work focuses on global and multicultural children’s literature, literacy and play to develop intercultural understanding, and the use of literature to actively engage children as inquirers across all content areas.

Carol Kim believes books and words have a magical ability to change the world for the better, and she writes for children with the hope of spreading some of that magic. She is the author of the picture book biography, King Sejong Invents the Alphabet, as well as 20 fiction and nonfiction books for the educational market. Carol relishes unearthing real-life stories and little-known facts to share with young readers. She lives in Austin, Texas with her family.

Rajani LaRocca was born in India, raised in Kentucky and lives in the Boston area, where she practices medicine and writes books for young people, including Red, White, and Whole (2021), Seven Golden Rings (2020), Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers (2021),Where Three Oceans Meet (2021), I’ll Go and Come Back (2022), and more. She’s always been an omnivorous reader, and now is an omnivorous writer of fiction and nonfiction, novels and picture books, prose and poetry. She finds inspiration in her family, her childhood, the natural world, math, science,and just about everywhere she looks.

Questions? Contact: dkleker@arizona.edu or shortk@arizona.edu
➣ Register here.

A small number of scholarships are available for fulltime teachers and fulltime graduate students. These cover registration, and/or hotel for people participating in both days of the institute. Lodging scholarships are for the nights of June 1 and 2 for individuals traveling more than 130 miles to get to the University of Arizona; they are for June 2 only, for people coming from between 60 and130 miles away. To apply for a scholarship, submit a completed scholarship application form by the deadline of May 20. We will verify eligibility, and our committee will select recipients before we make award notifications on May 25.

This institute is organized and sponsored by the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) and Worlds of Words.

Story as World Making: Connecting Children to Global Cultures – Day 1

Questions? Contact: dkleker@arizona.edu or shortk@arizona.edu
➣ Register here.

This institute is organized and sponsored by the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) and Worlds of Words.

Engaging Children in Exploring Language through Dual Language Picturebooks

Professional Learning Opportunity:
Engaging Children in Exploring Language through Dual Language Picturebooks

To apply for this workshop, send your name, grade level, school name and contact info (email, phone and address) to dkleker@arizona.edu by February 25, 2022.

Join us for five sessions on Thursdays from 4:30-6:30 p.m. to explore invitations with dual-language picturebooks that engage children in learning about language and language diversity. Participants will earn 20 hours of professional development credit plus receive a text set of 10-12 picturebooks along with supplies and maps to keep for your classroom. We will meet in person for the first session at Worlds of Words, University of Arizona, and then meet virtually to explore strategies for engaging children with these books and to share our work with each other. Registration for this workshop is limited to 15 elementary teachers.

In a world of increasing linguistic diversity, children need an awareness and appreciation of the multiple languages in their lives and communities. Our goal is to encourage children to view multilingualism as a community resource, not a problem, and to develop strategies for engaging with familiar and unfamiliar languages. Although dual language picturebooks are often used to learn a language, our goal is instead to engage with these books to encourage learning about language and language diversity. In our first in-person session, we will explore the types of dual language picturebooks and how to evaluate these books and each teacher will receive a text set of picturebooks. In each of the following virtual sessions, we will engage in interactions around these picturebooks, such as creating language body maps or neighborhood language maps, along with exploring strategies children can use as readers of these books. Teachers will be encouraged to use the picturebooks and experiences in their classrooms over the following two weeks and we will share with each other at our next meeting. Each meeting will also involve exploring strategies around new books.

March 24, 4:30-6:30 pm – Worlds of Words for introduction and to receive the picturebook text set
April 7, April 21, May 5 & May 19 – 4:30-6:30 pm – Virtual zoom sessions

This professional opportunity is open to classroom teachers in grades K-5 with priority given to teachers applying as partners from the same school. Registration is limited to 15 teachers.

To apply for this workshop, send your name, grade level, school name, and contact info (email, phone, and address) to dkleker@arizona.edu by February 25.

Kathy G. Short is a professor and endowed chair of global children’s literature at the University of Arizona and Director of Worlds of Words: Center of Global Literacies and Literatures. She works with teachers around the world on inquiry and interculturalism and has authored many books and articles, including Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers and Teaching Globally: Reading the World through Literature.

Dorea Kleker is an early childhood teacher, educator and lecturer at the University of Arizona. Working with students and teachers across a wide variety of educational contexts in the U.S. and Latin America, her work focuses on global and multicultural children’s literature, literacy and play to develop intercultural understanding, and the use of literature to actively engage children as inquirers across all content areas.