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Come to the Tucson Festival of Books on March 15-16, 2025

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

A young boy pours water into a overflowing vase from a watering can. He stands on a stool back to back with his big sister standing behind him wit her arms crossed.A festival is a great place to meet authors who have popular appeal, authors who are critically acclaimed, and new emerging authors in sessions that offer laughter and thoughtful discussions of critical issues. The Tucson Festival of Books has over 300 authors across multiple genres and 130,000 attendees. 65 of those authors are picturebook author/illustrators, middle grade authors, graphic novel creators, and young adult authors, who present over 100 sessions. Many of the sessions are in rooms that seat 40-50 people to allow for more intimate interactions with authors, instead of only large auditoriums where authors are at a distance. This WOW Currents highlights the sessions and some of the authors who are coming this March. Go to the festival website for a full list of authors and sessions for the entire festival. A list of the children/teen authors and illustrators can be found here. Continue reading

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The Power of Graphic Novels to Foster Connections

By Julia López-Robertson, University of South Carolina, Melissa Summer Wells, University of Mary Washington & Jennifer D. Morrison, Sam Houston State University

A portrait of a young boy smiling above the title, and a RV below the title.In our last blog we introduced you to graphic novels and provided a model for applying critical reading and critical literacy to When Stars Are Scattered (Jamieson & Mohamed, 2020). This blog focuses on the Pura Belpré Award winner, Mexikid (Martín, 2023). Mexikid is a memoir about a Mexican American boy named Pedro and his family’s journey to bring their abuelito from Mexico to live with them in the United States. Pedro is the seventh of nine children; the older five were born in Mexico, while Pedro and his three younger siblings were born in the U.S. and, according to the older siblings, are “not Mexican enough.” The family embarks on a 2,000-mile road trip to Mexico, encountering many adventures along the way. While the older siblings drive a pick-up truck, Pedro and his younger siblings travel with their parents in a used Winnebago. Throughout the journey, Pedro hears stories about his family—particularly his abuelo—and learns about his Mexican heritage and family history. In what follows we will discuss our purposes for engaging students with graphic novels and speak specifically about Mexikid. Continue reading

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The Power of Graphic Novels to Foster Critical Literacy and Critical Reading

By Julia López-Robertson, University of South Carolina, Melissa Summer Wells, University of Mary Washington & Jennifer D. Morrison, Sam Houston State University

Graphic novels, often stigmatized as a genre, hold immense potential for transformative multimodal literacy instruction. Paris and Alim (2017) argue that equity and access are best achieved by centering the dynamic practices and identities of students and communities of color within a critical, inclusive vision of education. In our teaching and research, this means prioritizing multimodal texts to help preservice teachers explore diverse ways of knowing, doing, and being in the classroom.

Traditional reading and writing capture only a fraction of students’ literacy capabilities. Carefully selected multicultural, multilingual and multidisciplinary graphic novels offer powerful tools for critical reading and literacy. These texts provide unique access points that connect teaching and learning to the lived experiences of children and their communities. Continue reading

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Current Global Conflicts: Palestinian Perspectives and Experiences, Part 2

by Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Father looks at photo album with three daughters.As I looked into Palestinian experiences in children’s literature, I discovered many significant examples. These examples speak to broader issues of displacement, refugees and oppression. These topics/issues are prevalent in the global sociopolitical atmosphere presently, more so now with the two ongoing wars: Ukraine/Russia and Palestine/Israel. If we research and go into depth on both these conflicts and wars, we come away with multiple ways of understanding the conflicts and realize that there is no one easy explanation that pigeonholes the conflicts.

The examples of children’s literature that I explore in this post shed light on Palestinian perspectives on the current conflict through a recent memoir and several nonfiction books. By combining these powerful examples of fiction and nonfiction, readers come away with new understandings. Continue reading

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Current Global Conflicts: Palestinian Perspectives and Experiences, Part 1

by Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

A young girl reaches up to touch the olive at the end of a branch.News reports of global conflicts raise many questions and confusion for children who do not understand the history or broader context of these conflicts. Children’s books can provide children with perspectives on global conflicts, such as the current conflict between Israel and Palestine. This post highlights books that reflect Palestinian perspectives as part of a larger conversation in the field of the many perspectives, including Israeli voices, related to this conflict. Continue reading

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Indigenous Stories of Being

By Angeline Hoffman, White Mountain Apache Tribe

A young girl sitting on a rock with her arms held up to the sky.Story is about the unique ways of teaching and learning as reflected through special connections to nature, family, community and ecology. It is understanding and acknowledging the connections and deep knowledge through teaching and learning about how life is.

Indigenous stories involve members of a community or small groups of relatives gathering together to hear stories told, mostly by an elder, to convey information about the specific Indigenous culture of the community. The stories, especially through the Indigenous language, support the maintenance of Native identity. Embedded in these stories is the important knowledge that we, as Native Americans from special tribal cultures, must acquire to survive and to conduct oneself appropriately. Both the narratives and the languages that convey them are place-based in the sense that they are tied to the land – especially the knowledge of where we came from, where we live, how we survive and our way of life. Continue reading

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2024 Trends in K-12 Global Literature

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

A child walks behind a cat, and a large white blob walks behind the child.This month’s WOW Currents focuses on trends in global literature for young people published and/or distributed in the U.S. between July 2023 and July 2024. Each year, we identify new books published during this time period, examining the books and consulting book reviews to determine which texts are of most interest to K-12 educators. In this process of updating our global reading lists, we also gain a sense of current trends in the themes, topics and genres of global books being published for children and teens. Continue reading

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Louise and Laura: Challenging our Assumptions of Indigenous and Pioneer Life

By Mandy Medvin, Elizabeth Ford, and Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, Westminster College, PA., retired faculty

A young girl with a bird on her shoulder stsands in front of a small house in the woods.“Who’s telling the story? What changes when someone else tells the story?” Videos like this one, “The Trouble with History,” from the Native New York exhibit, a branch of Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, challenge students, teachers and parents to consider, “What if the story we are reading isn’t the only one?” And what if the text contains labels that marginalize specific groups?

This month we seek to move beyond a single, white Euro-centric lens on the Westward Movement, a common feature in many middle grade social studies’ textbooks. Louise Erdrich’s The Birchbark House series and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House novels, both aimed at middle grade readers, are set in the mid-late 1800s and offer a comparative lens on this time period in U.S. history, often called the “pioneer era.” Louise (1954-present) wrote her books based on her family research as a member of the Turtle Mountain band of Ojibwe, Anishinaabe people who lived in the Great Lakes region. Laura (1867 – 1957), born nearby in Wisconsin, provides an early white-centric perspective on the same historical time period and location. Juxtaposing these series offers a way to initiate conversations with students regarding two distinct ways of life and perspectives. Continue reading

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Indigenous Family Stories

By Angeline Hoffman, White Mountain Apache Tribe

A family in a white car drive down a road, away from mountains.This month I celebrate global children’s books focused on Indigenous families. Today in the U.S. there are 574 different federally recognized Indigenous tribes. While many teachers see the usefulness of celebrating American Indians during October and November holidays (October 14, Indigenous Peoples’ Day and November – Indigenous Heritage Month), we need to move beyond single days and months to explore Indigenous cultures. Much like the hazards of limiting the study of African American life to Black History Month in February, I hope teachers will ponder how we can explore Indigenous families and life as a part of any literature, history, art or science exploration throughout the school year.

Strong Nations is a useful publisher as I continually search for Indigenous children’s books. My goal in working with fifth and sixth grade Apache and Navajo students is to share books that value their culture, thereby empowering them. This month I focus on five children’s books that center on Indigenous families. Continue reading

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An On-going Struggle for Equal Voting Rights

By Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, Westminster College, retired, and Rebecca Ballenger, Worlds of Words, University of Arizona, Tucson

People from all backgrounds hold signs that say vote in multiple languagesJane Goodall recently outlined, “Every vote matters, more this year than perhaps any time in history.” As voters from the United States to South Africa, Mexico, India and beyond enter a major election year, Jane urges anyone who will listen to pause and consider each candidate’s record on a single issue–her/his/their efforts to support the health of our Earth. Yet we know U.S. voters will ponder additional issues, ranging from the economy and democracy to immigration, reproductive rights, foreign policy, gun rights, equality and more. Continue reading