Holding Space for Story, Reflection and Voice

By Junko Sakoi, Tucson Unified School District, Multicultural Curriculum Integration Coordinator

Censorship remains a significant issue affecting schools across the United States, with ongoing debates over educational content, children’s rights and academic freedom. In 2024, the American Library Association (ALA) documented 821 attempts to censor library materials and services, involving 2,452 titles. While this represents a decrease from 2023’s record of 1,247 challenges and 4,240 titles, the numbers remain significantly elevated compared to pre-2020 levels, which averaged 270 titles challenged annually between 2001 and 2020.

The ALA attributes the 2024 decline to factors such as underreporting, often linked to concerns about retaliation and controversy. In addition, evolving state legislation has influenced the availability of books featuring LGBTQIA+ characters, characters of color and themes related to race and racism. Continue reading →

A Book for Pondering and Perspective-Taking: Border Patrol by Joseph Bruchac

By Holly Johnson, Emeritus Professor, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH

Almost every book allows for a perspective that may be different from the reader’s, and many books give readers something to ponder, but books that afford both pondering and perspective-taking are a bit more rare. Joseph Bruchac’s new book, Border Patrol (2025), is one such book. It brings to life both current issues and historical context, which had me contemplating just how much of U.S. history might need rethinking.

Lily, a middle grade Mohawk girl, has a lot to say in respect to border issues both current and historical. The book shares Lily’s thinking through a series of verses that can be read individually—with openings for much discussion—or in a series of verses that give readers numerous ways to contemplate another perspective while also pondering their own actions if they found themselves in similar situations or confronted with someone like Lily. Continue reading →

Expand Our Use of Global Books for the Elementary Classroom

By Jeanne Gilliam Fain, Lipscomb University, Nashville, TN

One line of inquiry I grapple with daily is how to think about inserting global books into elementary classrooms with scripted curriculum. When I started this work, I immediately assumed the books from the scripted curriculum were low quality books. I then took the opportunity to really study the books and discovered that these books are award-winning global titles many of us know and love deeply such as Grandfather’s Journey (Say, 1994), Coming to America: The Story of Immigration (Maestro, 1996), Tea with Milk (Say, 2009), Keeping Quilt (Polacco, 1988) and Family Picture (Carmen Lomas Garza, 2005). I have the personal bias of embracing current books with enthusiasm and often letting go of books that age well. One of the real problems that we (I work with many wonderful teachers in Nashville) encounter is that many of the books in the curriculum are around 30 years old. Today, although there is still work to do with inclusivity in children’s literature publishing, there are so many new voices and perspectives that were missing thirty years ago. Continue reading →

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

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

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 →

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

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 →

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 →

Current Global Conflicts: Palestinian Perspectives and Experiences, Part 2

by Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

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 →

Current Global Conflicts: Palestinian Perspectives and Experiences, Part 1

by Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

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 →

Invest In Youth As Readers: Certificate of Completion

Contact Rebecca Ballenger, Associate Director of Worlds of Words

We did it! Thank you for your support attending and promoting our event with author Karen S. Chow, listening to the WOW Reads podcast, and donating to ensure the program continues for another year. We appreciate you!

large group photo of reading ambassadors with certificates

Photo by Bob Bingham Photography

You don’t have to wait for our next crowdfund campaign to support the work of the Worlds of Words Center. Learn more about how we can promote global children’s literature together on our giving page.

WOW Currents is a space to talk about forward-thinking trends in global children’s and adolescent literature and how we use that literature with students. “Currents” is a play on words for trends and timeliness and the way we talk about social media. We encourage you to participate by leaving comments and sharing this post with your peers. To view our complete offerings of WOW Currents, please visit its archival stream.

Indigenous Stories of Being

By Angeline Hoffman, White Mountain Apache Tribe

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 →