This is Kate DiCamillo. 1,300 children filled the Capital Center in Concord, kicking off New Hampshire’s first NH Book Festival But this event was just for kids. Kate showed them it’s ok to live under the spell of stories, in wonder at the world, and if they didn’t, she showed them what it felt like and welcomed them in. She made teachers who read to their kids the stars in the hall. I’ve heard Kate talk to adults, but not to kids the way she was doing, seeing kids in the room, the balcony, the wings. Kind of showing what it looks like to see people. She turned the show over to the children to ask her questions. A little boy in the balcony asked her, “Do you like all your books?” I was sitting next to Lita Judge and we were smiling at the question so hard for a creator. The boy added more softly. “I just want to know.” It felt like it was only the two of them, the boy and Kate, in the enormous space. Kate’s website opens with this quote. “The world is dark and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story.” The little boy in the balcony trusted her. We watched this happen. She turned the question to how hard it can be to create and the layers it took to find “The Tale of Despereaux”. I think the boy will mull this over. They make me see the gravity and wonder of writing for children.
This awed me. The Concord Library Foudation gave me an award for my books for children and support of literacy, especially my work with refugee and immigrant kids and I’m Your Neighbor Books. Not just any award. It’s called the Elizabeth Yates Award, for the Newbury-winning author Elizabeth Yates, author of Amos Fortune, Free Man. I’m with the gracious group organizers of the Concord Library Foundation at this event at the Concord (NH) Public Library. To my right Karen Landsman, Yates Award Committee Chair. Thank you.
FIND HER by Ginger Reno is a gift to young readers to gently help them understand a reality of the lives of some contemporary Native people in the U.S. The mother of 12-year old Wren has been missing since Wren was a young child. Finding her mother is the focus of Wren’s life. Wren understands that people going missing is not uncommon in her Cherokee community, losses often not resolved by the police even with evidence of crime. Her father is a respected police chief, himself, who is also grieving. Wren discovers a skill in herself to find things. She’s good at finding neighbors’ lost pets. She gets a “finder feeling” and she’s known as the “Finder of Lost Things”. Reno addresses Wren’s painful, long-lastiing grief for her mother and other very hard issues in the community such as bullying. She achieves this truth while also giving Wren a devoted grandmother and a father who love her. This will support young readers who will see Wren’s loss and also the love that gives her strength as she searches for her mother. She knows herself. “She was wolf clan, a protector.”
Sometimes I do school and community programs. Some of my books feature newcomer kids. But mostly it was because I was friends with Sara Lesley Warner (@saralesleyarnold – Sara’s pen name). Sara’s a kidlit writer and media specialist at Henry Wilson School, Manchester, NH. So it was Sara who invited me to present with her on the topic, “Welcoming Kids to Diverse Libraries” at the NH School Library and Media Association this spring. And my focus was on how visiting authors could be part of the welcoming.
Here’s Sara!
Librarians are often the link between their schools and authors who visit classrooms. Librarians and writers are natural partners. And sometimes they’re both, like Sara.
We both knew that libraries need to Invite authors who are from culturally diverse backgrounds. We know kids thrive when they meet educators who are like themselves and speak their first language. Mariana Llanos is a Pura Belpré Honor award-winning writer.
Benita and the Night Creatures by Mariana Llanos, art by Cocoretto
Llanos was born in Peru, and now lives in the US. She reminds us about the power of representation and said the important thing is to invite authors who are from culturally diverse backgrounds into schools and libraries. That’s at the top.
What follows are tips in general for ways to support kids’ comprehension in a new language. I had to prepare a lot for this. I talked to many kidlit writers about what they do when presenting to English learners. I also spent the last school year as an EL (English Language) para, K-12, to understand this world. (In schools I saw the term EL, ELL, and ESOL all used for students learning English. I stick with EL here.) I saw the art of working everyday with EL kids like Sara does in her really busy library with a staff of one. The library was a “special” and classes came every hour.
I want to give you some context about ELs in schools in general. I found that most schools in the country are serving ELs. I read Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan. They write that, “Immigrants tend to move to those locations in the U.S. that offer the best opportunities for upward mobility for their kids.” So immigrant families are mobile as they seek the best jobs for their children’s prosperity.
States vary widely in the number of ELs they serve. In California, nearly 20 percent of students are ELs statewide with the largest percentage in greater LA. In New Hampshire, 4 percent of students are ELs. But at the Henry Wilson School, Sara’s school, 33 percent are English learners. She knew the EL world and had a lot of tricks. (She also shared videos of EL kids telling exactly what they wanted in a library. For instance, they liked books in their first language, and they liked being interviewed by Sara so they could tell her all they wanted.)
Kidlit authors of various ethnicities themselves are bringing stories to kids as well as hopes to nurture the love of reading in increasingly diverse schools. Below are some strategies for inclusion that Sara demonstrated in her library, and other authors told me about. These strategies aren’t necessarily new; you may have been doing them all along. In the EL world, teachers say, What’s good for ELs is good for all students.
The Pearl by Tammi Truax and Lillian Buckley, Deb Bruss presenting Book, Book, Book, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai author of The Mountains Sing, The Storyteller by Lindsay Bonilla
Some Strategies to Experiment With
Invite children to show what they know. Deb Bruss, author of Book, Book, Book, told me how she invites children to show what they know. She brings puppets representing each character in Book, Book, Book. A child might not know speak the word for the animal the puppet represents. So Deb might invite the child, Show me the cow. Show me the chicken. And the child can point. Then she says the names as she hands the puppets out, and the children help tell the story with their puppet. With older students, authors can give background information on the topic of their book. Show props and invite students to tell or draw what they know about a subject. This gives students a chance to share their knowledge about a topic. For instance, if a book had a character that’s a guinea pig, the author could ask if students had seen a guinea pig or what people think of guinea pigs in their home culture. A lot of interesting stories about cultural perspectives can come up about guinea pigs. (Love and Roast Chicken is my favorite guinea pig tale. It’s from Peru.)
Show visuals – props, objects kids can touch or experience with the senses, puppets, animals, large pictures – and introduce key words as a pre-reading warm up. These items will help children understand the English word you are connecting with the visual. You can also show maps if you are presenting about a place in the world. Tangible objects can also be used to give students background knowledge they might not have been exposed to and offer more context for your story. Some writers make signs with key words so that ELs have the English word three ways – 1) the written word spelled out in the English alphabet, 2) visually, such as with puppets or props, and 3) orally so kids can hear the sound of the word in English. They can put the sound together with the written word and the visual. You can do this with small groups as well as auditorium-sized groups.
Offer Interactive elements. A lot of authors talked about kinesthetic elements of their program. Lindsay Bonilla described how she presents her book, Polar Bear Island. She brings lots of props, and children play the roles of the characters in the book. They show the story with their movements and sound effects, while she tells the story. She offered another technique to give space to everyone. A lot of kids are quick to respond to questions she asks the group. She said,
“I call on these kids directly,” she said, and then later she walks through the group of students, bends down, and invites kids who are more silent like ELs can be to whisper a response. “That way everyone gets the chance to speak even if they don’t want to say it in front of the whole group.”
Create humorous situations that put kids at ease. Writer-illustrator Marty Kelley, creator of many picture books including Summer Stinks, naturally offers humor for everyone, and ELs benefit. His humor offers a sense of play and ease in which kids can relax and have fun with stories.
Put the captions on if you’re showing a video, suggests Cindy Rodriguez. She writes middle-grade adventure novels including her newest,
Lola Reyes Is So Not Worried. Rodriguez said, “This not only helps students with hearing issues, but English learners benefit from hearing and seeing English that they can read at the same time as they listen to the video.”
Speak some words in students’ first language. Tasneem A. Bakr is an EL teacher and book creator. She says she’s careful doing this. “It’s a small gesture,” she said. “Simple words like Thank you. I try to do it with grace and humility. I always apologize beforehand in case I mispronounce something, even when I know the language well.
Allow kids to choose whether they want to talk about their own cultural Identity. Tammi Truax is a school media specialist and author. Yes! With Dr. Lilian Buckley she wrote The Pearl about a visit Martin Luther King made to a Portsmouth, NH church by that name. She said about presenting that book or any book where a community of people are represented: “I would never call on a student to speak for their community. If they want to talk and add to the story, I give them space.”
Celebrate the language assets that ELs bring to using English. I heard the Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai read from her adult novel The Mountains Sing. At the end she told us, “My English isn’t fluent so I can write it differently.” She can and does use English differently and told English learners in the crowd that they bring knowledge of their first language to the English language and because of that, they bring originality.
Bilingual authors – some were ELs themselves when they were kids – share their knowledge about presenting to English learners. One example is an article by another librarian and kidlit writer Jacqueline Jules, “10 Ways to Support ELLs in Your School Library”. It’s in ¡Colorín colarado! a bilingual site for educators and families with many excellent resources for visiting authors working with English learners in their programs. “My best idea is to be curious about all the children you work with the way Sara is. Listen to them. Share stories with them. Learn from them. Honor their first languages.”My best idea is to be curious about all the children you work with the way Sara is. Listen to them. Share stories with them. Learn from them. Honor their first languages.
With thanks to Writers Rumpus who shared a short version of this article.
Olive, Gabe, and Samir have so much at stake in their lives in the novel GO HOME. Everything. The people they love. Their dreams. Olive, almost 17, loves the natural world. She lives by the sea and loves the trees in the forest. I walk the same woods that Olive, Gabe, and Samir walk. I wanted to give you glimpses of their story. I began collecting leaves in Olive’s forest and shells by the ocean to make nature prints with quotes and dreams of these teenagers. The novel takes place in a single summer. The first print shows all I knew before I began writing. I write in order to figure out the story. Maybe you’re temped to think of your stories in images, too. You might be an artist. But maybe we don’t have to be painters if we can make images from the natural world. I’m loving this nature printing. Come on along. I’ll post new prints all summer. Maybe making nature prints could help you write a story or understand a story you don’t have an ending for yet.
My editor called the stretch of beach across from the island here – Lady Isle – a liminal space, a threshold. The novel we worked on was GO HOME about a contemporary time when two cultures meet. The meeting place is across from Lady Isle – also called Belle Isle – in Little Harbor, a real place in portsmouth, nh, though I’ve fictionalized the setting. Over the map of the island above, I placed drawings by a New Hampshire newcomer from Bhutan, a grandfather. This is now his new home. He brings his food and drawings like Samir’s hajurba does in the novel. There’s a moment where Hajurba’s grandson also comes here and so does someone else who claims the beach is his own. We wanted the novel to hold them for a while on the threshold.