Ours is a growing and wonderful community. With growth, however, come greater challenges and even greater opportunities. Our community consists of many people from many different cultures and with growth it will become even more diverse. We have all seen tragedies unfold in schools across the country and as made evident by the necessity of our bullying policy, the issues of ignorance and intolerance are also alive and well here at home. This is why we must address issues surrounding cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is simply the blending of different cultures – people with different backgrounds, routines, looks, beliefs, styles of dress all coming together to form a community. The challenge is do we continue to stick our head
Meet Danitra Brown, by Nikki Grimes
This book is about the friendship of 2 black girls who face prejudice and other struggles together.
Novels
Children of the River by Linda Crew
This book is about a seventeen year old girl who fled Cambodia. She is learning to become and American while remaining faithful to her own culture.
Taking sides, by Gary Soto
This book is about a boy whose loyalties are torn when he leaves the inner city to move to a white suburban neighborhood. .
The Man from the Other Side, by Uri Orlevi
This book is about a fourteen year old boy who becomes involved with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising when he learns that his deceased father was a Jew.
The books listed are just a sampling of the many books available. Consider using the following list when evaluating high quality multicultural children’s literature for your family or classroom.
1. First and foremost, make sure the content will not hurt, offend or embarrass someone whose culture is being portrayed.
2. Determine if the author is knowledgeable about the subject. A good starting point is to see if the author is of the same culture he/she is writing about.
3. Avoid literature whose words or illustrations promote negative or inaccurate stereotypes.
4. Do illustrations show that