Confronting our Feelings in Storybooks

Books provide a venue for making sense of ourselves, our emotions, our experiences, our identities-- even from the youngest years. Sometimes simplicity can go far in helping to introduce complex concepts, feelings, and events to our students. I'll never forget when I first realized the power of this approach when teaching a Holocaust unit to my 7th graders. We read Rose Blanche, a heartbreaking story which approaches the topic in a similar plot to that of The Boy in Striped Pajamas. As one of our opening activities, this story helped to personalize the historical background we had explored and to frame the challenging conversations that would lead us into our longer-term reading of the memoir, The Cage.

It's not surprising that children's books would help students to explore social situations, interpersonal relationships, overarching human themes. However, lately I've been struck by the range of issues being addressed in picturebooks and the opportunities they provide for children to imagine themselves and their worlds in much more nuanced and flexible ways that mirror larger social trends. 

Here I'm keeping ongoing note of some of the recent texts I've been sharing with T.

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Oh John Oliver, you've truly outdone yourself this time. Tommy loves Marlon Bundo so much I had to hide this one because I needed a break. With the help of their friends, Marlon and Wesley are able to overcome the prejudice of the Stink Bug to live happily ever after and prove that boy bunnies can marry boy bunnies afterall.

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Gaston is the most adorable little bulldog who finds himself accidentally growing up in the poodle family. Mama Bulldog and Mama Poodle swap out the switched-at-birth pups only to find that nurture overrides nature. This cute story makes a point that 'feeling right' is important and sometimes that means defying the standard order of things. 

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The Bad Seed is Tommy's latest favorite book, but mostly just because he likes to spit out the seed halfway through (this one works for multimodal analysis too). The backstory to the Seed helps us to understand the negativity he's been acting out in his baaaaaaad ways. He decides to take a turn away from the bad but explains that his behavior can really be a mix of good and bad... a very human recognition that moves us away from black and white categorizations. 

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On Deck!

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On Deck!