These very powerful texts are wonderful resources to facilitate conversations in the classroom. Text sets like this that include; We Are Water Protectors, Dear Primo, and Stella Diaz Never Gives Up, all encompass a theme and can connect larger critical issues. 

 

See previous blog post for a brief summary and response about the book We Are Water Protectors. 

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Dear Primo; A Letter To My Cousin, is a heartwarming children's book that takes the reader along a journey about 2 young boys who write each other from their very diverse situations. Carlitos lives in Mexico and writes to his cousin Charlie who lives in America in a big city. These letters highlight days in their lives, what they do for fun, what they see around them, how they travel, their favorite foods, how they celebrate holidays, and many other aspects of their cultures. Even though they live countries apart and their lives are very different they seem to make connections with each other and possess similarities that create a strong bond. This book also includes many Spanish words that add to the cultural authenticity of the book. These words are a wonderful addition and should be taken advantage of in the classroom. There is a glossary in the back of the book that would be a great resource to continually reference during a shared reading. This story was eye opening, heartwarming, and a great addition to the text set. The illustrations in the book are very unique and showcase the different colors and atmospheres highlighted in the story. 

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Stella Diaz Never Gives Up is another wonderful read. This book is for a slightly older reader and is considered a chapter book. This story highlights Stella, a young girl with big passions and an even bigger dreams. Stella loves the ocean and all the animals in it. After her mom surprises her with a trip to Mexico, Stella is ecstatic to finally be at the ocean and explore her passion for marine life. When they arrive Stella is devastated to learn of the pollution and trash destroying the ocean. Stella decides she is going to do something about this and starts reaching out to people to help her save the ocean. Stella creates a plan and throws a bake sale to raise money and fundraise. Stella Diaz never gave up her dream and is inspiring many other people to take action. This book, like Dear Primo; A Letter To My Cousin, incorporates Spanish into the text. This is a great resource to use in the classroom to highlight the use of different languages in the text and in the classroom in general.  

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The authors of each of these books bring the cultural authenticity that make these books such a reliable resource to use in the classroom. Each author shares their story about their culture and where they grow up in the back of the books. Carole Lindstrom the author of We Are Water Protectors is a member of an indigenous tribe. The author of Dear Primo, Duncan Tonatiuh, shares his roots and Mexican heritage. On his website he shares this "His aim is to create images and stories that honor the past, but that are relevant to people, specially children, nowadays." Dear Primo, won the Pura Belpré Illustration Honor Award. The author of Stella Diaz Never Gives Up, Angela Dominguez, was born in Mexico City and has written another children's book with the same cultural authenticity. She is a two-time recipient of Pura Belpré Illustration Honor. I have linked all their websites below. 

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As I have mentioned, these texts used as a set to build on each other, can be used to facilitate many conversations in the classroom. Even though each one brings up different critical issues, they all have an underlying theme of diversity. We Are Water Protectors brings up the dangers of pipelines on indigenous tribes land. Stella Diaz Never Gives Up, shows the young girl promoting recycling and ocean safety. Dear Primo is a book that can be used to facilitate a conversation of cultural diversity that is not always highlighted. Many people harbor stereotypes about Mexican Culture, this book can help promote the mindset that just because it is different then how we live doesn't mean its bad. All of the texts included in the text set can be used as recourses that can start further research into South America or different continents and countries that celebrate, eat, and play differently then America. 

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Each of these texts incorporate different languages. Using these texts the students could begin a more in depth project around the theme of language and how people around the world communicate. This would be a great opportunity to allow your bilingual students to teach their peers about another language they might have grown up with. In the Stella Diaz text on page 25 she is determined to learn Vietnamese to be a better party guest at her friends party. This is a great example to use from the text to promote the mindset that learning new things will make us better friends, citizens, and students. This language unit could begin with a conversation with our bilingual students and highlight benefits of knowing other languages. They could teach us a few phrases and this could become apart of the classroom through labels or during a morning meeting. After collaborative discussions, the texts could be presented and diving into the words used in the texts, will ignite further conversation and reflection. A jigsaw activity in small groups could be added to the unit followed by a small project that includes the different languages represented by people in the school.