Intermediate & Middle School Activity Meet Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney, husband-and-wife team and author and illustrator of ‘Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood up by Sitting Down,’ 2011 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award honor title for younger children. Read a summary of the book Sit-in energetically combines sweeping, fluid artwork and poetic prose, full […]
Category: Social Justice Learning
Rafael Lopez: Dare to Engage
Intermediate & Middle School Activity Meet Rafael Lopez, contributor to ‘We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices’ and illustrator of the 2019 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award winning title for younger children, ‘The Day You Begin,’ authored by Jacqueline Woodson. View his joyful art. Read a summary of the book “There will be times […]
Vanessa Brantley-Newton: Celebrate Our Differences & Similarities
Intermediate & Middle School Activity Meet Vanessa Brantley-Newton contributor to ‘We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices’ and Jane Addams Award recipient as Illustrator of ‘We Shall Overcome.’ Read a summary of the book We Shall Overcome. “When people sing out, they can change the world” Widely known as a Civil Rights anthem, the […]
Be a Seedfolk for Earth Day
Intermediate & Middle School Activity ‘Seedfolks’ was the 1998 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award honor title for older children by Paul Fleischman. Read a summary of the book A young Vietnamese girl plants six lima bean seedlings in an overgrown, garbage-strewn, inner-city lot in Cleveland. An elderly longtime resident of the neighborhood watches the child […]
Javaka Steptoe: Inspiration for Your Words & Art
Intermediate & Middle School Activity Javaka Steptoe, contributer to We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices and Jane Addams award recipient, as a child was a model for his late father the award winning author/illustrator John Steptoe. Today, Javaka is an award wining artist, designer, author, and illustrator himself! Learn More Look closely at his work via […]
Rise, Resist, Raise Your Voice Today!
Intermediate & Middle School Activity We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices (2019 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Honor Title for Older Chidren) is an empowering anthology that encourages resilience when “the world feels upside down.” Budding social activists looking for inspiration and ways to rise up, resist the status quo, and raise their voices […]
Thanhha Lai: Language Changes Who You Are
Intermediate & Middle School Activity Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai 2012 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Honor Title for Older Children, is a sem- autobiographical story. For all the ten years of her life, Ha has only known Saigon – the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of […]
Lois Lowry: Grapples with 1918 pandemic shutdown
Intermediate & Middle School Activity Lois Lowry has written more than 40 books for young people, some quite serious like Jane Addams Children’s Book Award 1990 Honor Title for Older Readers, Number the Stars, and the dystopian classic novel, The Giver. Others, like the Anastaia series and The Willoughbys, are beloved and lighthearted. Lois knows her young readers and respects their love […]
Christopher Paul Curtis: Close Reading of Characters Fictional and Real
Intermediate & Middle School Activity READ ABOUT ELIJAH OF BUXTON BY CHRISTOPHER PAUL CURTIS, 2008 JANE ADDAMS CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD HONOR TITLE FOR OLDER READERS… Just over the Canadian border from Detroit, Buxton is a small town established by runaway slaves. Eleven-year-old Elijah was the first free child born in Buxton and feels certain he’ll […]
Carole Boston Weatherford: “Notes that echo history”
Intermediate & Middle School Activity Download the free ebook The Sound That Jazz Makes (offered through Amazon) created by Jane Addams winning author Carole Boston Weatherford and Jane Addams winning illustrator Eric Velasquez. Be sure to read the book several times, savoring the rhythm of the words, the scope of history, and the variety and […]