Queer Eye for Children's Literature
For the bulk of my career as an elementary educator, I was a teacher-librarian in the public schools. In my training as a teacher and librarian, combined with my previous work as a community college teacher in the nineties, I became very committed to equity and diversity. Simply put, in my belief, a school library ought to reflect the diversity of the school and community... and then some. Here's an example of what I mean, when I say, and then some. In all my years in elementary education, I have encountered one child whose family celebrated Kwanzaa . One. But just as I would have multiple books about Eid or Christmas or Diwali, I always made a concerted effort to have two or three titles about Kwanzaa on hand in the library. I didn't have them just in case in I ran across a child whose family celebrated the holiday; I also had them because children like to read about the lives of other children. Muslim kids sign out books about Easter. Hindu and Sikh kids re...