It’s hard to remember when I first chose to really think about race. Like I said, being a Montanan, and an extremely white Montanan at that, I didn’t know many people of color. My mother claims that I used to cheer for minority characters, even when they were the bad guys, but my clearest memory is being in 5th Grade and taking on a challenging assignment from my teacher Mr. Davey. Read an historical work from an upper reading level. I don’t know what prompted […]
Sore Thumbs
This year I started teaching a class of Seniors. It had long been a goal, and now I got to do it. I wanted to create as much of a collegiate simulacrum as I could. So I brewed up some lectures and led each week of instruction, discussion and reflection around a prominent theme in literature generally–with specific attention paid to African-American experiences (slightly awkward for a transparently white guy to do for a class full of black kids). And to guide my lecture creation […]
Kid Stuff (Reviews #1-3)
I’m never sure if anyone reads my reviews here or not, but I figure, just in case someone does, I’m sorry that I’ve been so long without posting this year (something about teaching in 2014 sucked up all my energies) I thought I’d kick off with some of my first books from the year–a collection of picture books that ended up in a lot of conversations around the Caldecott Medal–my full break down and ballot can be read at my personal blog. With that, here […]