The High Holy Days in the Jewish Calendar October 2024
New Jersey Public Schools recognize many days in the month of October, and you can see the List of Religious Holidays Permitting Pupil Absence From School here however, the high…
September is for Celebrating Literacy!
This year International Literacy Day fell on a Sunday, and we celebrated at home with… you guessed it… books! International Literacy Day is important to me because I think about…
Meeting the needs of Indigenous, Native and Aboriginal
Instructional Strategies, Teacher Education, Teaching Science in Rural Aboriginal and Urban Multicultural Schools by Gloria Snively and Wanosts’a7 Lorna Williams is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or…
Why not ask a parent?
Are you in the market for more children’s books that carry meaningful stories and introduce the children in your care to new concepts, ideas, people and situations that make them…
A conversation about Deaf History Month
Two of our wonderful THENCE collaborators have deep personal ties to the Deaf and hard of hearing community and so we led a conversation about topics important to them this…
SABAR Books: Let’s talk book curation this Women’s History Month
Let’s discuss book curation, classroom pedagogy, and children’s literature from some of the most amazing women voices this Women’s History Month. Here we highlight amazing female scholars, Louise Derman-Sparks, Rudine…
Let’s talk about stereotypes and how to spot them in children’s books
One of the first things that Louise Derman-Sparks asked library curators to watch out for is books containing stereotypes which are unfair mischaracterizations and generalizations about a group. These two…
What is tokenism? The surprising prevalence in children’s books and media
Look closely at popular contemporary media, cartoons and many made for TV shows for our youngest viewers. Have you noticed that many shows feature four to six young heroes, all…
Invisibility: Who’s missing from the classroom library?
Recognizing invisibility is just as important as spotting stereotypes in children’s books. Here’s how to take a lens to what, or who is not represented in you classroom library.
Why not ask a child? The power of child-led curation.
Ask an older child to take a look back through their library at books from when they were younger. What do they see? Ask them to pick out three of…
