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 reflect? If so, why not ask another parents, or more specifically ask a dynamic and in-the-know mom!

Helina Seyoum is one of our top THENCE contributors, an accessibility advocate, and a subject matter expert in diversity, equity, inclusion. Ms. Seyoum is a Mom of two children, one of whom is Deaf, while the other is hearing. Here, Ms. Seyoum shares some of her favorite children’s books picks to highlight Disability Book Week with some awesome storybook reviews. She suggests these books find their way into most elementary classroom as they center children who belong to an “oftentimes invisible population”. What is meant by “invisible populations”? To learn more, watch, listen, or read this post: Invisibility: Who’s missing from the classroom library?

Helina’s book reviews show us that even when a book centers a population that is often invisible in Children’s’ literature, a critical and balanced review is ALWAYS needed. Why might this be the case? Book reviews tell us about the story and whether the narrative is compelling. As parents, guardians and educators,  we can rely on a well-crafted book review to understand the educational value, or any potential weaknesses of a book. In other words, book reviews serve as indispensable guides that can also save us time, money, and frustration.

Dive into Helina’s book reviews here, and we invite you to add your perspective to the discussion below her post. Helina draws her balanced critiques from pedagogy we previewed earlier in the month of March, presented in our SABAR Books series, which highlighted women critiques, and reviews the art of curation as a means of personal and professional development. Don’t leave before checking out another post by Helina, this one is a SABAR Book review that specifically celebrates the intersection of Deaf History Month with Women’s Her-story this Spring semester!