Thread by @AnaTinkers

Local #weneeddiversebook #wndb author panel: Linda Sue Patk, Leslie Youngblood, Andrea M Page & KaeLyn Rich.

Linda Sue Park: libraries were incredible for her family. Saturday as books, Sunday was for church, they both shaped her.

Youngblood: libraries were a break and escape not for the literature but as a place to just be.

Page: struggles to learn to read but found joy in books in the libraries.

Rich: transracial adoptee, read through the library, and thankful for librarians for trusting her with books that has hard topics

Youngblood: First found self in books in her 20’s, James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain. Changed her major from marketing to creative writing.

Page: The Jingle Dancer was a picture book her daughter found. The family connection, that was so central to her life.

Rich: was never assigned books about transracial adoptees or Korean women. Being intentional about giving those to her daughter.

Park: talks about how easy for a child to adopt the dominant culture’s views of themselves. Talks about the Iceberg problem of folks writing out of her lane. And her love for Ingalls books and how Ma, would have not let them be friends. Upcoming book: Prairie Lotus.

Park speaks on how Books can hurt, and the hurt those who read the most. If you never been hurt you need to realize that books can hurt.

Park: Booktalks her book A Single Shard, both enthusiastic but one that Others versus Centers the book. Focus on the common humanity. It unfog the window.

Youngblood relates how a white child was interested in a book, but her mother is thinking of how to give it a black child they now. Don’t separate the books from kids.

Rich: A lot of the stories are out there, they are just not being centered and we need to center the stories that don’t get told. She wished she had more “windows”

Park: Change begins with the personal. After Nov 2016, feeling blue, she dedicated to herself to read just Black & Brown women. Recommends the 1619 project. Because we are all so badly read. And the Indigenous People’s history of the United States.

Page: there are connections to curriculum not just in SS, but values can be transmit through practices that are part of class culture. Team, listening, leadership... etc. Centering values.

Rich: SMARTie goals: Equity and inclusion. Include throughout the year. Anything you put into the world. Look at the clip art you using!!! Do that work with attention. Seed that work in your schools from the library.

Nicole: Be transparent. Do a Diversity Audit. Passive survey( post it notes on the board).

Page: Look at the Why...why is that the story that they want to tell.

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