One of the best things about working in a school like LREI is having control over my own curriculum.  I am free to change and tweak things as I go. Last year I decided to make a change in my 2nd grade curriculum.  In the past I had done a Caldecott study with my students. We would learn what the award is about, and read some winning titles and honor titles from years past.  We discussed the art and criteria at length and the culminating event was the 2nd graders voting on their “Caldecott of Caldecotts”.  This was a fun and interactive study, and while there was great enthusiasm and nothing wrong with it, I felt I needed to shift the study.

I decided to highlight the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration instead of the Caldecott.  This choice was purposeful. Our school has a mission that includes a commitment to diversity, and having worked with children’s books for many years, I knew I needed to highlight and celebrate diverse picture books to the students more than I had been.

I was definitely in sync with the rest of the library world as the We Need Diverse Books campaign kicked off in earnest in spring of 2014.  A portion of their mission is:

“We Need Diverse Books is a grassroots organization created to address the lack of diverse,non-majority narratives in children’s literature. We Need Diverse Books is committed to theideal that embracing diversity will lead to acceptance, empathy, and ultimately equality.”

It was incredibly eye opening to hear students discuss the CSK winners and honors.  Even though they knew the mission of the award is to “demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values” students continued to speak on the fact that all of the characters in many of the books were African American.  This simply highlighted the fact that most of the books they see and read are filled with white faces instead; something the children never comment on.  I realized that even though I choose books with an eye to diversity, I need to do a better job.

I will continue to do the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award study, and plan on looking with a critical eye at the rest of my curriculum to make it better reflect the world at large.