One of the goals of the Juneteenth reading event is to make children the owners of books, and be less reliant on the availability of borrowed books in schools and libraries. It was among a set of donated books turned away by the Northampton School District in Pennsylvania after parents complained, citing a “Marxist agenda.” In Alabama, Barnes’ visits to three suburban schools and a library were canceled after a parent complained about his book. ![]() “Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut,” illustrated by James and written by Derrick Barnes, is about a young Black boy getting a haircut at a barbershop. Such bans have impacted the event’s participating authors. Pennsylvania is among the states with the most books banned or challenged. Local chapters of the NAACP are demanding school districts improve reading instruction, which is sometimes inadequate, resulting in a comprehension gap between children whose families can afford tutors, and those who cannot.Įven if a child knows how to read, access to books is being challenged. ![]() ![]() Underpinning the event will be discussions about Black literacy, increasingly one of the concerns of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which is attempting to strengthen equitable early reading education as a social justice cause. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor We go to China to get our book printed, and bring it back and throw books at the kids who throw money at the publisher. “I have a publisher who calls, on a fake phone, a writer, who writes a book and throws it to the publisher, who throws fake money at them,” Strickland said. Strickland has a role-playing game where she takes young people through the process of getting a book published. “I feel like I’m what happens if you just keep going.”īoth Lewis and Strickland do a lot of school visits and come prepared to pivot their presentations into whatever direction the people in the room respond to. “I want the kids to see that a lot of this is practice and just not stopping,” James said. The difference with him is he never stopped. James, who has won both the Caldecott medal and the Coretta Scott King Award (two highly prestigious awards in the world of children’s books), said everybody draws when they are young. The participating authors and illustrators plan to talk about the path they took to being creators. This weekend she is organizing the first “Juneteenth – Celebrating Literary and Artistic Freedom,” a family event on Saturday, June 17, wherein Lloyd-Sgambati will host three children’s book authors and illustrators in discussions about their work, and the history of Black literacy. Lloyd-Sgambati is the creator of the annual African American Children’s Book Fair, one of the largest events of its kind now in its 31st year. “I thought to myself: If the dollar store is jumping on board this, I need to step in and bring some perspective to this holiday.” “I was really driven when I was in the dollar store and I saw paper plates, napkins, and signs that say Happy Juneteenth,” she said. ![]() Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati was determined to make one of those events about books and the struggles Black Americans have had to overcome to learn how to read: Before the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, several states passed anti-literacy laws that made it illegal to teach a Black person to read or write. This weekend there are at least 27 Juneteenth events planned in Philadelphia, according to Visit Philly, a number that has grown sharply since commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation became a national holiday two years ago.
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