#ReadYourWorld with HERE WE GO: A Poetry Friday Power Book by Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday on this fabulous Friday the 13th! (Unlucky? I think NOT.) Be sure to visit Keri at Keri Recommends for Roundup. Also, shout-out to our baby boy Eric, who turns 17 today!

For the past several years, it has been my privilege to be a participating blogger in Multicultural Children’s Book Day, now it its fourth year!

This year the celebration will be all over the blogosphere January 27. You will find my review below of HERE WE GO, a multicultural book provided by two of the most passionate and generous poetry people I know: Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell of Pomelo Books. HERE WE GO is also a Children's Book Council "Hot Off the Press” selection for January 2017. Woohoo! Win your own copy below! But first, some more information about this event!

Multicultural Children's Book Day was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. 

Our mission is to raise awareness on the ongoing need to include kid’s books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.

Despite census data that shows 37% of the US population consists of people of color, only 10% of children’s books published have diversity content. Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day holiday, the MCBD Team are on a mission to change all of that.

Current Sponsors:  MCBD 2017 is honored to have some amazing Sponsors on board. Platinum Sponsors include Scholastic, Barefoot Books and Broccoli. Other Medallion Level Sponsors include heavy-hitters like Author Carole P. Roman, Audrey Press, Candlewick Press,  Fathers Incorporated, KidLitTV, Capstone Young Readers, ChildsPlayUsa, Author Gayle Swift, Wisdom Tales Press, Lee& Low Books, The Pack-n-Go Girls, Live Oak Media, Author Charlotte Riggle, Chronicle Books and Pomelo Books

Author Sponsor include: Karen Leggett Abouraya, Veronica Appleton, Susan Bernardo, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Maria Dismondy, D.G. Driver, Geoff Griffin,  Savannah Hendricks, Stephen Hodges, Carmen Bernier-Grand,Vahid Imani, Gwen Jackson,  Hena, Kahn, David Kelly, Mariana Llanos, Natasha Moulton-Levy, Teddy O'Malley, Stacy McAnulty,  Cerece Murphy, Miranda Paul, Annette Pimentel, Greg Ransom, Sandra Richards, Elsa Takaoka, Graciela Tiscareño-Sato,  Sarah Stevenson, Monica Mathis-Stowe SmartChoiceNation, Andrea Y. Wang

We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also work tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.

MCBD Links to remember:

MCBD site: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/

Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta

Free Kindness Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teachers-classroom-kindness-kit/

Free Diversity Book Lists and Activities for Teachers and Parents: http://bit.ly/1sZ5s8i

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And now.... a look at HERE WE GO: A Poetry Friday Power Book by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.

Don't you love all those diverse faces on the cover?! And that's just the beginning... the art continues throughout the interior as well. It's perfect for the book!

Like its predecessor YOU JUST WAIT, this is an interactive poetry book that includes a bunch of original poems by Janet Wong as well as a selection of "anchor" poems, many of which appear in previous books in the Poetry Friday Anthology series.

Anchor poems in HERE YOU GO are courtesy of some Poetry Friday friends, and other wonderful poets, including (in order of appearance) Naomi Shihab Nye, David Bowles, Carole Boston Weatherford, Kate Coombs, Margaret Simon, Eileen Spinelli, Ibtisam Barakat, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Joseph Bruchac, Renee M. LaTulippe, David L. Harrison and Robyn Hood Black.

HERE WE GO focuses on activism and how we can change our world. Readers meet four characters: David, Ameera, Jack and Jenna -- who are struggling with some timely issues, like being an immigrant; practicing a minority religion (Muslim); identity; what makes a family; what can we DO to make our world better? Each PowerPack provides a complete lesson -- a way into the material, poems to share, and an invitation to create one's own poem. The book is also a writing notebook, with space for young writers to include their responses.

And now, here's Janet Wong to answer a few questions for us!

IL: Welcome Janet! How did this book come to be?

JW: When Sylvia and I met together at NCTE in mid-November, we were despondent over the election. As bad as we felt, though, we knew that there were vulnerable children who felt even worse—and we wanted to create a book that would offer comfort and inspiration to them. We hope that HERE WE GO accomplishes this. We decided not to make explicit references to the election and instead to focus broadly on empathy, unity, and social change (in this case, fighting hunger).

IL: Wow, that's a book with a BIG idea! Did you encounter any difficulties or challenges?

JW: For me, a big challenge—but something that I wanted to do—was to put a “Trump supporter” in there. Jack’s dad never is described as a Trump supporter, but—pssst! you heard it here!—he is! I wanted to do this because I believe that Trump supporters were lumped together and dismissed as being all the same—and they’re not. We all have a friend, acquaintance, or family member who voted differently than we did; now is the time to get over it. In order for this country to move forward, I think we need to stop labeling each other as much as we do, and simply to come together as people. That’s what I’d like kids to take away from this book perhaps more than anything. Part of getting over it might require stepping into that person’s shoes or, as Naomi Shihab Nye describes in her poem “Blue Bucket” (the opening poem of the book, found below -- keep reading!), to carry "someone else’s bucket a while.”

IL: What are your hopes for the book?

JW: That HERE WE GO will find its way into the hands of 3rd graders who have been confused or fearful since the election and that it will give them comfort and security to read about kids like themselves: Muslim kids like Ameera, grandkids of immigrants like David, young feminists like Jenna. I also hope that teachers will read this book aloud to classrooms that include kids from conservative families; and when they hear this book, they might start to understand that what they're hearing at home isn’t the only way of thinking. And if my poem “Fake News” gets us ALL thinking more critically, what a much better place this will be!

Thank you, Janet! I think many of us have these same hopes for our children. Congratulations on the new book... and now let's take a peek inside!

The PowerPack I'd like to share with all of you today is the one that begins the book.

This spread introduces the pack!

 THEN we get this wonderfully thoughtful page to help open us up to find our poems... (including my answers to the "easy" ones. ;)

 JUST IMAGINE
Imagine if the world were a little different or you were a little different. What would that be like? Choose one of the following questions and draw or doodle your response on the opposite page.

1. If you lived in a country at war, what would your life be like?
(my answer: I just wrote a whole middle grade novel about this! And I've also just written a series of poems set in Aleppo... bombs, dust, dead bodies, blood, missing parents, demolished buildings, trash everywhere, no bread, powdered milk, no electricity... it's pretty horrifying, and my heart breaks for those actually living it.)

2. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would that be?

3. If you could stay home and play all day, what would you choose to do?
(my answer: read! quilt! write poems! play cello! take a walk! cook - and EAT- good food!)

4. If you were the leader of your country, what one thing would you like to change?

5. If you didn't have a home, what would your life be like?
(my answer: there are quite a few books out lately about refugees. See this post.)

6. If you could change one thing about your family, what would that be?

7. If the whole world were listening, what would you like to say?
(my answer: Thank you. I love you. Forgive me. I forgive you.)

from BLUE BUCKET

by Naomi Shihab Nye

What if, instead of war,

we shared our buckets

of wind and worry?

Tell me the story 

you carry there,

steeping in old pain

and future hope,

rich with fragrant

savory spices,

ginger, turmeric,

tarragon, find me

a spoon in one

of your pockets,

even if we don't

 speak the same language...

maybe

 you hold my bucket

a while, see what

the handle feels like,

and I hold yours,

and maybe both buckets

are empty and

we trade them forever...

-----------------

Isn't that lovely? And here is the RESPONSE POEM:

JENNA

IN OUR WRITING JOURNAL

In our writing journal this week

we are supposed to ask,

What if?

It can be something silly, like

What if

I could stay home and play all day?

Or something serious, like

What if 

I didn't even have a home?

Most kids are choosing a fun subject

and funny answers,

but I feel like taking a chance

and asking a hard question

even if I might not like my answer,

even if I might not have any answer at all.

- Janet Wong

 Ameera

WHAT IF

What if -

instead of

this country and that country,

this state and that state,

these people and those people,

it was just

us here and us there?

What if?

- Janet Wong

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I really love how accessible and timely this book is! I also love how it invites questions and doesn't demand answers. This is what it means to be a poet... to be open to the world, to play with words and to live in the questions. I hope you will include it in your reading and writing practice... also, toward the end of the book there are some great ideas for practical ways kids can start changing the world TODAY.

Maggie

If you would like to win a copy of this book, Pomelo Books has generously donated FIVE copies to giveaway! Simply leave a comment by 11:59 pm Tuesday, January 31, 2017 answering one of the above JUST IMAGINE questions, and our cat Maggie will select the winners!

Happy day - go forth and #ReadYourWorld!