books4yourkids

This Review Originally Appeared on 9/14/15
George by Alex Gino is a groundbreaking, vitally important, perfectly written addition to the shelves of children's literature. Georgeis the story of ten-year-old George Mitchell who knows she is a girl, in spite of physical appearances. Over the course of the story, George struggles with what she knows to be true and wanting to tell the people in her life this truth. I came to George, after reading laudatory reviews and interviews, expecting a novel with the character development, layering and emotional power of RJ Palacio's Wonder and found  myself initially disappointed. George is a quiet story, told simply. As I read into the story, I realized that, in their (Gino prefers to use the singular pronoun "they")writing style, Gino had transported me into the mind of a ten-year-old. George doesn't know everything that I know (which is not much, admittedly) about gender in the 21st century. George does not know what I know a…

Review Originally posted on August 31, 2018 The Cardboard Kingdom  by Chad Sell Purchased at Barnes & Noble Story: This is a story with a story! On Arpil 15, 2015, Chad Sell launched the collaborative comics project that became The Cardboard Kingdom. Ten creators in nine different cities  answered Chad's call for writers to contribute stories he would illustrate. The call was answered by Jay Fuller, David Demeo, Katie Schenkel, Manuel Betancourt, Molly Muldoon, Vid Alliger, Cloud Jacobs, Michael Cole, Barbara Perez Marquez and Kris Moore, who passed away unexpectedly in 2017 and to whom the book is dedicated. Contributors are everything from writers and comics creators to teachers (college and fifth grade), a jewelry designer and a newly minted librarian. As the collaborative creators of The Cardboard Kingdom themselves demonstrate, like themselves, the world within this graphic novel that they created is one of inclusion, diversity and positivity. 
Uniting all the characters in th…

Stonewall: A Building, An Uprising, A Revolution Written by Rob Sanders,  illustrated by Jamey Christoph Purchased from Barnes & Noble This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising on June 28, 1969. Sander's Stonewall: A Building, An Uprising, A Revolution, positions the Stonewall Inn itself as the narrator of this book that gives readers an overview of a seminal moment in the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. Beginning in 1840 with the building of the brick horse stables that would become the Stonewall Inn, the narrator tells the story of the neighborhood that became Greenwich Village, a home to artisans and a place where, "you could be yourself, and where being different was welcomed and accepted," as early as the 1930s. The Inn tells readers that, leading up to the 1960s,
our neighborhood welcomed gays and lesbians - men who loved men, and women who loved women. We were home for people who were told they didn't fit in or belong. We had welcomed all kid…