Evaluation of Picture Books on Racism

 For this blog, I chose to evaluate the book "Skin Again" by Bell Hooks. In this book it says that the skin you're in is just a covering and not the way we're described or who we are, in order for others to know who we are or about us, they need to open their hearts and see who we are, as well as opening our own heart to see others. For the full story, you can listen to it linked below. I feel like this book does a pretty good job of teaching kids how to look at someone's character and heart instead of looking at the color of their skin. You don't get to know who a person is just by looking at them, you have to genuinely sit down, listen, and get to know someone from within, listen to their stories. Something I feel like would be important to be aware of is the crowd that I'm reading it to. It's important for students to know about diversity and how we can look at and discuss about race without being negative or uncomfortable. This book I feel provides students with opportunity to reflect on race and racism because it shows how important it is to open your eyes to see people as a whole and not by the color of their skin. An activity I thought of is having a beanbag, and doing a form of circle toss with music. For this activity students will sit or stand in a circle and as the music is playing we will toss the bean bag throughout the circle, and whoever has the beanbag when the music pauses, tells something about themselves that others might not know, and just keep going until we've learned something, or even a couple thing, about one another. Overall, I really love this book and added it to my classroom wish list, because I will definitely be reading it in the future with my future kiddos!