Real Kids. Good Books.
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Our children are gorgeously diverse and they love a good read. At the heart of Real Kids/ Good Books are authors and illustrators who are building a new diverse canon, book by dazzling book.

Themes include: children of color, LGBTQ, adoption, special needs, math, science and writing. And of course there is also a mishmash of miscellany and reblogged tidbits that strike my fancy as they float by.

Thanks for stopping by.
-Kate

Street Love (2006) by Walter Dean Myers.  I love this re-tellling of the Romeo and Juliet story. Young Damien Battle plays basketball and has worked hard in school. He’s set to go to a four year university when he meets Junice. Junice is trying to raise her little sister because her mother is locked up. Both are living with their grandmother who is being swallowed by Alzheimer’s so their social worker is threatening to split them up and put them in foster homes. Below is a little taste for you. Here we see a busy school yardBlack, brown, and tan formsPainting the illusion of musicWith their bodies, ball-dancing between theWhite lines of the court.Young Damien Battle, comfortable in stride and gestureWearing his seventeen years easily around broadShoulders, saunters at the unhurried pace ofHero knowing that the space that Opens before him is his due. 

Street Love (2006) by Walter Dean Myers. 

I love this re-tellling of the Romeo and Juliet story. Young Damien Battle plays basketball and has worked hard in school. He’s set to go to a four year university when he meets Junice. Junice is trying to raise her little sister because her mother is locked up. Both are living with their grandmother who is being swallowed by Alzheimer’s so their social worker is threatening to split them up and put them in foster homes. Below is a little taste for you.

Here we see a busy school yard
Black, brown, and tan forms
Painting the illusion of music
With their bodies, ball-dancing between the
White lines of the court.
Young Damien Battle, comfortable in stride and gesture
Wearing his seventeen years easily around broad
Shoulders, saunters at the unhurried pace of
Hero knowing that the space that
Opens before him is his due. 

— 2 years ago with 15 notes
#YA fiction  #African American  #diversity  #books  #kids books  #diverse kids lit  #Real Kids/ Good Books Review 
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