New Teacher Resources!
I've had a rude awakening that as a job-seeking mum with no income and not many followers it's pretty impossible for me to acquire a decent quantity of books, particularly during a pandemic when publishing budgets are tight, and libraries are not your ideal hangout.
Despite polite email requests to book publishers, tons of competition entries and tips from fellow book bloggers (thanks again, Tayna!) I'm really struggling to get review copies and, sadly, my bank balance cannot handle any more purchases at this time.
So, while I figure out this little teething problem, I thought I'd turn my attention to creating teacher resources, which I hope might help raise awareness of the amazing Black authors we already have in the UK. I'm creating author fact files/mini bios which teachers can download and adapt for use with their classes.
The resources will be accessible for FREE via a new Resources section in this blog, and will include the following items:
- author fact file/mini bio (1 x A4 PDF and 1 x editable Word doc)
- whiteboard activities (1 x 8-page interactive slideshow comprising author fact file/mini bio plus quick open-ended whole-class activities)
- links to useful author-related websites/events
To kick things off, here's a set of resources featuring Laura Henry-Allain, the brilliant creator of the book and TV characters, JoJo and Gran Gran. As well as her work as an author, Laura is an award-winning Early Years writer, speaker and consultant who moves mountains in the world of education (see links below to learn more about Laura's exciting projects). Thank you Laura for helping me turn this tiny seed into a green shoot!
I'd love feedback as to whether you find these resources useful or not, so please leave your helpful comments in the comments box below. Similarly, if there are any Black authors for whom you'd like me to create resources just let me know, and I'll try to make it happen.
And if you like what I'm doing, please spread the word as this will help raise my book-blogging profile and I can then recommend more books for you. Hopefully, my reviews are fair and informative while offering a useful evaluation of the quality of Black representation within texts and illustrations.
Once I'm back reviewing books, I'm going to add a spreadsheet to the Resources section, containing my list of recommended Black children's texts with suggestions for use, age appropriateness and curriculum links. Keep an eye on the Resources section for more info.
Laura Henry-Allain
Notes for teachers and parents: If you open the Word file and PowerPoint with Google Docs, this may affect the styles/layout. It's best to download the files in their original format to retain the correct formatting. In the slideshow and fact file, Laura's favourite book is The Color Purple by Alice Walker. In the author fact file, the US spelling of book title The Color Purple is correct. You may wish to amend this to UK spelling to suit your class.
Thanks to CBeebies Children’s and Education brand management team for permission to use the CBeebies logo.
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