Cynthia Leitich Smith Speaking March 18th at the WSDLC Annual Meeting!

The Wisconsin Schools Digital Library Consortium (WSDLC) has its annual meeting this Thursday, March 18th at 2:30 pm and our speaker is author and curator, Cynthia Leitich Smith!

Cynthia Leitich Smith is the 2021 NSK Neustadt Laureate and a New York Times bestselling author of books for young readers, including HEARTS UNBROKEN, which won the American Indian Library Association’s Youth Literature Award. Her 2021 releases are the middle grade anthology ANCESTOR APPROVED: INTERTRIBAL STORIES FOR KIDS and novel SISTERS OF THE NEVERSEA.

She is also the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint at HarperCollins Children’s Books, and serves as the Katherine Paterson Inaugural Endowed Chair on the faculty of the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Cynthia is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and lives in Austin, Texas.

 

To attend, please use this registration link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xA5LX7kSQ0emyd278rq4-A 

A huge thank you to OverDrive for sponsoring this event!

New Resource Manual - American Indian Studies in WI

Robin Amado, part of the FB group Wisconsin Librarians and Teachers Supporting Act 31, recently shared an advanced printing of amazing resource for all of Wisconsin staff working with children: American Indian Studies in Wisconsin (Act 31) Resource Manual compiled and written by Caryl Pfaff, librarian at the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College Library in Hayward WI.

The need to educate WI residents by sharing accurate information about tribal histories and culture led in 1989/91 "to the creation of Wisconsin Act 31 that requires all students and teachers within the state of Wisconsin receive instruction on the history, culture, and tribal sovereignty of the American Indian nations and tribal communities in Wisconsin. This instruction is required for students at least twice in the elementary and once in the high school grades. This resource manual has been developed to help teachers, students, librarians, and parents identify quality materials that will help support Act 31 endeavors."

This resource guide, funded by an IMLS grant, shares information, curriculum and booklists for elementary and secondary age youth on both WI tribes and those outside of WI. There are acquisition sources for materials listed in the 66 page manual as well as a wide array of information of use to libraries of all types throughout WI. This resource is a treasure trove for collection development for all ages in libraries!

November is Native American Heritage Month

As librarians, we know how important it is that kids see themselves in books--and see others in books, as well.  #weneeddiversebooks, aimirite?! 

When is the last time you assessed your collection for books/titles containing Indigenous characters?

“Most of what kids see in books today are best sellers & classics that stereotype & misrepresent Native people in history. There’s a lot of bias in them. The books that I recommend are ones that can counter that bias in several ways. One, they’re not stereotypical. Two, most of them are set in the present day, which is important in countering what we see in a lot of children’s & young adult literature, which says that we vanished, we didn’t make it to the present day, and of course we did.” 
     - Debbie Reese, Nambe Pueblo, of American Indians in Children’s Literature

At this year's WLA, Valerie Morris of Whitefish Bay Public Library presented on just such a topic during her session, Experiences in Weeding Insensitive Picture Books About Native Americans.  The PowerPoint about the presentation is now available on the WLA website--and through THIS LINK.

Perhaps you're looking for more books written and/or illustrated by Indigenous people to help enhance your collection?  Try the blog American Indians in Children's Literature!  Or take a gander at this delightful booklist containing titles for children written by Indigenous authors.

  

For an idea how best to select and utilize these titles in your programming/classrooms/what-have-you, be sure to check out the following article from the July 2018 edition of Language Arts written by Debbie Reese: Critical Indigenous Literacies: Selecting and Using Children’s Books about Indigenous Peoples.  

Here are a few other online resources to explore:

National Congress of American Indians
Wisconsin First Nations: American Indian Studies in Wisconsin

 

Go Team that Needs to Change It's Name and Logo!

My hometown baseball team is in the World Series.  There are two things I hope happen: Cubs fans have to wait another year for a title and Cleveland changes it's name and Chief Wahoo logo.  Watching the games, I am hear myself saying why do people think this is okay, why is that fan dressed in Native headdress, why can't we change it.  The Cleveland Indians have been moving away from the logo but the race to the World Series has brought it back and also the opposition to it.

Growing up, I was surrounded by streets named after long gone tribes.  When I moved to Wisconsin for college, there were active tribes.  Native people were no longer in the past tense or an abstract concept.  They were and still are real people.

One reason I was drawn to librarianship was because you encourage people to be curious about the world and seek out information to learn about stuff, places, people like you but also different from you. In the last few years, I have been actively seeking out resources on diversity to better understand my privilege and to better serve and understand all types of children and their families.

Resources I seek out and probably discovered through the YSS blog. Please add ones in the comments.

• Collection Development: Children's and Young Adult Books about Native Americans - ALSC webinar that is free for member and $25 for non-members 
• American Indians in Children's Literature - a blog run by Debbie Reese who is tribally enrolled at Nambe Owingeh and is also the instructor for the above webinar.
• Reading While White blog
• CCBC
• We Need Diverse Books blog

CCBC Multicultural Statistics for 2015

Continuing an annual effort of over 30 years, the CCBC documented the books they received in 2015 that are created by or are about people of color or from First/Native Nations.  Some numbers are up slightly from last year, but from the past it is known that a slight upward fluctuation is not necessarily sustained in subsequent years. 

Check out some of the numbers:

• 261 books had significant African or African American content

• 86 of these were by Black authors and/or illustrators
• 100 books were by Black book creators
• 14 of these had no visible African/African-American cultural content  

• 41 books had American Indian / First Nations themes, topics, or characters
• 17 of these were by American Indian/First Nations book creators
• 18 books were by American Indian / First Nations authors and/or illustrators
• 1 of these had no visible American Indian/First Nations content

• 111 books had significant Asian/Pacific or Asian/Pacific American content
• 43 of these were by Asian/Pacific or Asian/Pacific American 
• 173 books were by authors and/or illustrators of Asian/Pacific heritage 
• 130 of these had no visible Asian/Pacific or Asian/Pacific American content

• 82 books had significant Latino content 
• 40 of these were by Latino/a authors and/or illustrators
• 57 books were by Latino/a authors and/or illustrators
•  17 of these had no visible Latino content 

Explore the rest of this intriguing discussion HERE.