Day: May 29, 2015

Reviewed by Ashley Hope Pérez 

PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION: Max wants to visit a beautiful boutique that sells handmade dolls, but he worries that other children will tease him. When he finally finds the courage to enter the store, Max meets Señor Pepe who has been making dolls since he was a boy in Honduras. Señor Pepe shares his story with Max and reminds him that, “There is no shame in making something beautiful with your hands. Sewing is a skill—just like hitting a baseball or fixing a car.” 

MY TWO CENTS:Max Loves Muñecas interweaves a number of topics: resisting the constraints of traditional gender roles, child homelessness, resourcefulness and resilience, and the value of cooperation and generosity. In the hands of a lesser writer, these many focal points might overpower a slim chapter book of 72 pages, but Zetta Elliott creates a richly textured narrative world and situations that…

Edited on May 24, 2015 to add contributor biographies, Tumblr and Pinterest links, which you will find at the end of this post. Most book titles link to Teaching for Change online bookstore, except for A is for Activist, The Phoenix on Barkley Street and I Love Ugali and Sukuma Wiki.

May 25, 2015: Important tweet from Cynthia Leitich Smith: @CynLeitichSmith books not on shelves can be ordered. B/c some bookstores/libraries don’t carry inclusive books. Readers ordering/inter-library-loaning prompt change, too.

Are you looking for books to add to your summer reading list? Ones written or illustrated by Native Americans or people of color? Ones that include characters that are Native? People of color? Disabilities? LGBTQ? Take a look at these! Note: I hope you enjoy several of these book covers as much as I did.

Created by: Edith Campbell, Sarah Park Dahlen, Sujei Lugo,

Reviewed by Lila Quintero Weaver

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

The term “cognitive disorder” implies there is something wrong with the way I think or the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others.

Marcelo Sandoval hears music that nobody else can hear — part of an autism-like condition that no doctor has been able to identify. But his father has never fully believed in the music or Marcelo’s differences, and he challenges Marcelo to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer . . . to join “the real world.”

There Marcelo meets Jasmine, his beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it’s a picture he finds in a file — a picture of a girl with half a face — that…