Sharing this post on social media? Use this description to make it accessible: [Image description: Illustration from ‘Simon and the Bear,’ by Eric A. Kimmele &Matthw Trueman. A young man who I perceive as white-presenting snuggles up with a polar bear on an iceberg. Before them, the shamash and seven candles are lit on the menorah.]
‘Simon And The Bear’
Simon And The Bear
Picture book, Recommended for ages 5-9
Keep Raising Luminaries & Books for Littles free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.
Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check out the full affiliate disclosure along with my statement of accountability. If you’re into supporting libraries (please do!) more than consumerism, you can also support my work directly:
Donate or shop using an affiliate link via| Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book
A Hanukkah book for everyone
Simon And The Bear encapsulates everything about the winter holidays that I want to keep, plucked from the rubble of icky greedy consumerism, competition, and show-offishness.
It’s got none of that, and so much of the good stuff:
Generosity. Selflessness. Accepting hard circumstances. Breathing through the darkness. Gratitude. Acceptance of what is, but making space for hope.
SO GOOD… not because it’s easy to read. But because it’s difficult.
There are at least a couple times where Simon is just flat out accepting – I am going to die out here on the cold ice.
Which makes a nice contrast because he still has HOPE. Making space for doomed circumstances – but also hope – is what makes it so powerful. But definitely hold off or scaffold & prepare for younger/sensitive kids.
How we grow through hard stories
Listening during play & make-up stories
Around age 4, the stories kids play start to get macabre (lots of dying, explosions, abandonment). They’re exploring valid fears as they learn how vulnerable they are in a big world.
This is a sign that kids are looking to master potentially traumatic experiences and fears. Same goes for weapons play (turning things into guns, etc.). Kids are exploring contingency plans, working out anxiety – to feel like they can overcome larger predators.
Many caregivers are afraid this means their kids are becoming violent and try to quash these types of play and stories. Instead, I’ve found it’s better to discuss them.
“I noticed earlier when you were playing you were talking about … is this something you think of?”
“Do you have these feelings/fears that something like this could happen to you or someone else?””
This is the time to introduce stories working through common fears
Trauma mastery is retroactively, re-involving ourselves in roles where we had a sense of loss of control. We run through these post-mortems, analyzing what went wrong, how we could prevent this from happening to us again.
This kind of macabre & violent play creates that same sense of control – but it’s more preventative, like a vaccination. Play is to help kids with a pre-mortem – what could I do IF…? So they can feel more prepared. Very healthy.
Introducing triggering topics with support
So these kinds of dark and scary stories can fill a need for kids to master these fears, and also be a good time to open these discussions up with guidance from an older person, or even peers who are wrestling with these same fears. That way they don’t have to hash it all out on their own.
So long as we make sure kids are prepared to read a difficult story, they give informed consent, and you’re there to listen to them without judgement about how the story makes them feel – these kinds of books don’t have to be a shock to the system.
You may also like: Immigrants Belong Here: Books Helping Kids Advocate For Human Rights
Is this #OwnVoices?
Author: Eric A. Kimmel (he/him)
Illustrator: Matthew Trueman (pronouns unknown)
Kimmel takes some deep liberties appropriating stories from cultures outside his own (specifically, his appropriation & butchering of Anasi stories). But in this case, he is an #OwnVoices Jewish author – although unlike Simon, he’s not an immigrant. But his grandmother came to the US in 1906 before WWI, and he based some of his stories based on her tellings.
I can’t find any illustrator bios on Trueman for background.
Learn more about #OwnVoices, coined by autistic author Corinne Duyvis
How we calculate the overall awesomeness score of books.
You might also like: Hanukkah Book For Gentiles & Interfaith Families
Stay Curious, Stand Brave, and Keep Families Together
If my work makes it easier for you to raise kind & courageous kiddos, you can keep these resources free for everybody by sharing this post with your friends and reciprocate by supporting my work directly.
Ways to support Raising Luminaries: Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book | Buy toothpaste | Subscribe to Little Feminist Book Club
But if your resources are limited – first support Families Belong Together – working to permanently end separation of immigrant families.
Sharing this post on social media? Use this description to make it accessible: [Image description: Illustration from ‘Greet the Dawn,’ by S.D. Nelson. A group of people greet the rising sun with upturned faces]
Interfaith Winter Solstice Books For Inclusive Kiddos
Recommended for ages 2-8
Keep Raising Luminaries free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.
Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check out the full affiliate disclosure along with my statement of accountability. If you’re into supporting libraries (please do!) more than consumerism, you can also support my work directly:
Donate or shop using an affiliate link via| Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book
Every religion (and every human) has a relationship with light.
We’ve been using interfaith stories to understand, respect, and find what we have in common with people of faith around the world. The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to examine how each faith understands their connection with the earth, and the regular events that occur as a byproduct of spinning through space – seasons, solstices, stuff like that.
For kids learning about faith from secular family, we use pay attention to common themes and practices across all religions. Light / sun / fire is a standard go-to around the world, particularly in those darkest months of the winter solstice.
When we discuss faith – I stress to the Earthquakes that there is no particular perspective as fact. It’s hard to swallow for us as atheist/agnostics – but I stress to my kids that there can be cold, hard, scientific facts, cosmologies that directly contradict them, and we have to accept both as a person’s truth.
Guided questions
Want to start conversations on interfaith understanding and acceptance with your kids? Here’s an example of how we used winter holidays and the stories below.
Why do many cultures around the world observe annual winter holidays?
- In our family culture and our community, which celebrations of light do we celebrate?
- What time of the year does this occur?
- What is different about holidays we celebrate in spring, summer, autumn vs. ones we celebrate in winter?
(Leave space for kids to realize that nature-based holidays are marked by a seasonal transition, while social holidays mark a political transition in power.) - Which cultural light celebrations are solar (sun) based? Which are lunar (moon) based?
- Why are so many winter holidays based on the sun or the moon?
(Leave space for the kiddos to recognize that not much is happening on the ground while plants are dormant and animals are hibernating.)
Discussions on hope in hard times
- In mid-winter around the solstice, the days are dark and cold, and food stores may be running low. Why is important for communities to maintain hope during this time?
- How does having less of something (scarcity) remind us to appreciate it more?
Empathy & connection: Moving from ‘us/them’ an inclusive global ‘us’
- How does cultural fluency – understanding the similarities and differences between cultural norms, help us be better self-advocates and accomplices?
- How are our own family/community celebrations of light similar to those of other cultures?
- Why is it important to learn about traditions other than the ones we celebrate?
- Are our family holidays acknowledged by the wider community and our institutions (ex: schools)?
- How does/would it feel when our most meaningful cultural holidays are invisible or ignored by our community? By those in power?
- Why is it particularly important that we learn the faith and cultural traditions observed by people from targeted groups?
- What can we say or do about a friend’s cultural holiday that shows respect and care for them?
Decolonizing our winter celebrations
- What ideas and values are important to us as a family?
- Why do we celebrate the winter holidays we do? Did we inherit them, or create them ourselves?
- How do the traditions and rituals we make time for align with our family values?
- How can we adjust our holiday rituals to align better with our values?
Beginner Books On Holding Space for Conflicting Beliefs
Observing winter solstice holidays reaffirm social identity and belonging.
While winter is scary and wants to kill us dead – we could run out of food! We could freeze to death! The air hurts our faces! We could get eaten by a starving predator with nothing left to lose!
So through all that scary stuff outside – winter festivals reassure us that we will continue to care for each other. This is our opportunity to commit to hope, we will hold on through the hard months until things get easier. While autumn holidays kick us in gear and remind us to prepare for what’s coming, winter celebrations foster resilience and strengthen community connections.
First Light, First Life
Best for ages 6+
First Light, First Life connection religious practices from around the world in creation stories that center on the sun. This works well even for us science geeks, since life on earth unarguably DOES hinge on the sun providing us with energy. The reason I kick off with this one is that it holds contrasting and parallel ideologies as equal, from Indigenous cultures all around the world.
This is surface-level stuff, with a maker trying to pull together our commonalities and respect our differences in harmony, without judgement. But also with a fair amount of typical errors (like mis-attributing one Indigenous American nation’s beliefs as a global pan-native thing.)
So, as with all compilation-style books like this, use this didactic, nonfiction book as a jumping off point, rather than a go-to textbook.
Celebrations of Light: A Year of Holidays Around the World
Recommended for ages 7+
Another, rather gorgeously illustrated compilation ALSO lacking a story,* Celebrations of Light includes Gregorian New Year’s, the Lunar New Year (implies it’s only celebrated in Taiwan and China, which is untrue), Lanterns & the month of Ramadan, Lichtmesdag, Buddha’s Birthday, Bon Matsuri, Diwali, Loy Krathong, Hanukkah, Luciadagen, Christmas & Las Posadas, Kwanzaa, and Candelmas.
*(Is it too much to ask to engage kids instead of just dumping facts on their heads?)
The Way To Start A Day
Recommended for ages 4.5+
Kids grow up, stages end, and good and bad things will happen.
But how awesome is it that we get to be here now, welcoming a new day and the opportunity it brings?
How awesome is it that no matter what yesterday was like, we get to remember the good stuff and wake up for another chance to try again?
The Way To Start A Day is mindful guide on gratitude practices to greet a new day around the world, with an emphasis on nations within the Southwest plains of Turtle Island. While it’s not specific to the territory currently called the US, the illustrations intertwine Indigenous people from around the planet – and points out the connection between the rising of the sun and how we approach each new day. I really liked this one.
Greet The Dawn
Recommended for ages 6+
As always, Nelson’s illustrations are gorgeous,but this is one in his collection with zero story to engage little kids, and it’s a bit too poetic to hold the 5-year-old’s attention
So instead, we gaze at the pictures and discuss the intent – recognition of morning as a unique time of renewal. How humans are not in entitled dominion over, but rather – in partnership with the sun, sky, and animals, and how we are all interdependent upon each other.
When God Made Light
Recommended for ages 5.5+
When God Made Light is the most blatantly religious of the collection, as it’s written for ex-fundamentalist Christians, and maintains the presumption that creation is intentionally designed by an intelligent god.
As atheist/agnostics, our family approaches this in a complicated way. Some folks believe in a conscious god. We don’t. Who is right? Both! Cause it’s important to start those little brains young on realizing that there is no objective truth when it comes to belief.
Raised in an abusive fundamentalist Christian home, Turner created this progressive Christian series as an exercise in trauma mastery – to dismantle the more toxic aspects of fundamentalism, while also holding onto the good stuff that Jesus said before Christianity got all political – you an unconditionally valuable part of the universe.
The book is supposed to be for preschoolers, but like the others, there’s no story, and the flowery language goes right over the Earthquakes heads: “Now, when God made light, God made all different kinds. Some sparkles, some flares, but all light shines. It flashes in bolts when lightning is crashing or bursts through the sky when a comet is dashing.”
So I’d save it for older kids – both so they have a chance to think critically about intelligent design without us that assumption down their throats as fact – but also because the language is just tought to parse, particularly for literal thinkers.
Baby Loves Thermodynamics**
Recommended for ages 3+
** The title is a bit of a misnomer, not having much to do with thermodynamics and heat transfer so much as energy transfer.
And for those who want to tie in faith with more concrete facts: Not what we believe about light and energy, but what exactly is going on, how our physical body and senses gather that data to we use to create a deeper meaning.
A caveat before you dig in (as if the mistake in the title isn’t enough to clue you in): Don’t shove crap like this down your kid’s throat if they aren’t already open or interested in the topic. Your preschooler doesn’t need a phD in physics.
Many children’s book authors who fall prey to believing the media children consume doesn’t have to be held to a particularly high standard. This industry is rampant with childism! Spiro does like the most bare minimal research into the sciences she writes about. The series is rife with errors, misnomers, and misunderstandings.
Let’s just be frank about these kinds of board books – they’re cash grab books for Instagram families & parent bloggers who want to show off how hard they can parent their babies.
Good grief. Slow down. Raising humans doesn’t have to be a competitive spectator sport.
However – when I need illustrations and a tangible thing to hold while we dig into the Earthquakes’ questions about the universe, these can be handy. The illustrations hold little kids’ attention, and I use Chan’s illustrations to facilitate our discussions on the natural world and how humans study it.
Winter Candle
(ages 7-11)
This one is out of print, but not worth the price tag of a rare book – so grab it at the library if yours has a copy.
A candle gets passed to different neighbors – from a woman celebrating US thanksgiving, to a Havdalah candle for Shabbat, to a St Lucia crown, to a kinara candle for Kwanzaa. It’s really a story so much as families realizing they don’t have the candle they need and building community by asking for help from neighbors.
It’s very sweet and makes a good intro book if you have it around – but won’t provide any background on what all these traditions are and why folks celebrate them.
Flash and Gleam
(ages 4-8)
Covering a few of the cultural world holidays that celebrate light – this expands beyond winter, but is a helpful nonfiction book to get kids started on discussing the similarities between practices across the planet.
Lights of Winter: Winter Celebrations Around the World
(ages 4-8)
Includes short introductions to a few winter light-based celebrations excluded from common winter holiday books, including Solstice, Yule, Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Teng Chieh, Diwali, Soyal, Las Posadas, Zagmuk, and Saturnalia.
Some videos to help with guided discussions
How Coyote & Eagle stole the sun & moon
You might also like
Celebrations of light:
Relevant book collections:
- Kids books about courageous generosity
- Books For Littles Winter Favorites
- Transformative Kids Stories To Kick Off Your New Years
- Cozy Kid’s Books To Warm Up Your Winter
- Decolonizing Thanksgiving Is An Oxymoron – Kids Books Dismantling The Myth of a ‘First Thanksgiving’
- Kids Books About Radical Interdependence: The Kindness of Giving, Taking, and Asking
- Interfaith Friendship Stories
Stay Curious, Stand Brave, and Greet the Sun
Join me in supporting Campaign Zero, providing communities with alternatives to police violence to create a more just and equitable society.
Support these resources via Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book
Sharing this post on social media? Use this description to make it accessible: [Image description: Illustration from ‘Coyote Columbus Story’ by Thomas King & William Kent Monkman. Coyote, wearing shorts and high-tops, asks to play ball with Christopher Columbus and his men. Columbus peers suspiciously over the upside-down map of ‘The New Route to India’ as his men unload muskets, machine guns, and weaponry onto the shore in the background.]
Keep Raising Luminaries & Books for Littles free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.
Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check out the full affiliate disclosure along with my statement of accountability. If you’re into supporting libraries (please do!) more than consumerism, you can also support my work directly:
Donate or shop using an affiliate link via| Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book
What a fun way to end school celebrations of genocide
I’m not going to get into details on vile human-trafficker and mass-murderer Christopher Columbus. You probably know about that massive jerk by now.
AND YET – It’s 2020 and throughout the US, teachers still celebrate ‘Christopher Columbus Day’ in their classrooms. Maybe because he never set foot here? Is that what we’re celebrating? He killed and enslaved less people here than in Central America? Yay?
(Seriously though – wtf, how is this still a thing?)
But I WILL go on about this SPECTACULAR story that doesn’t just dismantle myths and stereotypes, it pies them in the face with a wild cackle.
Trusting kids with the ‘both…and’ of history’s horrors and the joy we need to survive it
A Coyote Columbus Story engages kids with the deeply powerful but mistake-prone trickster, Coyote. This is an adventure in Indigenous storytelling, a subversive critique at colonist consumerism, and an Indigenous perspective of historical events. This is how we tackle hard topics in an age-appropriate way. A really funny way.
Maybe too funny? Is it disrespectful for us to be laugh so hard about at an act so horrifying?
For those who have said about this book that genocide is not funny, there is this: Humor has been our salvation. If we couldn’t laugh, sometimes at really awful stuff, there wouldn’t be any of us here.
With that – this is an intro book to get kids started on the topic of colonization, genocide, and slavery – one that doesn’t send them spiraling into despair. A quick antidote for the construction paper Santa Maria our kids bring home from school in October.
I think the problem is when we stop at the easy laughs, and refuse to carry these conversations into the deeper, harder evolution of reconciling history and how we apply this knowledge today. So many settlers are afraid to talk about colonization with kids beyond that cowardly myth: ‘Europeans came. The Indigenous people died. Even though some unfair stuff happened, it’s out of our hands, because they’re all dead and we don’t have to concern ourselves with their suffering.’
But no – this story pokes that myth in the ribs – a hard, conspiratorial reminder that Indigenous people survive. Taíno and Arawak people targeted by Columbus are still here. They created innovate ways to survive the violence and erasure of colonialism that continues today. Still fighting for their rights, their families, and still pushing against an active tide of genocide.
So we enjoy this book – especially on Indigenous Peoples’ Day in October. And then we follow it up with deeper books about our responsibility to amplify Indigenous activism and decolonize our local spaces.
Shade on victim-blaming
Those of us who benefit from oppression love a passive voice. “The Indigenous people were enslaved and killed.” No one is killing and enslaving them. They’re just…ending up like that! Nothing to be done if they’re going to get themselves into that kind of predicament! ::Brushes dust off hands::
As Indigenous literature scholars such as Dr. Deb Reese (American Indians in Children’s Literature) and Jean Paine Mendoza (A Broken Flute) have pointed out – settler’s favorite children’s book about colonization (ex: Encounter) blames Taíno people for failing to recognize the warning signs of invasion. This trope shows up again and again both in kidlit and resources for higher education.
We blame Indigenous people for failing to fight back (but when they did, we call them ‘savages.’)
We blame them for naivete, for failing to respond to starving visitors and immigrants with death and internment (we Americans do so love to denigrate compassion and humane treatment!)
We blame them for daring to be in the wrong place, in the wrong time (The wrong place being their home.). For leaving such a tempting resource out where invaders could see it – a land they had cultivated with roads, infrastructure, and soil they had enriched through years of agriculture. Kind of like blaming a home-invasion on a person who took great care of their house.
Which sounds a lot like blaming survivors of harassment and violence for leaving the house / not leaving the house / smiling too much / refusing to smile / asking for it …ad nauseam.
A Coyote Columbus Story refuses to do that. The responsibility of violence and harm belongs on the people who chose to do main, kill, and enslave others. We must stop blaming the survivors of colonization for being easy pickings. Or, as reasonable folks would put it – empathetic human beings who don’t mug each other.
Although we get hints of Columbus’s crimes against humanity, he’s not actually centered in this story – the way he is in most. His human targets are no longer accessories, but people with a rich cultural history long before he showed up. People who are innovative, smart, with agency. People who, as Claudia Fox Tree, Arawak educator, can tell you – survived.
This story is not just about the past. It is alarmingly relevant today. This is the perfect cautionary tale – for many of us who benefit from colonization, who continue to erase and ignore Indigenous people, and who exploit and devastate the land:
You better watch out or this world is going to get bent
But what about this federal holiday celebrating a supremacist Columbus as an Italian American?
Okay first – Columbus never set foot in the land currently known as North America. So let’s get the out of the way. He was not a ‘product of his time’ as no other individual – before or since, as “he enslaved five thousand Indigenous people through his career. More than any other individual in history, ever.”
Which is to say – your average Genoese person was not, at the time, nor now – a brutal murderer and slaver. Suggesting Columbus is representative of Italian Americans in the past or present is – kind of offensive?
Folks who oppose Indigenous Peoples Day like to reduce Italian American heritage to Columbus (who himself was brought back to Spain in chains for crimes against his own men.) These advocates are claiming that by acknowledging the history of this one jerk, we’re doing… reverse-racism against white people and making it “a crime to be white.“
Aside from the fact that talking about the impacts of genocide and not celebrating your crush with a federal holiday is not the same as criminalizing your identity. (Although honey, that’s a thing, just not a valid threat to you.) This particular line came from a group who claimed both ending Columbus day to be an attack on white people, and in the same rant, denied Italian Americans hold the identity or privileges of whiteness in 2018’s America. PICK A LANE, LADY.
This was in a city hearing where a group of Fox News viewers went on to heckle an Indigenous mother into tears as she tried to explain the impact of schools celebrating Columbus Day on her child.
Which is all to say – folks who can’t acknowledge the truth about Columbus are not the inclusive representation of Italian American culture they claim. Just a small subset who value European culture, and lives as supreme above the safety and dignity of Indigenous people. Which is a fancy, tap-dancing way of saying: white supremacists.
The US holiday of Columbus Day was initially based a fictionalized novel by Washington Irving (where Columbus was a hero and adventurer, rather than a guy who was terrible at basic geography, who went full-on monster). The holiday itself was orchestrated by Generoso Pope (1892-1950), who held the job of perpetuating Mussolini’s fascist propaganda throughout the US.
(So if you are wondering, yes, to be anti-Columbus is to be anti-fascist. If you thing fascism is shitty and don’t want it in the US – THAT IS A GOOD THING.)
The US developed a virtue signal holiday to welcome Italian Americans into the folds of whiteness, in the standard ploy to divide poor European immigrants, Indigenous people, and Africans displanted by enslavers from rising up against a common oppressor. An olive branch of “We will stop lynching you if you assimilate to whiteness. Here’s a holiday to show our good will!”
And in true model-minority fashion, it worked. For a time.
However, compassionate Italian Americans have always resented our government linking their heritage to Columbus and his acts. As we gain more access to the voices of Indigenous people, we are becoming aware of the true history behind colonization, and our role as settlers in perpetuating that harm by celebrating their genocide. Progressive Italians are starting to resent being tied to the legacy of Columbus – and are organizing to work in solidarity with Indigenous people. Like our good friends in the Italian Americans for Indigenous Peoples Day Massachusetts, for example.
To add fuel to the flames, before Italians were welcomed into whiteness, earlier versions of the KKK were against the creation of Columbus day. Which completely derailed the point Indigenous people have been making this whole time – Columbus Day shouldn’t be a thing not because Italian Americans don’t count as white (or do they? That lady really confused me), but because Italian Americans are not a monolith – and they are certainly not represented by this bottom-feeder Columbus.
In fact – using a violent terrorist as the monolithic representation for entire group of people with an ethnic identity is kind shitty. Who wants that? SERIOUSLY – WHO WOULD WANT THAT?!
St. Paddy’s day (not federally recognized bank holiday, but still) is fun, and I think the St. Patrick was generally a good guy. But you know what? If I, as an Irish Bostonian (we do St. Paddy’s HARDCORE) found out he murdered babies and fed them to dogs – I would be COMPLETELY DONE with both the man and any day honoring him. I would be 100% okay handing that day over to survivors of his attacks so we can boost their truth and we can reconcile as a community. And if I didn’t believe his detractors, I could still do my parades and wear green and, for the Irish part of my culture at least, I would face no discrimination or negative consequences for letting St. P go.
Italian Americans demand better representation
I don’t want to spend too much time centering the settlers and white folks in this – but this is all to say, to both my family and friends who are Italian Americans – I agree. You deserve better than this brutal stereotype. So we’re working on a children’s book list celebrating Italian culture, Italian authors & Italian American stories that show how wonderful and non-murderous Italian Americans really are. For my 2nd-gen Italian grandma, my kids of Italian descent, my cousins, uncles, and friends – I hope you’ll leave a comment with your kids’ favorite books celebrating their heritage and ethnicity. Columbus is a cracked and distorted funhouse mirror that doesn’t reflect Italian readers. You are the badass folks who founded the anti-fascist movement and fought against redlining! You deserve accurate representation free of the stereotypes and lies.
You might also like: How to Subvert Racist Gate-keeping in Education
Parenting is Praxis:
These conversations have to go somewhere. We can’t just read a book for ‘awareness’ and consider our work done. Here are a few ways we transform our family discussions from A Coyote Columbus Story into action:
- Follow Indigenous leadership: We found our local indigenous nations and looked for ways to follow their lead, support their initiatives, and educate our communities on how to decolonize.
- The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Toolkit is designed to get you started. This year, we read the Bear, Horse, and Sparrow story in the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Toolkit to counter the construction-paper Santa Marias and other genocide-celebratory nonsense my kids pick up at school. This story serves as a launchpad for settler kids to recognize their role in decolonization.
- As parents and community members, we’ve been supporting the UAINE in instituting Indigenous Peoples’ Day in our city as a first step to truth and reconciliation for the past two years.
- This year, we’re working in relationship with Elizabeth Solomon, member of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, in creating an IPD event in our city.
- Support voting access for Indigenous people by donating to the Native American Civil Rights Fund.
- We keep talking about this – like every conversation here, this is something we need to continue talking about. Here are a list of guided discussion questions to continue what we experience in this book with kids.
You might also like: Kids Books Dismantling The Myth of a ‘First Thanksgiving’
Read this book along with…
This isn’t a one-and-done conversation. We need to bring this conversation back to kids from multiple angles. Here are a few more books pick up when you set this one down:
- Fry Bread, We Are Water Protectors & The People Shall Continue – Affirming the refrain ‘We are still here’
- Coyote Tales – A short chapter book by the same author, Thomas King. Such fun!
- Find more children’s books to honor Indigenous Peoples Day
You may also like: Following Indigenous Leadership in Climate Justice
Is this #OwnVoices?
Author: Thomas King (he/him) is of Cherokee and Greek descent, and is not enrolled in the three federally recognized Cherokee nations due to family separation. (Enrollment is super complicated, thanks to an intentionally destructive legacy of US legislation).
Illustrator: William Kent Monkman (he/him) is of Swampy Cree & English-Irish descent, and is a member of the Fisher River Band in Manitoba.
Learn more about #OwnVoices, coined by autistic author Corinne Duyvis
How we calculate the overall awesomeness score of books.
Transparency & Cahoots!
We purchased a copy of A Coyote Columbus Story, because the Earthquakes read it frequently. Make sure to check it out of your local library to keep it in circulation, and perhaps grab your own copy while supporting local indie bookstores on Bookshop.
You should definitely check out: The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Family Action Toolkit
Stay Curious, Stand Brave, and Support Indigenous Voting Rights
If my work makes it easier for you to raise kind & courageous kiddos, you can keep these resources free for everybody by sharing this post with your friends and reciprocate by supporting my work directly.
Ways to support: Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book | Buy toothpaste | Subscribe to Little Feminist Book Club
But if your resources are limited – support the Native American Civil Rights Fund first. I have easy access to voting – but the US is still blocking many Indigenous people from voting, and they’re working to remove those barriers.
“Our recent report, Obstacles at Every Turn, details obstacles that Native voters face at every turn in the voting process” – the Native American Civil Rights Fund.
Psst: Here’s a list of guided discussion questions that we’ve used with the Earthquakes while reading this book.
Sharing this post on social media? Use this description to make it accessible: [Image description: Illustration from ‘Oskar and the Eight Blessings,’ by . Text “…Until the night of broken glass.” over three images of the same moment – a synagogue burning, black soldier’s boots trampling shards of glass, and three people hiding in dark shadows]
Oskar and the Eight Blessings
Oskar And The Eight Blessings
Picture book, Recommended for ages 4.5+
Keep Raising Luminaries & Books for Littles free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.
Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check out the full affiliate disclosure along with my statement of accountability. If you’re into supporting libraries (please do!) more than consumerism, you can also support my work directly:
Donate or shop using an affiliate link via| Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book
This was such a beautiful – and such a hard story to read.
Reading Oskar And The Eight Blessings together, we introduced the Earthquakes to the concept of America as a sanctuary, and our responsibility as citizens to maintain this national identity.
Through it, we see the beauty of interfaith kindness, and how a young boy navigating the streets of NY for the first time manages the long cold walk – with eight small acts of humanity from the people he meets.
I’m grateful for this story because it’s beautiful and gives us a complex story my kids will learn to understand deeper as they grow older. But I’m MOST grateful for the parts that make this book hard to read. Small references, without sugar-coating, about the Night of Broken Glass forced me explain to my 5yo why this boy had to leave his family behind, what likely happened to them, and the hard decisions they made in 1938.
I didn’t force the conversation, but his questions eventually led to the existence of war… To the concept of genocide… To the Holocaust… To why it’s so very necessary that we fight against tyranny and violence today.
So it wasn’t an easy read, but somehow this book made it easier to have the conversations we needed to have – if that makes any sense. And it gave us some pride in what small things we’ve done right with our constitution and country, and what things we need to fight for and protect.
For kids’ questions about the Night of Broken Glass & Holocaust
Benno and the Night of Broken Glass goes into deeper background, explaining the significance of this night as the start of the Holocaust. It’s got more grit and heart-crushing than Oskar, with little of the hope and space to breathe. Unlike Oskar – it’s not a book kids will want to read twice.
So we read Oskar first, then pick this one up when the kids ask about the vague reference to the Night of Broken Glass.
From there, to end on note that doesn’t send kids into a spiraling pit of despair, you may want to continue on to The Cat Who Lived With Anne Frank. Like Benno, it’s narrated by a cat – which for some reason makes these horrifying history stories a little easier to get through.The Cat Who Lived With Anne Frank. is a bit wordy, so it was a good read with the 7yo, but the 5yo couldn’t follow it.
Throughout The Cat Who Lived With Anne Frank, we discussed the symbolism of the swastika (from the POV of the Cat, the author called them ‘black spiders’ which was kind of ambiguous and confusing, I wish they just called it what it was) and explained why this is a symbol of hate and terror and not something to joke about.
Our city has a large Jewish population and the swastika shows up in and around our schools on a regular basis. So unfortunately we have to discuss what to do when we see a swastika, why and how to report it, and why it’s our job to support and stand with our Jewish friends and neighbors. The story included non-Jewish accomplices without centering them.
Looking for kindness
The most powerful aspect of Oskar And The Eight Blessings was how it ties into the concept of Hanukkah as a time to look for hope through what feels like impossible odds. Through Oskar’s eyes, my 5-year-old found ways to look for small miracles (acts of kindness from strangerS) as he walked to his aunt’s house through Manhattan.
How he can be blessed by small acts of kindness and compassion, and he can return that blessing – but most importantly – that reciprocation is not always necessary and real kindness is non-transactional.
Is this #OwnVoices?
Authors: Tanya Simon, Richard Simon
Illustrator: Mark Siegel
Richard Simon grew up in America as a Jewish in an antisemitic NY neighborhood, according to this article in the Jewish Book Council. I haven’t found info to confirm whether ornot Tanya (married to Simon) or Siegel (a common German-Jewish surname) identify as Jewish or immigrants.
Learn more about #OwnVoices, coined by autistic author Corinne Duyvis
How we calculate the overall awesomeness score of books.
Stay Curious, Stand Brave, and Support Safe Refuge
If my work makes it easier for you to raise kind & courageous kiddos, you can keep these resources free for everybody by sharing this post with your friends and supporting my work directly.
But if your resources are limited – first support Rosie’s Place.
“Rosie’s Place was founded in 1974 as the first women’s shelter in the United States. Our mission is to provide a safe and nurturing environment that helps poor and homeless women maintain their dignity, seek opportunity and find security in their lives.”
Ways to support my work: Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book | Buy toothpaste | Subscribe to Little Feminist Book Club
This post on the Sikh identity in children’s books contains excepts from Navjot Kaur, author and Founder of Saffron Press.
“I Felt Invisible”
Despite years of rejections, I believed our stories could be erased no longer.
Perhaps I did not fit the needs of the traditional publishing market, but I could still blaze my own trail. Writing became a tool to forge through fears of the unknown.
When we learned our son was Deaf, my perspective shifted from the single lens of diversity, to a broader understanding and urgency of equity and accessibility.
These books create a soft landing space for my child to fall upon when things got tough, without him losing sight of his own self worth – he would not be invisible.
[Featured Image Description: Illustration by Lisa Sky featuring a young child with medium-length hair smiling and holding a gastronomy tube syringe. He is shirtless and the tube connects to a gastric port in his chest.’]
MORE IN THIS SERIESFirst Talks About Body Boundaries
DESTIGMATIZING BODY DIVERSITY
103: Talking About Differences With Kids
Books destigmatizing diversity give us a chance to catch prejudice before it begins.
All kids form generalizations – we need to lump things into abstract groups so our brains don’t go dizzy with detail. The trouble is that we group humans according to what they look like. So, when we fail to explicitly discuss diversity with our children, they create their own stereotypes.
Unless we expose children to stories featuring people of different races, abilities, sizes, and genders, we will miss the messed-up theories they come up with on their own.
