Tag:

Pandemic Life

Cooking Is Community Care – Empowering Kids In a Time of Uncertainty

by Ashia May 1, 2020

written by Ashia

[Image: Illustration from ‘Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao’ by Kat Zhang & Charlene Chua. Amy, a young Chinese-American girl. proudly shares her hand-made bao (steamed buns) with classmates at a lunch table.]

In this post: Kids books to reclaim power in a time of uncertainty with food activism

Cooking has become a weapon of empowerment against uncertainty.

I dunno about you – but I’m feeling this constant overwhelm of not-doing-enough-ness. Which isn’t helpful and keeps me from actually doing anything. So let’s take a deep breath and start by celebrating the tiny accomplishments we’ve managed this month.

From making it out of bed this morning, to calling a friend to see how they are doing, to brewing some tea – what is a little thing you’ve managed to maintain a sense of control?

This month at Bumblebee Hollow – it’s cooking. When we’re overwhelmed and over-worked, take-out pizza is no longer an option. We’ve been forced to plan and prep meals because there is no plan B. I keep trying to tell myself this a good thing. (But pizza, I miss you.)

Within our communities we’re coming together for mutual aid. We’re sharing recipes, seeds and sprouts. We’re donating and volunteering at food banks. We’re cooking together and eating with our kids.

While we are all so isolated, food is bringing us together.

When life gives you kale, make… something that tastes decent… out of kale(?)

If we’re to going to resort to home-cooking as the default (which is problematic in so many ways), I’d like to do it without perpetuating systems of inequity. I want some good to come of this. I want my kids to gain a deeper understanding of:

Their responsibility for feeding themselves and those they care for (Regardless of gender and age! Care work shouldn’t just be relegated to adult women)
The invisible mental labor, time investment, and skills of planning and prepping meals
How the ingredients we choose and the way we shop affects farm workers, local businesses, our community, and the planet
Where our food comes from – who we depend on to make our meals possible and how to support them.
Basic nutrition, chemistry, physics, and biology
Eating-related disabilities, illnesses, allergies, and how to accommodate needs and restrictions with patience and compassion
How to be curious and inclusive of cultural food practices outside our own.
How to decolonize our diets in a wider effort towards reconciliation and respecting our home and the people who steward it.

That’s all. Just a complete and total revolution in examining how we eat now, and how we can eat better from now on. For six-year-olds.

Oh oh oh – also I want to ingrain these habits so we can maintain it long after the pandemic is over.

This is doable. Let’s start small and slow with picture books and a single meal – and then work from there.

Getting access to the basics

All of this is to say – we’re choosing to make this a learning opportunity because we have the privileges and ability to make that choice. Eating to survive doesn’t have to be a moral lesson. Priority 1: feed the babies.

My kids are lucky enough to have a fully-stocked kitchen, two employed parents who are physically able to prep meals, own own car, and access to a well-stocked and affordable grocery store. But many folks don’t.

So before we dig into how to make use of what we’ve got, let’s make sure other families are getting access to the basics.

If you are able, please join me in these small actions families can take to support your community:

If you have a spare $15: Donate to your local food pantry. Set it as a reoccurring monthly donation, as families will need food throughout the pandemic and economic depression – not just at the beginning.
If delivery services are slammed: Do your own in-person shopping if you’re not vulnerable – so overworked delivery folks can help those who need it most. And if you do get delivery – tip your workers heavily for taking on outside hazards so you can stay safe.
If you can afford the cost, time, energy, and mental bandwidth: Go just a little bit out of your way to buy from grocery stores that treat workers fairly and are providing employees with proper personal protection equipment (PPE).
If you have a spare 5 minutes: Contact your representatives and advocate in favor of the Essential Workers Bill of Rights. You don’t want a sick cashier coughing on your tempeh, right? Fight for their right to sick pay so they can stay home and keep your kids safe.
If you shop yourself: Wear a mask in enclosed public spaces. Even if you don’t feel sick. Even if you’ve been in isolation for two months.
If you are heading to the store anyway: Ask a neighbor if you can pick up a couple things for them – this could extend their family’s trip to the store another few days. Even if you don’t have vulnerable neighbors – many folks have invisible disabilities and challenges they shouldn’t have to make public. Everyone could use some mutual aid.

Reclaiming a sense of control

Before we get to the cooking books – Last week we discussed the survival & triage procedure we use when we’re overwhelmed and the world won’t stop spinning. This week, we’ll discuss reclaiming a sense of power in the effort to mitigate long-term trauma.

Identifying our goals for the next 2 weeks

Back in the triage post, we focused on 4-7 day survival goals. Assuming you’ve got those goals under your belt, we can start looking farther forward. But also there is zero shame and it’s totally expected that this is a two-steps-back, one-step-sob-eating-chips situation. So if you’re like me, reverting back to immediate triage will be a weekly occurrence. Come back here when the chips are safe.

1. Check in with folks +1 level out from the people we are currently caring for.

Now that the people in your immediate household are safe for the moment, reach out to people whose harm would directly impact you – our next-level community members. If your friend getting sick means you’d need to fly across the country, it’s going to be much harder to focus on caring for people in your home. So check on your friend to see if she needs to be connected with local organizations or helpers to get through the next 7 days. Even if you can’t be that helper, having someone check in helps people feel less alone and better able to cope.

Earlier – when I mentioned checking in with neighbors before a trip to the store? Consider identifying 1-2 community members who are older, caring for young children, essential workers, or otherwise overwhelmed or potentially vulnerable. Ask if they would mind if your family checked in with them regularly (with easy outs if they find you annoying or patronizing).

Imagine if every family with the ability to grab a bag of groceries did this for another vulnerable family. The lives we could save.

2. Asking kids what goals they have for the next 2 weeks.

Does everyone in the family have basics covered for the next 14 days? Great. Now check in with your kids, and ask what direction they want to head in while we all collectively attempt to recover our marbles.

In terms of cooking – are they even interested in cooking? (Bad idea to force it, if not). Or would they be more interested in setting the table? Laundering napkins? Washing dishes? Decorative vegetable carving? Calculating the protein content of each meal??

The question is – what goals are they eager to master in growing and contributing their skills to the world?

Identifying our challenges

Overwhelming challenges feel more real and less amorphous-lurking-monster-y when I write them out. So let’s name the challenges-that-must-not-be-named so we can start to get a grip on them. If you’re stumped, start out with a basic hierarchy of needs.

What challenges are we facing in…

… finding food?
… cleaning and sanitizing our food and dishes?
… affording food?
… finding resources for better ways of eating?
… getting our immediate family fed and hydrated?
…helping people 1 level beyond our family stay fed and hydrated?

Identifying our resources

Creating a list of resources at our disposal is an early step in transformative justice and trauma recovery practices. Even when we have very few imperfect resources, with strings attached – it helps to write them out as a reassuring reminder that we don’t have to hold the entire world up on our own.

So let’s list five resources we do have. Here’s an example list:

Utilities: Clean running water, electricity, soap, access to a sink
Transportation: delivery services, open public transportation, a bike, car, or clear sidewalk
Access to food: food banks, affordable grocery stores, fresh produce, dry goods, community garden plots, neighbors with excess chives in their garden
Cooking tools knives, cutting boards, dishes, pots, refrigeration, a hotplate
Physical abilities to shop for and cook our own food
Access to information: internet recipes, cookbooks, devices, free video chat software, social media community groups, and apps to help people with social disabilities & challenges troubleshoot food scarcity, nutrition, and cooking challenges, books about foraging
People who can point you toward resources for anything you don’t have yet

Since libraries are closed:

Since library books are hard or impossible to obtain now, I’m going be clearer during the pandemic on whether my kids wanted to read it repeatedly and it has layers that need time to unpack (worth buying), if it’s relevant to life in isolation and worth checking to see if you can borrow a copy soon, or if it’s a limited-use story that can wait for you to check it out at the library when it opens.

If your library is limited or shut down, check out the previous post about empowering kids during Covid 19 isolation for how I’m keeping our story time stocked up and germ-free. Search for online and author social media accounts for read alouds, check your local buy-nothing groups (disinfect and quarantine those books first!), and see if your library has a request & delivery service available.

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:

Kids Stories About Sustainable Cooking & Food Justice

We cook & share food as a way to show love. I’m sure our kids feel it – but have we explicitly talked with them about the significance of care work and what it means to be a family who breaks bread together?

You might also like: Books Teaching Boys To Value & Take Responsibility for Domestic Labor

Step 1: Start healthy relationships with food early

Those first few years, we mainly on focused on exposing the kiddos to a wide variety of fruits, veggies, and spices. And also the difference between edible food and say, toenail clippings. This is our resourcing stage. What resources can kids name that they have access to?

Baby, Let’s Eat! (Library copies will be crumply and gross – buy a copy to keep.) Indestructibles are made out of the same stuff as mattress tags, so they’re lightweight, tough and durable. We’ve brought ours in the tub, stuffed it into cup holders, and tossed it in the laundry. They get a little crumply, but there’s nothing else like them.
Nita’s First Signs (Worth keeping to keep kids busy with the slides) Interactive board book with sliding panels might be a little tough for small hands to manipulate, but it’s a great intro book about American Sign Language, primarily focused on meal time. Unlike many sign language board books out there – this does not leverage childism & ableism and infantilize ASL language & culture the way so many do.
Cook It! (This is a keeper and a great gift) This durable book featuring a multiracial girl and her dad cooking pizza for the family remains one of our favorite books for sooo many reasons.
Can You Eat?, Can I Eat That?, and What’s Cooking? (Check them out at the library) are all humorous books in a series introducing kids to food beyond mac & cheese, starting with explaining what is edible, and then dismantling myths about non-American cuisine. They’re not exhaustive – just kind of silly and fun to read together.

Ages 0-2

Ages 1-3

Ages 1.5-5

Ages 1-3

Ages 4-8

You might also like: Anatomy & Body Awareness Books For Squeamish Parents

**Step 2: Help kids understand what they get out of good food**

Establishing why we eat, and how our meals serve a purpose in keeping our bodies healthy. This plays into our challenges stage – from running faster to making food that works for a feeding tube – what goals do kids want to accomplish? Whether they’re aiming to climb the highest tree in the neighborhood or navigate birthday parties with an allergy – what challenges do they want to overcome? Having a cursory handle on digestion (check out the anatomy collection) and nutrition helps with that.

Teach Me About Mealtime (Check it out at the library) A pedantic early-reader explicitly showing kids on how good food helps kids grow and why we should try new food. Caveats for normalizing hetero 2 family parents and whitewashing, and didactic and boring. But you know what? Sometimes toddlers and preschoolers just need things spelled out. I appreciate that this book is simple, straight-forward, and not filled with distracting fluff so kids can focus on the message.
Power Up: Your Incredible, Spectacular, Supercharged Body (Check it out at the library) This one was also didactic, but in a fun way. Explaining why humans need energy to think and run, to eat and sleep and exercise. Great book for science-minded kids who have no patience for woo and nebulous concepts like ‘feeling strong’ – this introduces the idea of health and caring for our body as a biological and electrical system. While the end notes touch on relativity and nuclear power in terms just a bit too advanced for my 7yo to follow, I appreciate the attempt.
What’s So Yummy? All About Eating Well and Feeling Good (Check it out at the library) Another decent but bland book discusses food allergies and sensitivities with a multiracial family and lots of tokenized racial diversity. Grab it if you come across it, but don’t go out of your way.
Honestly I am still searching for a great book that focuses primarily on digestion with respect to biological nutritional breakdowns – but I haven’t found that yet.

Ages 1-3

Ages 6+

Ages 2-5

You might also like: Body-Positive Kids Books Championing Fat Liberation

Step 3: Talk about how food connects us to our heritage and history

As a kid I usually ate dinner alone in front of a television. Now that I think about it, I’ve never actually eaten a dinner with my parents. I guess that explains my weird obsession with family dinners as a reliable safe harbor for our kids. And this has been a constant struggle for us – particularly when they’re bouncing off the walls, complaining about the food, and one of us has a zoom meeting in 6 minutes.

So I guess we should explicitly explain to the Earthquakes why this activity together matters so much. These books show how preparing and sharing meals crosses cultures as a time to remember what matters most. I want my kids not just to have the resource of cooking and eating together – but to appreciate what this provides them.

Fry Bread (Buy a copy to keep, you’ll need time to unpack the symbolism) EXCELLENT book about cultural survival in the face of colonialism, but take note of the caveat in the end notes from Dr. Reese of American Indians in Children’s Literature about the nations listed in the flyleaf.
Freedom Soup (Buy or borrow) This ties together so many vital discussions about colonialism, slavery, liberation, and anti-Black oppression and pulls it together into a recipe. My kids prefer other books that discuss this theme, and since we don’t have a personal family/cultural connection, we haven’t been able to really get them to identify with the material. But it’s a fantastic keeper, particularly for kids who like soup, celebrate a family history of liberation, and to illustrate how food connects us to our ancestors.
Let’s Eat! (Buy or borrow) – Originally written in Spanish, this retains the importance of coming together to share a meal as a family in the European / Central-American tradition of hosting a large multi-generational lunch. The repetition engages kids but also shows why we need to prioritize time together with our families despite other pulls on our time and attention.

Ages 3-6

Ages 5-9

Ages 5-8

You might also like: Raising Tomorrow’s Fathers – Children’s Books With Feminist Dads

Step 4: Show kids it’s their responsibility for feeding the family, too.

Showing kids that it’s their responsibility, even at a young age, particularly for all genders, to contribute to the care and keeping of a home. This helps them appreciate the people who feed them (which we’ll get to further down).

Cook It! (Buy or borrow) – Yeah, this book again.
Cora Cooks Pancit (Buy or borrow) capture the satisfaction of contributing to a family meal
How To Feed Your Parents (Buy or borrow) is a cute role-reversal for picky eaters, with a little girl who takes charge in the kitchen
Gazpacho for Nacho (Buy or borrow) Another one about (but not just for) picky eaters, featuring a boy who takes ownership of cooking and gets interested in expanding his palette.
The Market Bowl (Check it out of the library) I’m including this one because it’s hard to find a good story showing kids the importance of not half-assing our work in a culture that is both reluctant to acknowledge the hard work of food preparation and is so eager to toss out participation awards. A note on the illustrations – many characters have blue or green eyes (which is a semi-common thing in Cameroon) but without this background information, it comes across as white illustrators reinforcing the narrative that brown is lesser. *Unpacking below.

Ages 1.5-5

Ages 4-7

Ages 4+

Ages 5-9

Ages 4-8

* Upholding eye colors typically associated with European ancestry as the pinnacle of beauty is a common habit in books, movies, and cartoons – as if [the exoticism of our otherness as people of color] + [a mysterious accessory of whiteness] renders us more dangerous/beautiful/powerful/engaging/special. I am here for mirrors and validation for kids of color with light eyes and hair (such as ‘The Favorite Daughter,’ and ‘M is for Melanin‘), but usually, rendering light eyes with dark skin is done by white illustrators for the delight of white readers. Without end notes to explain the that light eyes are in fact, common in Cameroon, silent depictions like this have a profoundly negative effect on kids of color in white-centered US culture where this book is published & distributed. Those of us with dark eyes that have been likened to mud and feces in real life don’t need more vaguely exoticizing reminders that our brown-ness is too boring and ugly to reflect.

You might also like: Kids Books Dismantling The Myth of a First Thanksgiving

Step 5: Help kids cook for self-empowerment and resiliency

Out of adversity comes good food. As kids start to struggle with frustration over being little, asking for their help preparing meals gives them agency over and the power to nourish others. Seeing how everyone faces challenges, disappointment, failures, and a learning curve is a reassuring boost for resiliency.

George Crum And The Saratoga Chip (Check it out at the library?) Oh fudge, I lost my notes on this. I do remember it was a good antidote to single-narrative Black history biographies centered on basketball, slavery, and civil rights.
Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao (Totally worth buying, especially as a gift) Reassures kids that even if they kind of suck at cooking at first – they will get better.
When Grandma Gives You A Lemon Tree (Totally worth buying, especially as a gift) From disappointing gift to innovation, creativity, and spreading the wealth, this is a lovely birthday book for all year.

Ages 6+

Ages 4-8

Ages 3+

You might also like: Understanding Anti-Asian Racist Microaggressions With Food Stories

Step 6: Show children the power of cooking as care-work

Food is an accessible love language for little kids. They need outlets to show affection, love, and care – and these stories show them how they can use cooking as a way to be considerate and supportive.

Thank You, Omu! and Chik Chak Shabbat (check them out at the library) run along similar story lines, with food bringing everyone in a community together.
Mr. Putter & Tabby Stir The Soup (check it out at the library) Dang it – I lost my notes on this one too. It involved hard work and making soup as an act of caring. I love this series for countering stereotypes against older adults so hard, plus they’re cute and funny.
Pie in the Sky (Check it out of the library) Advanced chapter book for older readers, touching on baking through love, grief, care-work, income disparities, transcending language barriers, and so many intersecting issues of awesomeness.
The Gift of Ramadan (Buy or borrow) This is my favorite book introducing non-Muslims to the month of Ramadan – on cooking as an act of service, on willpower, temptation, the intent and effort behind what we give and how – and how the observance is about so much more than fasting.
Salma The Syrian Chef (Buy or borrow) Another story about kids cooking as an-act-of-love. In times of hardship, food pulls us together as a community, and offers comfort. Disclosure: Annick Press sent me a free copy so I could tell you if the story was awesome (it is awesome.)
Sun Bread (Check it out at the library – although it’s good to have on hand for cold dark winters) We used to read this during the darkest days of winter when it felt like the world would never thaw. It always gives us hope and makes us feel like we have the power to heal the world.
Yaffa & Fatima, Shalom, Salaam (Check it out at the library) Simple acts of generosity for the people we care about.
Little Witch Takes Charge! (Check it out at the library) This is a silly book on the surface, with a subversive feminist message underneath. Perfect for showing kids the exhausting and demanding labor of invisible care-work. I particularly love the reinforcing championing of cathartic anger in women that shows the importance of setting boundaries and reclaiming our time.

Ages 4-8

Ages 4-7

Ages 3-7

Ages 7+

Ages 3-5

Ages 4-8

Ages 3-6

Ages 4-9

Ages 4-8

You might also like: Modeling Radical Interdependence: Stories Wrestling With Entitlement & Generosity

Step 7: Help kids use cooking for mutual aid & community care

Activism comes in many forms!

Pies from Nowhere (Check it out at the library) In this biography of Georgia Gilmore, we see some of the invisible labor of Black women who made the Montgomery bus boycott possible.
Magic Ramen (Check it out at the library) In this biography, Momofuku Ando was not a savior – but an accomplice. He paid attention and saw that living with food insecurity is more than just not having enough money for groceries. The cost of food is not the only challenge in feeding families. Those who miss meals struggle with a lack of time to cook, equipment to refrigerate and prepare, and the exhaustion that comes with living in scarcity. Momofuku solved not just a problem of food inaccessibility – but also dignity for families who can’t cook meals from scratch. There is something deeply satisfying and soul-warming about his understanding that people living in poverty need and deserve warm comfort food. He used his skills and tenacity to develop a solution that made meals accessible for billions of people. This book always makes me cry with appreciation.
Maddi’s Fridge (Buy multiple copies to keep and give as gifts). If you didn’t notice yet, this book is all over this website, and that is because it’s amazing for destigmatizing food insecurity and empowering children to help right away.

Ages 6-9

Ages 5+

You might also like: Galvanizing Kids Books About Poverty Inspiring Kids To Give Back

Step 8: Show kids the value of invisible labor & essential workers

I tell my kids stories of being harassed and humiliated while working in food service, but without visuals, that history feels long ago and far away. These stories create a tangible depiction for them to understand why we should acknowledge, appreciate, and support the people who feed us.

Clive Is A Waiter (check it out at the library) I can’t get my hands on this particular book due to the shut down – but supposedly the message teaches kids to treat food service workers with basic human dignity. I trust that it will be great, because this entire series – which focuses on breaking gender constructs and inclusion, is absolutely excellent.
Good Morning Neighbor (check it out at the library) It’s hard to find books that teach kids about invisible labor – intellectual, emotional, and creative. This book does it nicely, and both of the Little Earthquakes immediately felt the injustice toward the little mouse who sparked and orchestrated the creation in this story.
Undocumented (check it out at the library) This advanced message on the exploitation of immigrants and food service workers is spectacular for so many discussions on wealth inequality, citizenship privilege, immigration, wealth inequality, and labor rights.
A Different Pond (check it out at the library) This book has the quiet, slow, and exhausted tone of a family working 24/7 and captures that sense of steady unceasing work when you’re living hand to mouth. It’s spectacular.
Mountain chef (check it out at the library) This biography of innovative Asian-American chef Tie Sing is a nice counter-narrative to narratives of Chinese Americans as engineers and waiters. That said, it’s a little boring and doesn’t give kids much to connect with (unless your kid happens to be into hiking and pioneering, which my kids are not.) I’m also a little hung up on the part of the story where a mule wandered away to presumably die with a ton of food rotting on its back (this haunts me). Lo is one of my favorite illustrators and Sing was a quick thinker and flexible when things went wrong but the story is… meh.
The Tomtes’ Christmas Porridge (check it out at the library or buy for your Christmas stash) – If you’re into Christmas (which we’re not really) or into Tomtes (which we totally are), this is a lovely annual story to pull out. The English translation is a bit jarring, referencing the man of the house as ‘master’ – which has some nasty connotations in American English (re: sexism, slavery). Other than that, it was a cute story, and even gives us an opening to talk about emotional labor (how the mother tomte has to protect her husband’s fragile ego), although it reinforces a gender binary and biological differences between genders – as if female tomtes have some feminine magic that men lack. But with the right spin, we were able to discuss how this ‘like all mother tomtes’ line reflects our culture’s tendency to dump all of the invisible labor of orchestrating holidays on women – on mothers in particular – and how this “ability” could be a skill developed by demand and survival in a sexist world, rather than biology. Round this out with a reading of the Mental Load.
Migrant (borrow or buy) – Gorgeous, kind of poetic narrative from a German-Mexican Mennonite child of migrant laborers. While there are more direct stories about migrant labor, the fantasy tone of this grabs my kids in the guts.

Ages 3-7

Ages 6-9

Ages 7+

Ages 6+

ages 1-3

Ages 4+

You might also like: Triumphant Kids Stories Honoring Single Mothers

Step 9: Help kids make small, sustainable choices for big change

You don’t have to completely change the way you eat right away. But we must take the first (of many) steps to learn how the way we eat affects targeted people.

Many of us live in food deserts, lack equipment to store and hold fresh produce, and can’t afford the time and cost of filling our plates with handmade tempeh and organic garden veggies. But we can still make some responsible choices within our power.

This isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. Understanding the concepts behind decolonizing food practices, eating local, plant-based diets, and the slow-food movement supports our work for reconciliation, fights wealth inequality and labor exploitation, progresses animal rights, and heals climate destruction.

Most of the books on these topics revolve around community gardening, sustainable farming, and decolonizing permaculture – including those would triple the length of this collection. (Another time, then!) So for now I’ll leave you with a few books to get started.

Vegan is Love (check it out at the library)
I Am Farmer (check it out at the library)
Fast Farm and Slow Farm (check it out at the library)
We are Grateful: Otsaliheliga (buy or borrow) Life through the seasons celebrating modern Cherokee traditions.
Extra Yarn and No Water, No Bread (both are worth buying) are perfect allegories for interdependence and radical generosity that can be used in terms of sharing food, but also other resources.
Be The Change (borrow or check it out at the library) Taking responsibility for our actions. A reminder that every single choice we make impacts those who have less than we do. This story helps draws the connection between the way we eat and practicing nonviolence.

I’m trying out using Bookshop.org images with links instead of Amazon for the following images. Help me out and let me know in the comments if it works on the reader end, okay?

Ages 4.5+

Ages 4-8

Ages 7-11

You might also like: Kids Books Dismantling The Myth of a First Thanksgiving

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Eat Your Vegetables

If you find my work helpful, I’m asking you to donate $5, 15, or $50 to The Greater Boston Food Bank or your local food pantry. If you’re financially struggling and can’t – that’s totally cool. Take what I have to offer and care of your family.

My work is free & accessible to all and we focus on easily obtainable library-books as tools because families shouldn’t have to miss meals to afford an education.

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May 1, 2020 2 comments

Book Collections

Kids Books For Sudden Unschoolers

by Ashia April 21, 2020

written by Ashia

[Image: Illustration from ‘On a Magical Do Nothing Day’ by Beatrice Alemagna. A nonbinary child wearing a bright orange raincoat leaps across a creek from rock to rock in the gray and drizzling rain. As they hop, their game device is forgotten, and falls from their hand toward the water.]

Unschooling for beginners

Really beginners. Like, we’re talking the first 24 hours of even considering how to get started here.

We’re settling into a new routine now that schools have shut down. We’ve started emotional triage with our kids and started talking about how they are handling the sudden upheaval of their daily lives for the foreseeable future. Awesome.

And now I guess we need to figure out what to do with ourselves with all of this free time. Can we find some good in this and come out of it stronger? Can we find a way for the adults to work while the kids incessantly bicker and whine at us?

Or, at least, can we get through several weeks locked up together without eating our children like stressed out hamster parents?

At-Home Activism While Home With Kiddos

For those of us locked at home with little booger-factories to care for, the most powerful thing we can do now is to sit our asses down and stay home. That can be hard to hear for activists who want to get outside, to change the world and wrestle the kyriarchy to the ground with our bare hands.

It’s weird, right? We’ve been fed a steady diet of viral media, and the spread of that relies on outrage and visual artistry. If that’s all we see, of course we believe that real activism takes to the streets.

I mean – how else do we model courage and kindness for our kiddos?

We gather, we march, we hold hands, we bring gifts, we cook and nurse and have difficult face-to-face conversations. There is so much mobility and touching integral to visible activism. This has traditionally created accessibility issues for folks with disabilities and other challenges – including folks with heavy care-taking roles and lower mobility.

That quieter, keep-to-ourselves activism feels wish-washy and almost performative in the shadow of more bombastic activism. Are we too quiet? Too inactive? Is what we’re doing enough? Does the connection of activism have to be so…physical?

So we’re working on that and I’m assembling a book list for later. (If you’ve somehow managed to exhaust the years of archives on this website already, that is.) There are plenty of at-home activities in our Student Ignition Society tool kits that kids can do at home with internet access. Check out the immigrant solidarity toolkit, if you’re just itching to put those tiny humans to work.

Books to get kids excited!

Meanwhile, let’s discuss books about living under full-family house arrest like a bunch of loud, busy hamsters.

Wondering how to get your hands on germ-free books during library closures? Check out the previous post about empowering kids during Covid 19 isolation for how I’m hoping to keep our story time stocked up and critter-free.

Keep Raising Luminaries free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.

Books showing the value of boredom

For the next…who even knows how long, my kids will have to learn to entertain themselves while I lock them out of the house* so I can work. This is an opportunity for them to deal with frustration, boredom, and self-regulation. All the good stuff of creativity and innovation.

*Figuratively. I’m not going to literally lock them out. But I won’t judge if you do, because seriously they aren’t going to die of exposure after a couple hours in the yard. Also a few hours with a door muffling their loud nonsense prevents me from murdering them, which is good for their health, overall.

On A Magical Do Nothing Day, Everybody Needs A Rock, Mattland

You might also like: Books For The Next Generation of Kind & Brilliant Leaders

Books about folks who used unstructured solitude to do great things

Lots of parents are freaking out about missed class and enrichment time. Calm down. Whether our kids learn to read right now or next year, it’s not going to make a huge difference in whether they get into the ivy leagues.

Rest assured that if your family can afford all those private tutors and enrichment activities, it’s not time with the books that is going to give your kids a leg up. It’s all that spare money you have to open connections, provide a mental safety net, and support them through unpaid internships! Perhaps a couple of weeks of unstructured time now might save kids some hours of therapy in the teen years.

I mean the fact that money was never an issue for all of these white folks, born into financial security certainly played the key role here. But for this purpose, we’re here to show kids that so long as their basic needs are met, taking this time to innovate and think undisturbed while locked away in isolation might be a good boost for creativity.

You Are My Friend: The Story of Mister Rogers and His Neighborhood, Ada Byron Lovelace & the Thinking Machine, Emily

**Books about tenacious kids who deal with their own sh*t**

To dissuade the kids from hounding me every 15 seconds to fix things that are broken and (AARRghghahg!) breaking things that are too fixed – we’re exploring lots of self-sufficient themes this week.

None of these books has a parent just desperately begging to be left alone so they can poop in silence, but I’m hoping they get the message.

Off & Away, The Most Magnificent Thing, The little pig, the bicycle, and the moon

Books about active homeschooling

For bookish kids who are getting anxious about missing out, these can reassure kids who are worried about missed class time. I was one of these kids, and it would have been nice if an adult had been like “Dude, chill. Your brain is still learning stuff even when you’re not at a desk.”

This is my home, this is my school

Ages 5+

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Support Your Local Food Pantry

Many kids in your district rely on free school meals to survive. With shutdowns, families will be struggling to feed their kids. Make a donation to your local food pantry, which will be extra-strained during the Covid 19 shut down.

Support these resources via Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book

April 21, 2020 0 comments

corynebacterium in 'Do not lick this book '

Book Analysis

Motivating Kids To Protect Others With ‘Do Not Lick This Book’

by Ashia April 1, 2020

written by Ashia

Sharing this post on social media? Use this image description to make it accessible. [Image description: Illustration from ‘Do Not Lick This Book’ by Idan Ben-Barak & Julian Frost. Two cartoon corynebacterium living in a microscopic photo of belly button skin cells chat, “Did I tell you about the time soap got all in the way in here?” and the other says “I don’t like scary stories!“]

Do not lick this book (it’s full of germs)

Do not lick this book*

*It’s full of germs

Picture Book, Best for kiddos ages 4-8

Keep Raising Luminaries & Books for Littles free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.

Hand-washing is more than just self-protection: On empowerment, liberty & speciesism

Guess what the Earthquakes did after reading this book.

I didn’t ask. I didn’t even suggest. But they toddled their little butts straight to the sink to wash their hands.

After reading this book together, they realized how invisibly gross the world is! A few short pages compelled them to do what I’ve been nagging them to do for their whole damn lives. These children who chew on their own unwashed toenails, sneeze into their shirts and then lick the lap up the boogers –

:::BAAARF:: I know, right?

– and wander out of the restroom with dry, unwashed hands approximately 60 times a day.

So how do you convince little germ factories like this to wash their damn hands?

Protective measures aren’t about us – it’s to protect those who can’t do these things

How do we balance the clear urgency of “WASH YOUR HANDS OR YOU COULD KILL ALL THE IMMUNOCOMPROMISED PEOPLE WE LOVE” without the doom and panic?

When the coronavirus hit, we got out our old standbys for the human body, the immune system, and how to handle germs. We watched videos on how to properly wash our hands. We discussed herd immunity. And it was all a bit of a tedious chore, right in the center of that initial chaotic storm as Boston became one of the first epicenters of a pandemic in the US.

And then we found this book and it’s like maaagic.

When I think of the intersection of our family and diabetes, asthma, autism, and the ableism of triage policies, in a pandemic, I start to panic. So I focused the kids on how we could protect others. I’ll admit I borrowed that tendency toward saviorism to rile up the kiddos. Rather than focusing on the way we ourselves are at risk.

Rather than teach the kids to scramble to protect themselves, we’re focusing on empowering them to keep others safe. Every day is a conversation about the privileges we have – a home to isolate in, clean running water to wash our hands, two parents who can work without unnecessary risk of infection , availability of food and prescriptions that we we need to survive, and freedom to avoid infection because our state has mandated masks and social distancing.

We have the choices available – and each time we do, it’s a reminder of the freedom we have to empower those without the same opportunities.

Bonus: Non-biased representation of microscopic species

The entire cast of this book are microscopic critters, so I’m just going to go ahead and give these dudes a high score for socially responsible representation even though there aren’t really any humans in the book.

Because, you know what? They do represent characters often invisible in kidlit. And okay – there’s a good deal of anthropomorphism, but the makers created cartoon organisms without maligning them. And there’s even a cute bio for each critter at the end, explaining that they do not, in fact, have arms, legs, and eyeballs.

Which leads us to speciesism – a topic we don’t cover enough here, and we’ll have to get into another day. But in my search for books about animal rights (germs aren’t animals, I get it, don’t derail), and human supremacy, this approach is refreshing.

You might also like: Anatomy & Body Awareness for Kids – and their squeamish grownups

Parenting is Praxis

These conversations have to go somewhere. We can’t just read a book for ‘awareness’ and consider our work done. So – what cam a family in isolation do to avoid becoming disease vectors protect the most medically vulnerable in our communities?

I don’t expect anyone to take this as a guideline. The choices families make on how to socially distance are dependent on opportunity and resources. These are just an example of some of the our family is doing, in hopes that you, too, can recognize how much you’ve contributed to keeping each other safe.

Extended social isolation. We’ve been isolating since March when the pandemic spiked in Boston. But we started to roll out social distancing and isolation in February, cutting out the Lunar New Year traditions and many social activities before the March outbreak. Even though restrictions in Boston have been lifted – we’re still isolating to protect essential workers and folks who don’t have a choice but to go out.
Avoided hoarding and opted to stay home and scrub furiously instead of buying up rare bottles of hand sanitizer, disinfectant cleaners, and masks.
Purchase masks from sellers who are multiply marginalized or financially impacted by the pandemic, as well as companies that donate profits to food banks and other relief efforts for targeted groups. (I’ll admit I’m picky about masks, so if I finally find someone who creates a well-made mask, I’ll let you know about it.)
Donated to relief efforts for multiply marginalized groups disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and shut-downs, including:
- Greater Boston Food Bank to support families who can no longer rely on school-provided meals
- National Bail Out & FANG Community Bail Fund because we need to prevent jails from becoming epicenters (and also freedom based on wealth is wrong! And punitive justice doesn’t work!)
- Covid 19 Navajo Response Fund as Indigenous nations are hit harder, and blocked from relief resources
- Rosie’s Place to provide escape to survivors of domestic violence isolated with abusers
- Chelsea Collaborative supporting undocumented immigrants living in crowded conditions – who pay taxes and yet are banned from relief packages
- The Greenlight Project to support sex workers who are at higher risk of exploitation during the pandemic
- Crip Camp Emergency Fund to support disabled activists & creatives who have been impacted by the pandemic
- Southside Harm Reduction to support safe drug use and prevent users from having to break isolation
- TC Kids Mental Health to support kids facing the double-whammy of racial trauma in a pandemic
- Navajo Water Project to provide clean water to people who have no running water for disinfection, cleaning, or staying hydrated while sick.
- A local house-cleaner: paying a house cleaner during a time of sudden income loss in accordance with the Domestic Workers Alliance guidelines (and guidelines of basic human dignity).
Support those who support me: Created (and maintain) an open-invite policy for any patreon supporters to ask for contribution refunds if they’ve been financially impacted by Covid 19 and need a little help.
Co-organizing the #FamilySummer4BlackLives initiative to support families in racial justice healing and keeping up with family advocacy in a socially-distant, free, and accessible way.
Co-shopping with another family to cut down visits to the grocery store.
Not using grocery delivery services so there is more availability for particularly vulnerable shoppers.
Offering cooked meals to a young family in our neighborhood who haven’t been able to rely on extended support or childcare due to distancing.
Checking in with neighbors in general – just as a reminder that we’re here when they need us.
Opting out of in-person school next year to protect our teachers and leave more space for families who have to send kids to school in person so they can attend safely.

This costs us! Mentally, emotionally, financially.

Some of these put us at a greater risk if/when we do get sick or a crisis hits us. That is scary, to take on these costs and drain our limited resources in a time of such uncertainty. I’m afraid every day!

But we’re okay today, and others aren’t. We refuse to hoard resources to care for ourselves tomorrow. We refuse to batten down the hatches and treat our community like competition. We reject impulses to follow scarcity and individualism, which only serve to uphold supremacy, power inequity, and oppression.

The best we can do is brush our teeth, wash our hands, and care for the folks who are not okay today in the hopes that lifting us all will make the world safer for everybody.

**Mutual aid and interdependence should be normal, and integrated within daily family life**

We should be doing all this stuff the whole damn time – pandemic or not. We could talk all day about how all the stuff we should be doing, the stuff that took us a while to start. But that’s almost irrelevant – the important part is we start now.

Has your family created new routines and taken on additional risk in the effort to support each other? Share your advocacy work in the comments to show everyone this should be our new normal – long after the pandemic ends.

You might like: Kids & Radical Interdependence: Giving, Taking, and Asking

This is your go-to book for…

Introducing the concept of germs & microscopic critters
Motivating young kids to wash their damn hands
Kids who are into STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art & mathematics)
Destigmatizing non-human life (anti-speciesism)

I’d read this in rotation along with…

This isn’t a one-and-done conversation. We need to bring this conversation back to kids from multiple angles. In the rush to cover germs and pandemic life, most published books are…meh. Some of the best resources are on the internet as free downloads.

But there are some great books that help – get them from your library, or your local indie bookstore (Bookshop supports local indie stores if you’re self-isolating during the pandemic).

Exploring the new Coronavirus: A comic just for kids – single page printable zine, available in English, Chinese, and Spanish.
Germs Make Me Sick! – Nonfiction, kind of didactic and boring, but it’s the best book I’ve found to answer questions such as – what is the difference between a germ and a virus?
Judah Maccabee Goes To The Doctor – I haven’t been able to get my hands on any books that explain herd immunity and our personal responsibilities to take on a little risk to protect the vulnerable among us. This looks like our best bet, even though I can’t get a copy to review. It got nasty reviews from anti-vaxxers, which in my opinion as an autistic person who is happy never to have died of measles (not like vaccinations even cause autism but that’s not the point), makes it even better.

And also this helpful video on the power of ordinary soap and why we wash for a full 20 seconds. In our home, it worked best for ages 6+.

Is this #OwnVoices?

Author: Idan Ben-Barak (he/him)
Illustrator: Julian Frost (he/him)
Photographer: Linnea Rundgren (she/her)

Uhh… well, I guess not, because none of these people are single-celled organisms? BUT, they do encounter these organisms on a regular basis?

Learn more about #OwnVoices, coined by Corinne Duyvis.

'Do not lick this book' Analysis & Review

Courage

6
Brilliance

10
Representation

8
Engagement

10
Wildcard: Motivates Kids To Wash Their Gross Sticky Properly

10

The Goods

My kids got up to wash their hands after reading it - *without being asked*
There is a designated spot on the back cover for licking the book!

The Bads

Like a 15% chance of barfing as you watch little readers carefully exchange microbes between their teeth, the pages of this book, and their belly button.
There is a designated spot on the back cover for licking the book!

8.8

Average Score

How we calculate the overall awesomeness score of books.

Transparency & Cahoots!

I borrowed a copy of this book from our local library, (which we support with donations).

Stay Curious, Stand Brave, and Support Community Libraries

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.

But if your resources are limited – support the National Domestic Workers Alliance‘s Coronovirus Care Fund first.

“The best way to slow the spread of the virus is ensure everyone has the ability to stay home. The Coronavirus Care Fund will provide emergency assistance for home care workers, nannies and house cleaners, and enable them to stay home and healthy.”

Click here to donate now, and/or send an advocacy letter to congress to provide financial assistance to all taxpaying workers regardless of immigration status.

April 1, 2020 2 comments

Book Collections

Raising Sons Who Value Care Work: Healthy Masculinity in Kids Books

by Ashia March 28, 2020

written by Ashia

[Image: Spread from ‘Super Manny Cleans Up,’ by Kelly DiPucchio and Stephanie Graegin. Gertie the hedgehog stands with her fists to her hips, exclaiming “We have to do something.”]

In this post: What to do with kiddos in isolation when we’re spinning out and need to regroup.
Bonus: Story books teaching boys to value and take responsibility for domestic work.

I’m compulsively cleaning because therapy isn’t an option

I’m not surprised to find that keeping a grip involves a lot of compulsive cleaning. To gain a sense of control in a world where we feel more powerless than ever. This far into unschooling during self-isolation, I thought I’d have a handle on things. But I don’t!

I want to say that I completed this triage checklist below in the first 24 hours, and a month later, we’re making killer progress. I want to say we’ve created a SIS toolkit, connected with an impactful organization to crowdfund for, and identified three families to support during this time.

We haven’t. We step forward, and fall back. I’ve found myself returning to the basics of having to reorient myself to stave off anxiety, autistic shut-downs, and killer migraines every 36 hours or so.

There are little gnomes in my head who go ballistic if the dishes aren’t done. They won’t let me eat, sleep, or think of anything else if they notice a dust bunny. Convincing the gnomes to move on to bigger things just isn’t working right now.

Suddenly all the carefully crafted routines I had designed to get myself through the day have been upended with the kids home 24/7. But also our daily challenges, deadlines, and obligations remain. It’s that normal stew of impotence, obligation, and guilt that we all feel when we want to fix the injustice in the world. But super-saturated, sped up, and we have to find a way to fix it within the confines of a Zoom chat.

If your gnomes are distracting you too, don’t let this fool you. We still have power. We have more power than ever. We’ve just got to harness it and learn new ways to help. And there’s no shame in taking time to manage our disabilities and disorders while we do it.

Our systems are failing the same way as always, just harder and faster. But don’t panic.

I keep writing and deleting rambling paragraphs about privilege and luck and I told you so‘s about healthcare tied to employment, and the ways we deny power to disabled people, older people, and BIPOC – and how a culture of supremacy teaches us to view entire groups of humans as acceptable losses. How Black & brown folks & the working poor are left to fall through the holes or actively targeted on the reg but particularly when shit hits the fan.

How yes violence and racism against Asian people is Still. A. Thing.

But that is going to take WAY MORE than one article and I don’t have space or spoons for that now. Even though it’s more important than what we’re facing here. Because it’s more important than the issues we’re talking about here.

To do that work, first, we have to do the boring basics of taking care of ourselves so we can be powerful accomplices in rebuilding a better world even as it crumbles around us.

Our first priority, for the next 24 hours, is not making things worse for people who don’t have our privileges.

Survival & Triage

With my executive functioning disabilities and inability to prioritize on the fly, creating a triage procedure kept me from having a giant meltdown and becoming completely overwhelmed into a frozen paralysis.

Stuff that my neurotypical partner does on autopilot, I need to cram like I’m taking a standardized test at a disco. He can just make a sandwich. My sandwiches require 24-hours notice, a physical checklist, 30-minutes of prep, and 15 minutes of complete silence so I can concentrate on sandwich-assembly.

So neurotypical folks, you can feel free to skip this. But there are enough of us who are a puddle on the floor and need the basics spelled out just to get out of bed in the morning. Everything outside our immediate triage list, I ignored or pushed off until week 2 (or beyond) of our family isolation adventures. We can get to that later.

When I start to spin out, when the gnomes come knocking, I take a deep breath, and return to our triage procedure.

Identify 4 goals for the next 7 days:

Simplify our daily tasks to the bare bones necessities
Prevent anyone in our home from getting sick from the outside
Prevent any potential germs within our home from getting out.
Support folks within our immediate household with survival needs to get through the next 7 days (shelter, water, food, medicine).

Identify mandatory activities to get through the next 24 hours:

What needs to happen in the next 15 minutes?
(Mediating fights, training kids to stay away from neighborhood kids who aren’t social distancing, attending to boo-boos)
What needs to happen within the next 1.5 hours?
(Meals, mostly)
What needs to happen today?
(Work deadlines, informing the kids about what’s going on & mitigating trauma)

Trauma Prevention:

Identify one thing for today day that will make us feel less overwhelmed and a little bit more in control of the situation

For me, it was cleaning part of a room and removing evil dust that land my asthmatic kiddo in the ER.
For my partner, it was getting time to connect with friends via video games.
For the Earthquakes, it was getting a large chunk of undivided attention from at least one parent per day

You might also like: Books To Reassure Kids During Coronavirus Isolation

Since libraries are closed:

Since library books are hard or impossible to obtain now, I’m going be clearer during the pandemic on whether I think a book is worth paying for, if you should try to get your hands on a borrowed copy ASAP, or if it can wait until libraries are back open.

If your library is limited or shut down, check out the previous post about empowering kids during Covid 19 isolation for how I’m keeping our story time stocked up and germ-free.

Keep Raising Luminaries free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.

Who do our kids see taking on the bulk of domestic labor?

I’ve heard from a surprising amount of you who are also obsessively cleaning to gain a sense of control. If that is working for you (and I don’t mean to add another ‘should‘ to your overflowing list), we have to be mindful of who our kids see taking on the burden of domestic labor.

I hadn’t seen anyone of the masculine persuasion picking up a broom or cooking dinner until…well until just a few years ago. Not without some joke or comment about emasculation or justification for how he was ‘helping out’ the women whose real job it was.

Since the second shift by default tends to fall on women & girls, it’s imperative that we raise our next generation of boys to be good men. Let’s counter the popular image of women and girls cleaning and serving men and boys in books, media, and in our daily lives.

These books are the ones I’ve used over the past seven years to foster a sense of responsibility and pride in keeping house – and all but a couple of them feature masculine characters who are not asked to clean up by women – but internalize that responsibility as a normal part of being a decent co-habitating human.

Board Books For Toddlers: Cleaning Is a Normal Part of Daily Life

Ages 1-4

Clean It! (from Birkett’s Helping Hand Series)
First Choice (worth buying & saving for grandkids)

Bonus points for normalizing disability. Dad uses an inhaler, main character wears a leg brace. The text is bland so we skip it and focus on the stellar images. Although this isn’t a board book, the pages are durable and toddler-friendly. There is a bilingual Spanish/English version, but the pages in that version are less durable.

This entire series was way ahead of it’s time in disability, racial & gender representation and still holds up. Birkett’s ‘Cook it!‘ is the cornerstone book that made me realize the power of responsible representation in kidlit and the impetus for Books for Littles. If you can find them, get a copy of the entire series for your favorite toddlers & preschoolers.

Ages 1-4

Man’s Work (from Kubler’s All In A Day series)
Second choice: Worth buying used for cheap if you can’t get a copy of Clean It!
Disclosure: Amelia K. S. sent me her copy since it’s out of print and hard to find.

Unlike Birkett’s racially & ability diverse series, Kubler’s characters skew White & abled by default, and it doesn’t really cover more than Clean It! It’s not necessary tp get both, but either will do. Illustration only, so no awkward text to deal with.

Clean-Up Time (from Verdick’s Toddler Tools series)
I’d wait until libraries are open before checking this out

This was okay at 27 months but at that point my kids were bored of it. It’s worth a check-out from the library, but I wouldn’t buy this as a keeper. I’m including it here just to preemptively deal with all the folks who will ask if I’ve read this book. Yes. I have. It’s everywhere.

Ages 1-5

Trucks Trucks Trucks Board Book (Sís)
Worth buying for truck-focused autistic kids

Great illustration-only diggers book about a boy who cleans up his room. This worked for my neurodivergent kid who two-year-long hyper-focus on yellow trucks, so your mileage may vary if you have one of those weird kids who can not narrate the functions of an backhoe for hours. The allistic kid enjoyed it well enough, too.

You might also like: Raising Tomorrow’s Fathers – Children’s Books With Feminist Dads

Toddlers & Preschoolers – Cultivating cleaning as a way to exercise agency

From 2-5, kiddos are dealing with feeling small and powerless in a big world. They want to have control over something beyond themselves. Particularly during times of stress, I give my kids more control over their environment – such as which basket they want to keep what toys in, how to arrange their bedroom furniture, etc. This gives them a sense of power, agency, and self-protection.

For more like this, check out our unpolished book list for kiddos who need help managing frustration from feeling small & powerless.

Ages 2-4

My Do It (Asquith)
Wait for a copy from the library

This is similar to All By Myself by Aliki, but more engaging, more durable, and not as long and comprehensive. Plus, this one has flaps! Everyone loves flaps.

Ages 3-6

George Shrinks (Joyce)
Wait for a copy from the library

This was just fantastical enough at age 3 to be riveting, yet unnerving. Apparently my literal and reality-focused 3yo got the idea that a kid can actually shrink down to the size of a hamster and manage a household, and that we parents would abandon him to care for his infant brother alone. So that was a point of some confusion weeks after we returned this to the library.

But if you can scaffold the real/unreal in the story, it was cute and fun to read together. The new revised version has cleaner design and is more fun to read. The 3yo loved the sense of agency and power realizing he could do things like gather mail, feed and dress his baby brother, and prep a simple breakfast.

Since the protagonist magically shrinks even smaller than a regular kid for the duration of the book, it hooks into that primal obsession with things in miniature that hits many kids around preschool age and helps them feel big and powerful in contrast.

Ages 5+

William Wakes Up (Ashman)
Wait for a copy from the library. Caveat for problematic content re: disability
Ages 5+ (older than the recommended range so they are cognitively available to discuss the problematic aspects)

Pros: William cooperates patiently with each animal while the others sleep, allowing everyone to wake in their own time. William is a white boy who doesn’t expect parents to clean up. So there is that.

Caveats: Raccoon actively sleeps in and we’re meant to assume he’s being lazy and opportunistic. HOWEVER – the rest of the group says he can’t have any cake until it promises to contribute labor later. This goes against our values of inclusion and giving folks the benefit of the doubt.

Without knowing why he needs more sleep, it’s hard to assume he’s just taking advantage of everyone’s hard work. Basic life needs (food) are a right, even if folks have say, a sleep disorder or disability like narcolepsy.

Which makes this a surprisingly helpful book to have uncomfortable discussions on why people have deeper needs but that doesn’t make them less deserving of human rights and necessities. How it’s not effective or fair to make presumptions about what we can see of outside abilities and contributions.

We use this book to discuss the ethics withholding resources based on assumptions. And from that – to discuss our culture’s obsession with early-risers, and the stigma that comes from naturally needing more sleep, or a later sleep rhythm than others and how that ties into wealth inequality (ex: night shifts, ex: Night Job & A Different Pond) and disability.

Ages 1.5-4

Pooh’s Cleanup (Cecil)
Worth picking up a copy if your kids are young, particularly if you’re prepping for a birthday party or your kids tend to host destructive playdates.

Both kids adored this book as toddlers. I particularly liked how each member works within their unique abilities, no chore is lesser. Every contribution matters. It’s particularly helpful as a book to prepare kids a gathering – helping them take responsibility not just for the party itself, but the clean-up afterward.

You might also like: Books About Poverty Inspiring Kids To Give Back

Taking Responsibility & Contributing To the Household

Ages 5+

Sir Simon (Atkinson)
Worth buying if you can find a copy.

This is fun read with a witty stories about taking responsibility for your own chores – a message we desperately need now that my 7-year-old keeps trying to offload chores onto the eager-to-please 5-year-old.

Ages 3.5-8

Sharing The Bread (Zietlow Miller)
I’d buy this – we need to revisit this theme frequently, plus it’s helpful to prepare kids before gatherings.

I am so tired of nagging and reminding my kids to do the same daily chores over and over again. I want more stories where kids step up and do chores without being asked. This book does this nicely, and so well that I am willing to get over my reservations about the whitewashing and the bland cover.

If this Christian & White-centered Thanksgiving story (they even say Grace before eating and pray) seems like a weird recommendation given that I advocate honoring Indigenous Day of Mourning instead of Thanksgiving & de-centering Christianity as the default – yeah, I catch that. However, this is one of those rare books that reflects the experience of white families without actively denigrating Indigenous people. White folks celebrate Thanksgiving! We’re not pretending it doesn’t happen.

I’m just saying while you’re thinking of sharing and gratitude, also pick up some books to unpack the ways we’re complicit in colonization and genocide. Balance! Recognize the reality of where we are now, reconcile it to where we want to be. (Here’s an Indigenous Day of Mourning family action toolkit for that, if you’d like to get started.)

In this story, everyone works together. The men, the kids, they coordinate together, instead of that tired story we see where Mom disappears for three days and then everyone sits down to an enormous dinner without acknowledging the work that goes into feeding a family.

The illustrations appear dry at first, but grew on us as we noticed the details. Plus, it’s just fun to read out loud: “Mama, fetch the cooking pot. Fetch our turkey-cooking pot. Big and old and black and squat. Mama, fetch the pot.”

Ages 3.5-8

Be Kind (Zietlow Miller)
Save this for a library trip. While there is a subtle theme of compassion, there’s not a compelling story so kids get bored of reading it after a few reads.

Heads up – It’s also one of the few books in this collection that feature a girl doing care work, so make sure to balance that shit, gender-wise.

I love how this book focuses on small actions that kids can do. Getting a book off a shelf for someone shorter than us. Bearing witness and offering solidarity with someone who is going through a hard time. Passing on possessions we no longer use. Helping with chores around the house. Paying attention to what people need. This is really sweet and effective for those younger years when kids feel like they are capable of so little.

Ages 5+

His Royal Highness King Baby (Lloyd-Jones)
Buy this as a gift for a kid with a good sense of humor, or as a big-sibling gift. It’s full of layers for kids to unpack as they get older, and it’s hilarious. It might even make a decent Secret Santa gift for fragile co-workers who complain a lot.

(This is the other book featuring a girl.) This book is more about perspective and ignorance to privilege than actively doing chores. While the story focuses on a wealthy white girl’s resentment over her baby brother and the ways she is so totally oppressed by her parents’ expectations, it works even for kids without siblings.

After a few reads, kids will start to notice the difference in what the protagonist believes and the reality around her. The tasks she groans about are hilariously eclipsed by the work her parents do to keep her fed, healthy, and happy.

You might also like: Kids Books About Cooperation & Collective Action

Cleaning for catharsis & empowerment

Ages 6+

I’m Furious (Crary, from the ‘Dealing With Feelings‘ series)

We read this at least three times a year, and it would be helpful to have on hand for kids to pick up on their own as-needed. If we could afford it, I would buy a copy to have on hand.

These didactic choose-your-own-adventure books have limited appeal – but when they work, they work so well.

In one of the timelines, the protagonist channels his anger into cleaning. YES! We need more books like this, helping kids learn how to use their fury to fuel good trouble. We need boys to learn how to who handle big feelings without attacking women. This is a great book for healthy masculinity.

While looking for this book, you might also come across I’m Mad, another book in the series for kids ages 4.5-6. I’m noticing the ways the female protagonist in I’m Mad is expected to dissolve and dissipate her anger by washing it away, as opposed to the way the boy in I’m Furious is allowed to transform his anger into physicality and self-empowerment.

Why the fuck, I ask you, are girls not allowed to own the full white-hot rage of anger* and let it fuel them? So if you are up for a challenge, get both and use it as a study in double standards with kids 6+.

*Sexism. The answer is sexism. We are done teaching girls to swallow or wash away our anger.

Ages 3.5+

Marvelous Cornelius (Bildner)
This is the first that I pull out when something epically terrible happens – like a natural disaster, and my kids are feeling powerless to help.

This is the book equivalent of the meme ‘Be The Leslie Knope Of Whatever You Do,’ helping kids understand that whatever their skills or assigned chores are – they have the power to kick ass at it. This particular book focuses on we can clean up as an initial step to recovery.

It’s also the best book to introduce the concept behind disasters like Hurricane Katrina. While this story doesn’t address the ways Black Americans are disproportionately left to suffer and die when shit hits the fan, there are followup books that do – such as A Place Where Hurricanes Happen and A Storm Called Katrina.

If you’re privileged enough to escape things like this unscathed, I expect you to read them with your kids when your kids are 7+, and to help them understand the ways things like hurricanes and epidemics further marginalize targeted people.

Marvelous Cornelius makes the perfect gentle introduction to the fact that disasters happen, and more importantly, the ways we can come together to heal each other. It’s a baby step that even more fragile families can handle.

Ages 2.5-9

Crab Cake (Tsurumi)

Worth buying. It’s a simple book, but helpful to have on hand for when kids are feeling overwhelmed.

Similar to Marvelous Cornelius, but more of an allegory. A ship wreck blankets the ocean floor with debris, and everyone freezes with shock and uncertainty. But it really just takes one person (or crab) to start with one small step. Seeing this, the community slowly breaks out of their shock and tackles the problem together.

As an autistic person with executive functioning disabilities, I find this kind of reminder invaluably helpful. Actually – while I have you here. Crab Cake works well for the aftermath of a disaster, but if your kiddo needs help tackling more mundane things like homework, Begin At The Beginning validates that similar feeling of being too stuck to start. Grab the 1984 version if you can find it, when the character is unapologetically plump, rather than the newer one where the illustrator thins the protagonist down because fat-phobia ruins everything great.

Ages 4+

Super Manny Cleans Up (DiPucchio)
If you have space on your bookshelf, it might be worth a buy to reinforce this lesson frequently. Although once every year or so from the library is probably enough.

Manny & Gertie notice that no one seems to see or care about what’s going on. They take responsibility for the litter they see even though it’s not their fault.

We discuss this with the Earthquakes frequently. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Sometimes life sucks, and we have to deal with the outcome even if we didn’t cause it. Sometimes the mess just isn’t going to get cleaned up unless we take responsibility for it ourselves.

Ages 2-9

Bangalee (Cosgrove)
Definitely not worth buying, but grab it from the library if it’s around.

The semi-rhyming in this is actively painful to read and does that 70’s thing where there are like 30 characters and not a single woman exists. But I’m including this in here because it really has been helpful to the Earthquakes to demonstrate how cleaning is a safety issue.

Although admittedly a messy room isn’t going to attack bloodthirsty Grunks – it is kinder to chide the kids with ‘Watch out for Grunks’ when the kids are screaming from landing barefoot on a pile of legos than ‘I told you so.’ I’m still searching for a less awful book to get this message across.

Ages 4-8

Tidy (Gravett)
Save this for an occasional library read, unless someone in your family struggles with compulsion disorders – in which case make this a staple.

And for our more compulsive family members (hello!) who might go overboard – this story is a nice reminder that there can be such a thing as too much orderliness (or so my partner tells me). So this book can kick off a nice discussion on when our need to order a disorganized world is getting unhealthy.

You might also like: Whining, Tantrums & Outbursts – Books To Help Kids Chill

Validating for parents

These are technically books for kids, but I use them more to help the Earthquakes see how hard parents and teachers are working behind the scenes so they can enjoy life. In each of these books, the illustrators make it clear all of the busywork parents quietly endure while the protagonist (kids) run around making messes.

I find it helps temper the whining when I ask them to do tiny chores like taking out the compost. (Okay, like 5% less whining). Check all of these out at the library at least once, but also they make a tongue-in-cheek birthday gift for the children of exhausted parents.

Big Snow, His Royal Highness King Baby, Hey Little Baby

Ages 3.5-7

Ages 5+

Ages 2-6

For grown-ass adult partners who don’t pull their weight

If you are isolating at home with our domestic partners, some of you might notice that one partner is taking on more than a fair share of the mental load – identifying what needs to happen and when.

In the effort to prevent a few divorces and separations after social isolation finally ends, this might be a good time for the teens and adults in the family to brush up on the invisible work of domestic labor. Also you’re stuck at home together so there’s no excuse for the dudes in your life not to read feminist literature, right?

I finally got a 35-year-old white man to cook dinner and shop for his own damn underpants without nagging him. So there is hope for domestically stunted partners who were never taught to pick up a broom as a child.

The Mental Load

You Should Have Asked‘ is available as a free online comic, so your partner really has like ZERO excuse not to spend 3 minutes reading it. This could make a fantastically salty wedding gift for the hetero couples in your life.

The Second Shift

Fair warning, this is depressing. First published in 1989, and over three decades later NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Since many dudes refuse to pick this book up and get all butt-hurt and miss the point when they are forced to read it for college credit, I leave this here because at least the folks taking on the mental load can put words to and understand the dynamics on why they feel so worn out. And so we can stop feeling so grateful for being allowed to work.

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Pick Up Those Damn Socks!!!

If you find my work helpful, I’m asking you to donate $5-15 to your local women’s shelter to create a safe space for women forced to isolate with abusers during the Covid-19 outbreak. If you don’t have time to vet your own – donate to Boston’s Rosie’s Place, which I already trust.

If you’re financially struggling and can’t – that’s totally cool. Take what I have to offer and care of your family.

My research, articles, and do-goodery projects are free & accessible to all because families shouldn’t have to choose between education and dinner. If you’d like to support my work and keep it accessible for others, join our community and help me support my family while I support yours.

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March 28, 2020 1 comment

Book Analysis

How Kids Find Hope In Hard Times With ‘Simon And the Bear’

by Ashia December 1, 2019

written by Ashia

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.

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.

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

Simon And The Bear

Courage

8
Brilliance

10
Representation

10
Engagement

10
Suspense

10

9.6

Average Score

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

But if your resources are limited – first support Families Belong Together – working to permanently end separation of immigrant families.

December 1, 2019 0 comments

Pandemic Life

Cooking has become a weapon of empowerment against uncertainty.

While we are all so isolated, food is bringing us together.

Getting access to the basics

Reclaiming a sense of control

Identifying our goals for the next 2 weeks

1. Check in with folks +1 level out from the people we are currently caring for.

2. Asking kids what goals they have for the next 2 weeks.

Identifying our challenges

Identifying our resources

Since libraries are closed:

Kids Stories About Sustainable Cooking & Food Justice

You might also like: Books Teaching Boys To Value & Take Responsibility for Domestic Labor

Step 1: Start healthy relationships with food early

You might also like: Anatomy & Body Awareness Books For Squeamish Parents

Step 2: Help kids understand what they get out of good food

You might also like: Body-Positive Kids Books Championing Fat Liberation

Step 3: Talk about how food connects us to our heritage and history

You might also like: Raising Tomorrow’s Fathers – Children’s Books With Feminist Dads

Step 4: Show kids it’s their responsibility for feeding the family, too.

You might also like: Kids Books Dismantling The Myth of a First Thanksgiving

Step 5: Help kids cook for self-empowerment and resiliency

You might also like: Understanding Anti-Asian Racist Microaggressions With Food Stories

Step 6: Show children the power of cooking as care-work

You might also like: Modeling Radical Interdependence: Stories Wrestling With Entitlement & Generosity

Step 7: Help kids use cooking for mutual aid & community care

You might also like: Galvanizing Kids Books About Poverty Inspiring Kids To Give Back

Step 8: Show kids the value of invisible labor & essential workers

You might also like: Triumphant Kids Stories Honoring Single Mothers

Step 9: Help kids make small, sustainable choices for big change

You might also like: Kids Books Dismantling The Myth of a First Thanksgiving

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Eat Your Vegetables

Unschooling for beginners

At-Home Activism While Home With Kiddos

Books to get kids excited!

Keep Raising Luminaries free and accessible for readers who can’t afford a paywall.

Books showing the value of boredom

You might also like: Books For The Next Generation of Kind & Brilliant Leaders

Books about folks who used unstructured solitude to do great things

Books about tenacious kids who deal with their own sh*t

Books about active homeschooling

You might also like: Kids Books About Education Rights

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Support Your Local Food Pantry

Hand-washing is more than just self-protection: On empowerment, liberty & speciesism

Protective measures aren’t about us – it’s to protect those who can’t do these things

Bonus: Non-biased representation of microscopic species

You might also like: Anatomy & Body Awareness for Kids – and their squeamish grownups

Parenting is Praxis

Mutual aid and interdependence should be normal, and integrated within daily family life

You might like: Kids & Radical Interdependence: Giving, Taking, and Asking

This is your go-to book for…

I’d read this in rotation along with…

Is this #OwnVoices?

Transparency & Cahoots!

Stay Curious, Stand Brave, and Support Community Libraries

I’m compulsively cleaning because therapy isn’t an option

Our systems are failing the same way as always, just harder and faster. But don’t panic.

Survival & Triage

Identify 4 goals for the next 7 days:

Identify mandatory activities to get through the next 24 hours:

Trauma Prevention:

You might also like: Books To Reassure Kids During Coronavirus Isolation

Since libraries are closed:

Who do our kids see taking on the bulk of domestic labor?

Board Books For Toddlers: Cleaning Is a Normal Part of Daily Life

You might also like: Raising Tomorrow’s Fathers – Children’s Books With Feminist Dads

Toddlers & Preschoolers – Cultivating cleaning as a way to exercise agency

You might also like: Books About Poverty Inspiring Kids To Give Back

Taking Responsibility & Contributing To the Household

You might also like: Kids Books About Cooperation & Collective Action

Cleaning for catharsis & empowerment

You might also like: Whining, Tantrums & Outbursts – Books To Help Kids Chill

Validating for parents

For grown-ass adult partners who don’t pull their weight

You might also like: Kids Books For Sudden Unschoolers

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Pick Up Those Damn Socks!!!

A Hanukkah book for everyone

How we grow through hard stories

Listening during play & make-up stories

This is the time to introduce stories working through common fears

**Step 2: Help kids understand what they get out of good food**

**Books about tenacious kids who deal with their own sh*t**

**Mutual aid and interdependence should be normal, and integrated within daily family life**