Picture Books are Back

Do not, do not underestimate the power of the best form of literature for children. Picture Books!

Yes, they are simple, they have pictures, but remember how a picture can be a thousand words. Yes. Picture Books are a bonanza. And the market is full of fabulous books. Of real books, about real issues and real people, that can invoke the critical thinker in your children from early on.

We live in a world that we cannot allow our children to grow blind. We cannot turn a blind eye and pretend life is not happening. That life is all roses and games. Life can be great, but life can be shitty. We need to tune our children into reality, away from naivety, in a way they can understand. Picture books are a fabulous tool to that end. For toddlers, preschoolers, elementary school children, middle school children, high school children, college students, adults, grandparents, etc. For all.

So let's begin:


The cruelty of the trans-atlantic slave trade: 

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The cruelty of working your life underground, often dying young because of disease; the horror of your children inevitably following your foots steps. If you think this is unpleasant, then amplify this by the suffering of the native Americans in central and south America who died em masse in mines, weeks on end, until their last breath, without sun, without food, without proper air.

Relate this to how limited the naturally occurring resources in the crust are.

It's easy to say that Muslims are bad. As it has been easy to say that Jews are bad. Lets remember that Muslims and Jews were equally hated by christians and equally prosecuted by christians. The cruelty that christians exercised towards the jews and the muslims in the occupied lands is coming back to haunt them. Christians are criminals. So please tell your children that christianity in the past has been the single source of suffering, pain, disease and despicable deaths and tortures.

Nature is our home. If you pay attention in bio class, even if it is Bi-1 in Caltech, you will hear that in nature everything is in balance, and when deviating from the balance, works to go back to the balance, or to a completely new balance. But the drive towards balance, and predictability in nature is a real thing. Nature is finite. The resources in nature are finite. We must manage and plan accordingly. We also should not withhold essential resources, such as water and food, in attempt to subordinate, dehumanize and control people.

People may be different than you. That's not a reason for you to bully them. Let's face it if they are different from you, you are different fro them. 

What if the tables were turned? 

People with physical disabilities are talented and capable. Sick people are capable. Immigrants are capable. A new person is capable.

There is no reason you can determine someones is less than you, whatever that may mean, just by looking at them. What hidden talents does the person have? How can he surprise you? 

People are full of life stories and experiences that are different than yours. You can always learn from them. Taking advantage of someone's disability in order to enrich yourself and to hurt the person is a crime. It's a moral crime.

Why should you be stuck in the comfort of routine? Routine is good and predictable, but routine makes you a human-hater, makes you fearful of everything that is outside of your routine. We as people need to embrace diversity, embrace opportunities to learn, and not fear lack of knowledge and skill, but seek to grow the same. We need to live in comfortable discomfort with our own completeness. Only this way we can meet with open arms others. Only this way we can relate, we can extend a hand, we can understand. Especially, the US, a country of immigrants, is swimming in material reminders that we all came from somewhere else or we don't know where we come from.

Book Recommendations

I participate once again in the my local library's summer reading program. This year the theme is numbers-read books which contain numbers either in the title or as a strong motif and you earn more tickets towards prizes.

This book is the first number book I absolutely loved. It's great for busy families. For parents and for children who are so soaked into following their dreams. A few years ago at one of my daughter's birthdays I was taking so many pictures that I completely missed the party. I remembered this when I was reading this book. It's wonderful. It's very human, very simple, touching, funny, witty. It speaks to the potential of all kids, to the dreams of all kids, to the struggles and ingenuity of all kids and the adults in their lives. Please read this book with and to your children. You will laugh and you will feel closer. I guarantee it.


Then there was this gem. One beetle too many. I missed on learning about evolution while I was in school. Mind you, I also attended one of the top science schools in the country and in the world! My career has taken me into the exciting path towards thinking about evolution, thinking about how small changes to a system can have profound long term effects, something clearly cut for a dynamics studies. Well, this book is a wonderful and may I say, cleaner account of evolution and the genius of Darwin and the people who believed in him. The theory that very easily could have been so wrong if it wasn't for the genius of this man who happened to believe something unfathomable. It took generations and a lot of learning and understanding to finally believe this theory. One more reason to admire people with ideas and to let them thrive. Today, when funding is scrutinized by people who do not understand how science works, who do not understand how you can spend hours and hours on something and turning in nothing or something completely different than what you started on to look for. Science is the drive, and the discover is just the cherry on top of the ice-cream. Darwin was the foundation. It took, however, many scientists, many lives, many visionaries to make him as renown and his theory as revered.
Here is a You Tube narration of Charlie and the Kiwi, which explains in a very simplified and incomplete way the concept of evolution-a good beginning, but only a starting point.

Speaking of understanding Evolution, this book offers a fabulous starting point. Very little biology is required. The book clearly walks through the evidence that Darwin had in support of his theory along with the exact arguments and objections and exceptions he had considered. From a historical perspective, the book offers not only a point in time account of Darwin's genius but also long-term to current day account of the support that science from various fields has provided for the theory. After reading this book carefully, I also recommend: Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne from the University of Chicago as well as What Evolution is by Ernst Mayr


The kids have also been participating in the kids' summer reading program and along with the other books I have listed already, here are a few additional once we have enjoyed in the last week:

                         

From Head to Toe, I used in Portuguese and we sang Cabeca,Ombro, Joelho e Pe. We will use it again when we are learning the parts of the body. Marco and his adventures we also used in Portuguese to talk about travel and destinations and animals we know of in our other languages. I am happy with this use and highly recommend it as an alternative to buying bi-lingual or foreign-language books. If you know sufficiently a language, or better yet if you are native speaker, there is no reason you cannot translate. You should for your children's sake! Happy reading!

Update 6/16/2014:  Due to some teething issues on my end, I was home all of yesterday and I spent the day reading. I read the following very good books-I enjoyed reading both but without the training as a kid I would have fallen for the first one without much thinking. The first book is nothing but a really bad propaganda piece and should be studied as such with all of its incompleteness and mistakes pointed out. As I said, as a child I was bombarded with similar propaganda and while the stories were fascinating, early on I realized they are a BS. The second book is great-a fairy tale from the Oriental that may very easily appeal to girls 6th grade and up. 

As I have already pointed out in prior posts we are reading a lot about the Rainforest. Tthe kids' portuguese books emphasize recycling and the need to care for the Rainforest ecosystem.  Since we are learning about South America, I have decided to extend out study and read stories from South American countries. For some of these, I have visuals to enhance the comprehension and the learning: pictures, newspapers, other books. Here are the books I absolutely loved (there is one more on the way about Argentina):

This book is a fairy tale from Argentina, and the importance of rain to the people; it's about the beliefs that they held and how they acted on these beliefs.Update 7/25/2014: We will not be reading this book because it is complicated to understand by little kids. I will come back to it when we discuss legends and various peoples' beliefs.

Update 7/28/2014: This book, On the Pampas, is wonderful. It's about a real girl who spends the summer at her grandparent's farm away and learns to care and ride horses. Ballet girl is starting to enjoy books about real people and real places. Sunlight boy is absolutely fascinating with South America because the Ring of Fire passes through there and anything related to volcanic activities is highly prized in his world:). I am going to print a large (2x2) South America map that we will use in our studies of the people and the countries. I am going to use the maps available at this site. 

This book comes from Chile and points out two characteristics of the country-its wine production and its earthquakes. Great for putting into geographical context the kids' knowledge of the tectonic activities in this area with the outcome-rich soil and unpredictability. This is a sweet book.

 This is my person favorite. I can support it strongly with personal records which makes it that much more special to me. The book is very easy flowing, very colorful, very truthful. My favorite part were the last 4-6 pages which present a very concise but also very appetizing summary/insight into the Inca culture-then and now. A very good read.

 This books is fabulous. With very simple images the authors teaches the contemporary american child about simpler life and connection to the earth and true friendship. This book comes from the author's personal observations of a Costa Rican family and how they related to each other and their land. Touching story, beautifully narrated and beautifully captured.

Update 7/28/2014: We are also using the following books from the Country ABCs series. Costa Rica ABCs and Guatemala ABCs. I found the information in them very good and relevant to the current news. Today many immigrants, especially children, from Central America are escaping into the US. It is good for my children to understand how lucky they are to have been born here and how much people elsewhere struggle, and the reasons for that.