Text Set: Immigration Stories

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. 

Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates! 

Reading across a topic so that an idea doesn't become a single story is important. When we think about immigration we have to make sure to think about immigration as broadly as possible when we think about time period, reasons for immigration, representation and more. I was hesitant to put this text set together because even with 6-8 books, this list is still very limited.  But I am hoping these books create a starting point or fill in gaps to the stories you have.

Home is in Between and Lailah's Lunchbox are two picture books that share experiences of children who have immigrated. Both show some celebrations and challenges with an eye toward the experiences of young children.  Even though these are fiction picture books, both are based on the authors' experiences and the author's note is a critical component in each of the books.

These are two very different books but the language and word choice was what made me put them together on one slide. Dreamers is a beautiful book that can be read and also studied as a writer. Six Words Fresh Off the Boat is a collection of 6 Word Memoirs that capture the experiences of people coming to America. Six Words Fresh Off the Boat is not written for children, but many of the 6 Word Memoirs can be shared with children.

The voices of children are highlighted in these books.  While Stormy Seas: Stories of Young Boat Refugees spans decades of people journeying by boat, Hear My Voice focuses on the current crisis of children being detained at the US Border.  Hear My Voice is a brand new, bilingual book   with powerful words and illustrations. All proceeds from Hear My Voice go to Project Amplify.

Their Great Gift is filled with poetic language and powerful images that celebrate immigration. The photos show the diversity and experiences of immigrants. While other books focus on different time periods of immigration, this book focuses on the 21st century.

Wishes and Two White Rabbits both focus two very different journeys that families take to find safety. Wishes releases next week and is must-have new picture book. Much of the story in both of these books is told in the illustrations.

This week's books were linked at Cover to Cover Children's Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous independent children's bookstore to support, this is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio!

When ELL Teachers Give Their Students a Voice

One Good Thing About America
by Ruth Freeman
illustrated by Kathrin Honesta
Holiday House, March 2017
review ARC received at ALA Midwinter

Ruth Freeman works in the ELL department of an elementary school in South Portland, Maine. She acknowledges in the author's notes that hers is an outsider's perspective of what it's like to be a refugee or asylum seeker. Until this generation of refugee children grows up to write their own stories, the best we've got are stories from some of the people who know them best -- their teachers.

Anaïs is a refuge of Congo. Her grandmother, father and brother are still there. Her father and brother are on the run from the government. It is her grandmother to whom she writes, and her grandmother who encourages her to tell "one good thing about America" in every letter. Sometimes that's hard for Anaïs because, though she was top in her class in English when she left Africa, there is so much about American English and American culture that baffles and frustrates her. Her voice is very authentic, starting with broken English and readable misspellings mixed liberally with French words, and smoothing out throughout the course of the book and her ten months of learning. In the back of the book, there is a list of words and phrases that are Anaïs is hearing (such as a silum and playd) paired with "the spelling she will learn" (asylum and played). Such wonderful respect for our English Language Learners!

Messages from Maryam
by Lauren Pichon
illustrated by Kendra Yoder
lulu.com, January 2017
review copy provided by the author

Like Freeman, Lauren Pichon is an ELL teacher. Her self-published picture book is also a story told in letters.

Aila and Maryam are Iraqi girls from Mosul. When Maryam and her family immigrate to the United States, she and Aila exchange letters throughout the long process of waiting in a refugee camp, flying to New York, driving to Virginia, starting school with no English, and adjusting to life in a new country. Eventually Aila's family makes it to Virginia as well and the girls are reunited.

In the author's notes, Pichon acknowledges that the exchange of letters from a refugee camp is fiction -- people in refugee camps cannot send or receive mail. As with One Good Thing About America, the letter format is, nonetheless, an effective way to let the reader experience the loneliness, isolation, and frustration of the refugee experience. The contrast between Maryam's new life in America and the description of her life in Mosel and her and Aila's time in refugee camps will give American readers a better sense of what their new classmates have gone through.