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Looking Back with Biographies

12/18/2023

 

By The Biography Clearinghouse 

As we come to the end of another calendar year, we reflect upon how much the world can change in just a few short months. Political turmoil, violence, and war threaten the lives of millions. Climate scientists tell us that 2023 was the hottest year on record. Devastating fires and floods ravaged cities, towns, and forests alike. These catastrophes may feel unique to our life experience, so it helps to remember that people before us have faced hardships too.

Again, we turn to biographies to learn from the people among us and those who came before us. What lessons in leadership can we find? How do artists, faith leaders, scientists, activists, educators, and others work towards goals? Handle setbacks? Cope with prejudice? Persevere while facing devastation? Work collaboratively to create change? 

In this year-end blog entry, we share a few picture book biographies from 2022 and 2023 that were inspiring to us, as well as preview a 2024 biography. 

With best wishes for peace in the New Year,

The Biography Clearinghouse Team 


A Song for The Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington
by Carole Boston Weatherford & Rob Sanders, illustrations by Bryan McCray (November 2022, Henry Holt and Co.)

It takes a person with extraordinary skills to organize an event as tremendous as the 1963 March on Washington. Bayard Rustin was primed for this event from a young age and across the span of his life. In A Song for the Unsung, we learn that his grandmother instilled in him Quaker values, and the importance of civic engagement; that Rustin practiced civil disobedience by resisting racism; that he endured homophobia even among the civil rights activists beside whom he struggled; and that along with being dedicated to non-violent resistance, he was a talented singer who knew the power of music to move and inspire. The creators of this biography pay tribute to Bayard Rustin with reverential grace and beauty, rendering him simultaneously sturdy and vulnerable, amid gorgeous mixed media illustrations. In the classroom, A Song for the Unsung can inspire conversation about the qualities of leaders such as Rustin, the legacy of the march (documented in the backmatter), and protest music (while listening to the songs listed on each page). 

A song for the unsung cover

Game of Freedom Cover

Game of Freedom: Mestre Bimba and the Art of Capoeira
by Duncan Tonatiuh (October 2023, Abrams) 

In Game of Freedom, Duncan Tonatiuh tells the story of Manuel Dos Reis Machado, or Mestre Bimba as he is best known, and his role in uplifting capoeira from a marginalized and persecuted practice to an internationally recognized artform. The book starts at the turn of the 20th century in Brazil’s state of Bahia during Bimba’s childhood, when it was illegal to play capoeira in public. Skillfully interweaving exposition within the book’s narrative arc, Tonatiuh describes capoeira as a form of artistic cultural expression combining “music, fighting, theatrics, and dance” with deep roots within the culture of the Black descendants of formerly enslaved Africans, and explicitly links the harassment of capoeiristas to racial prejudice. After learning to play capoeira as a teenager, Bimba began to teach others but bristled at the disrespect and continuing persecution of the practice. In what follows, Tonatiuh offers an informative unspooling of how social and political change are slowly built. Readers learn that, determined to change matters, Bimba developed a new capoeira style and established a school or academia for teaching it and participated in a series of challenge bouts that increased the game’s visibility. Bimba’s efforts, in combination with the opening of other academies and the development of other capoeira styles, helped shift the public’s perception of the game and led to its complete decriminalization in 1953. The book’s backmatter includes a glossary and a rich author’s note.
 
Utilizing his distinctive stylized illustration style, that is influenced by pre-Columbian art, Tonatiuh captures the beauty and the fluidity of capoeira and of the Brazilian historical contexts of Mestre Bimba’s life. Particularly poignant is the depiction of enslaved ancestors as reversed silhouettes in select illustrations of capoeiristas. Readers may notice some slight departures from Tonatiuh’s typical rendering in the shape of the characters’ ears, but most notably in the en face depiction of some of the capoeira players. 

Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller
by Breana McDaniel, illustrated by April Harrison (January 2024, Dial/Penguin)

Throughout 2023, school and public librarians have served as guardians of free speech, putting their careers on the line to support young people’s access to diverse books. These librarians, to whom we owe so much, are part of a long line of librarian activists creating change for their communities and beyond. Augusta Baker was one such leader. Baker curated a list of Black book creators for the young people with whom she worked at the 135th Street Branch Library in Harlem, fostered the careers of many Black authors, from Virginia Hamilton to Walter Dean Meyers, and became the first Black coordinator of children’s services within the New York City Library System. Baker was also an author and storyteller in her own right, teaching storytelling at Columbia University and becoming “Storyteller in Residence” at the University of South Carolina. McDaniels’ writing moves, propelling readers forward through varied sentences, alliteration, and just enough information. Hamilton’s gorgeous mixed media collages, saturated in warm colors of yellow, orange, and green, envelop readers in the warmth of Baker’s presence in the library and in the classroom. Backmatter includes a timeline, author’s note, and citations list. Go Forth and Tell would be a wonderful read alongside picture book biographies of fellow New York City librarian, storyteller, and changemaker Pura Belpré such as Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré (Denise, 2019) and Pura’s Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with her Stories (Pimentel 2021), and Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library (Weatherford, 2017).   

Go forth and tell cover

Hope is an arrow cover

Hope is an Arrow: The Story of Lebanese American Poet Kahlil Gibran
by Cory McCarthy, illustrated by Ekua Holmes (July 2022, Candlewick)

Khalil Gibran believed and held on to the universals of love and togetherness as he navigated his life as an outsider traversing between cultures.  He moved back and forth between his homeland of Lebanon, and Boston, in the United States.  The seeds for his greatest work of writing, The Prophet, were sewn in his continuous back and forth between cultures.  Actual pieces from this famous book, which has been translated into more than 40 languages, are woven into this story.  The snippets offer readers a glimpse of how his life may have engendered and connected to his famous writings.  It was his art and poetry which helped Khalil Gibran persevere through incredible challenges and helped him communicate his ideas across cultures.  There is a good chance that students who have grown up with more than one culture will connect with his story.  It may provide teachers an opportunity to introduce students to some of Khalil Gibran’s work and dig in more and could invite students to communicate some of the larger feelings and ideas in their lives through poetry and art, much like he did.

Tiny Jumper: How Tiny Broadwick Created the Parachute Rip Cord
by Candy Dahl, illustrated by Maithili Joshi (October 2023, Little Bee Books)

Born as a “tiny” baby, but with tremendous courage, Tiny Broadwick was the inventor of the parachute rip cord and named the “First Lady of Parachuting.” Despite enduring embarrassing stunts like dressing up as a baby in order to do what she loved, Tiny knew she belonged in the air and took action to make her dreams a reality. After establishing herself as a prolific hot air jumper, Tiny persevered and entered a world where no woman had gone before- parachuting from airplanes. In Tiny Jumper, Dahl and Joshi show what determination, bravery, and unique interests can accomplish. Joshi’s dynamic illustrations and the incorporation of quotes from Tiny Broadwick throughout the running text bring this incredible woman’s story to life. Tiny Jumper inspires readers to follow their passions, against all odds, even when they seem up in the clouds.
Tiny Jumper Cover

Christo and Jeanne-Claude Wrap the World Cover

Christo and Jean Claude Wrap the World
by G. Neri, illustrated by Elizabeth Haidle (March 2023, Candlewick)

One of the greatest gifts artists offer humanity is the invitation to see the world in new ways. This is certainly the case with environmental artists Christo and Jean-Claude, the subjects of a new picture book written by G. Neri and illustrated by Elizabeth Haidle. Imagine walking through a city and suddenly noticing a car or even a giant building completely wrapped in fabric or finding a brightly colored floating path from a lakeshore to an island, where none had been the day before. These projects and more are featured by Neri who employs a constructed dialogue between the two artists to convey their life stories, their unique installations, and the goals that guided their public art making.  Haidle’s mixed media illustrations match the playful creative nature of the artists’ collaboration, incorporating frames, speech bubbles, and marvelous renderings of the oversize and surprising works of art. Helpful back matter includes additional details about the married couple’s life stories, a note about the author’s sources and how the dialogue was composed, and ‘fun facts’ about the art. This engaging biography compels consideration of important questions such as: What is art? Who owns art? Who experiences art? Can art be temporary? How does art impact our lives?
Biobraphy Clearinhouse Logo
The Biography Clearinghouse is a website aiming "to support educators in sharing biographies with young people." The site includes several resources, including a framework for teaching with biographies, interviews with biography authors and illustrators, and a portfolio of book entries. Recent entries:
  • Impossible Escape by Steve Sheinkin
  • A Life of Service: The Story of Tammy Duckworth by Christina Soontornvat,
    Illustrated by Dow Phumiruk

The Biography Clearinghouse Team is comprised of book creators and educators of different levels.

Winter Hiatus Announcement

Picture

Breaking Barriers - Discovering Connections

5/18/2021

 

By Patricia E. Bandré

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.”
Nelson Mandela
Cover of
For approximately four weeks this spring, fourth-grade students at Oakdale Elementary in Salina, Kansas read and discussed, We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball (Nelson, 2008) as part of a language arts unit.  Students found the book highly engaging and the art extraordinary.  Numerous discussions occurred as students read, wondered, and conducted research in order to learn more about Negro League players and team owners.  Ideas in the book sparked a variety of emotions and prompted numerous conversations about how people treated one another then, how they treat one another today, and what it means to break barriers.  When the unit concluded, teachers Joy Fox-Jensen and Mary Plott desired to capitalize on students’ enthusiasm for the book and their interest in sports.  They wanted to introduce students to other African American athletes who had broken barriers and pursued their dreams.
In my role as the district reading instructional specialist, I worked with the teachers to plan and conduct a six-day mini-unit.  We chose four books for our study: Above the Rim: How Elgin Baylor Changed Basketball (Bryant, 2020), Playing to Win: The Story of Althea Gibson (Deans, 2007), A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis (de la Peña, 2011), and Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman (Krull, 1996). We intentionally chose to introduce African American men and women who excelled in sports other than baseball and faced barriers in addition to those posed by race; poverty, illness, and physical disabilities provided further challenges for the athletes we selected. We also wanted students to experience a variety of writing styles and different types of illustrations.  Finally, we wished to select athletes to whom the students could connect.  We wanted them to see how these barrier-breaking athletes valued determination and perseverance, realized the importance of compassion, and understood how seemingly simple actions spoke louder than words.  Our goal was to help the fourth graders begin to see how they could become barrier-breakers, too.

Cover: Above the Rim: How Elgin Baylor Changed Basketball
Cover: A Nation's Hope: the Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis
Cover: Playing to Win

How Althea Gibson Broke Barriers and Changed Tennis Forever
Cover: Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman
Notice and Learn Anchor Chart
Because students demonstrated such a high level of interest in Kadir Nelson’s paintings when reading We are the Ship, we elected to begin the study with a short exploration of book design.  I used information from the article Picturebooks as Aesthetic Objects (Sipe, 2001) to help frame our conversations.  We are the Ship (Nelson, 2008), along with two classic picturebooks, Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak, 1963) and The Little House (Burton, 1942), served as models.  After reading the two picturebooks aloud, we took a focused look at all three books.  As part of our discussion, I prompted students to consider how the size and shape of a book might add to its meaning.  Students contemplated the image on the dust jacket and cover of each book – were these images the same or different?  Why?  They looked closely at the endpapers and wondered about the significance of the colors and the images, if there were any.  We considered the color palette each artist used and discussed how those colors suited the text and made them feel.   Students noticed the different points of view Nelson employed in We are the Ship; individual players appeared to be larger than life, but in the team paintings, each member seemed equally significant.  Students greatly admired Nelson’s full-bleed art, but also found the way Sendak (1963) placed frames around his illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are to be intriguing.  Students were quick to notice how the size of the frames changed, disappeared, and reappeared as we watched the main character, Max, journey in and out of his imaginary world.  Ultimately, this exploration created a heightened sense of awareness and resulted in careful observations, thoughtful questions, and insightful responses about the other books we read.    

Picture
Over the next four sessions, students interacted with a new book each day.  Each initial reading was conducted as a read-aloud or a combination of listening and partner reading.  I purposely did not stop to talk about the book during its first reading.  Rather, I wanted students to take in the language and art on their own in order to develop a first draft understanding (Barnhouse and Vinton, 2012).  Following this process allowed them to come to their own conclusions about the athletes and the barriers faced without the influence of their peers.  Instead of talking, students took two sticky notes and recorded one thing they noticed about the book and one fact they learned during the first read.  Students shared their “Notice and Learn” notes with a shoulder partner and posted them for others to read.  Next, we dove back into each book and revisited specific passages in order to explore the way the authors used language to provide clues as to the personality of each athlete.  An organizer modeled after the Reading with Attitude protocol (Buehl, 2014) assisted to facilitate our conversations. As students reread certain passages from each book, they contemplated the athlete’s and author’s emotions and shared how the text made them feel as the reader.  Discussions ensued about the language in the text and how it prompted them to infer the presence of these emotions.  Additionally, students made specific references to the art in each book and how it affected their response.  As students met each new athlete, the comments they shared made it clear that they realized the athletes were different from one another, but connected by common threads

Picture
Collaborative Art Display
Closing conversations, written reflections, and a collaborative art display revealed the connections students saw between the four athletes they had met.  Most importantly, students saw their own lives reflected in those of the athletes. “Barrier breakers are courageous and daring,” wrote one student.  “They had to stand up for their rights and not only for their rights, but they stood up for the rights of others.”  Another student noted, “They broke barriers that people were afraid to do.  A barrier I want to break is people judging other people in a rude way.”  Like Elgin, Althea, Joe, and Wilma, students realized they had the ability to demonstrate the characteristics needed in life to break barriers of their own

References

Barnhouse, D., & Vinton, V. (2012). What readers really do: Teaching the process of meaning making.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Buehl, D. (2014). Classroom strategies for interactive learning, (4th ed.). International Reading
Association: Newark, DE.

Sipe, L. R. (2001). Picturebooks as aesthetic objects. Literacy Teaching and Learning, 6(1), 23-42.

Children’s Books

Bryant, J. (2020). Above the rim: How Elgin Baylor changed basketball.  Illus. by F. Morrison. Abrams
Books for Young Readers: New York, NY.

Burton, V. L. (1942). The little house. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Deans, K. (2007). Playing to win: The story of Althea Gibson. Illus. by E. Brown. Holiday House:
New York, NY.

de la Peña, M. (2011). A nation’s hope: The story of boxing legend Joe Louis. Illus. by K. Nelson. Dial Books for Young Readers: New York, NY.

Krull, K. (1996). Wilma unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph became the world’s fastest woman. Illus. by D. Diaz. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Boston, MA.

Sendak, M. (1963). Where the wild things are. HarperCollins Publishers: New York, NY.
Patricia E. Bandré, Ph.D., is the reading instructional specialist for USD 305 Public Schools, Salina, KS and serves as treasurer for CLA.
Joy Fox-Jensen and Mary Plott are fourth grade teachers at Oakdale Elementary School, USD 305 Public Schools, Salina, KS.
 
We wish to thank the Salina Education Foundation for funding this project.

    Authors:
    CLA Members

    Supporting PreK-12 and university teachers as they share children’s literature with their students in all classroom contexts.

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    Liz Thackeray Nelson
    Emmaline Ellis
    Jennifer Slagus
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    Megan Van Deventer

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