Celebrating our Heritage
Our school is beautifully diverse and we celebrate this every November with an International Night. I like to celebrate in some way in our library as well. Last year's celebration included reading Yuyi Morales' Dreamers , and virtual traveling with Legos and green screens. This year, I was inspired by Yamile Saied Mendez's Where Are You From? This made for an ideal read for me because It is about a young girl with big questions, much like many of my students. Identify and belonging drive the story which felt so natural to read as we celebrate our heritage. The poetic use of language made it an exquisite read. We lingered over the word choice. I read this page slowly, deliberately. There is no other way to read it. We finished and students asked, "But WHERE is she from?" After reading more about the author, we decided that perhaps the girl in the story was just like the author, from Rosario, Argentin...