Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Can a Black Kid be President - What Picture Books Show Us


Images matter. No one can escape the Presidential campaign process. Can a Black Kid be President - if you had to look at picture book covers to determine this? Are there titles you would suggest sharing with an African American child to give him or her a sense that she could indeed become the President of the United States of America?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think there need to be more titles like this. It's an inspiration and gives young African Americans something to strive for in the future.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Toni. I searched high and low and found nothing.

Amy Bowllan
(Bowllan's Blog)
http://www.slj.com/blog

laurie in maine said...

Hi there...explored your blog after finding your Oct post about fabric postcards & Presidential quilts. The fabric postcard with a dream catcher that I mentioned was blogged about in June 2007 here:
http://sockshavenothumbs.blogspot.com/2007/06/there-and-back-again.html

Also tried my hand at writing a tutorial here for the group I belong to:
http://postmarkdart.com/article2007-09-15.php

Anonymous said...

Hi Kyra,

You left a posting on my blog (www.collectingchildrensbooks.blogspot.com) about trying to find a copy of SHIRLEY CHISHOLM FOR PRESIDENT by Leonore K. Itzkowitz.

Now that's a stumper!

According to OCLC, this book appears to be a volume in a series of readers called HIP POCKET STORIES (other volumes focused on Diana Ross, Geraldo Rivera, Johnny Bench, and Bill Cosby) but no library in the country is listed as having these books. The OCLC record for the Chisholm book was input by Baker and Taylor, but since it was never cataloged by a real library, I wonder if it isn't one of those "phantom books" that were announced for publication but never released.

I can't even find any info on Leonore Itzkowitz!

In our library we have one juvenile biography on the subject: SHIRLEY CHISHOLM by Susan Brownmiller, published by Doubleday in 1971.

There is also a book called FIGHTING SHIRLEY CHISHOLM by James Haskins (Dial, 1975.)

Also, have you seen BARACK OBAMA by Marlene Targ Brill (Millbrook, 2006), BARACK OBAMA by Sherri and Mark Devaney (Lucent, 2007), BARACK OBAMA : "WE ARE ONE PEOPLE" by Michael A. Schuman (Enslow, 2008), and BARACK OBAMA by Heather Lehr Wagner (Chelsea House, 2008) -- all geared toward young readers?

Hope this info helps!

Peter

Anonymous said...

I have a copy of The Story of Geraldo Rivera, Eyewitness to the 70's by Leonore k Itzkowitz. I intend to give it to John Stewart.
Mark Zwick