Image by Illustrator Jamie Hogan
Is the coursework for “Civics” going the way of “Home Ec”? Regardless of whether your kids are taught about the election in school, think about how you teach it.
Voting is the role of each citizen and talking about the vote is the role of each parent. There are tips on having this important conversation in the article Go Vote, and Take Your Kids With You” from Washington Post (11/3/14).
Learning by living is exactly what election day is about. We talk a lot in our family about making the world a better place, and tomorrow morning is one example of that. —Amy Joyce from“Go Vote, and Take Your Kids With You”
You can listen to a conversation about using Children’s Literature to explore the current and historical VOTE with Chris Lenois on Green Mountain Mornings here.
Here are books we voted to be on your reading list…
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Vote!
By Eileen Christelow
ISBN-13: 9780547059730
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Age range: 6 – 9 Years
Find at a Local Bookstore
In a presidential election year, when selecting a new leader will be the focus of national attention, what could be more timely than an upbeat and informative introduction to voting? Eileen Christelow’s Vote! is now available in a special paperback edition at a bargain price, to give even more young readers the chance to understand the process.
Parties, voter registration, campaigns, rallies, debates, Election Day, even a recount . . . all are clearly presented in a graphic format as the story of a local election unfolds, with hilarious commentary by the candidates’ pets.
Choosing our own government is one of our most cherished rights. This book is the perfect guide to how our democracy works.
Using a campaign for mayor as an example, shows the steps involved in an election, from the candidate’s speeches and rallies, to the voting booth where every vote counts, to the announcement of the winner.
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Because They Marched: The People’s Campaign for Voting Rights That Changed America
By Russell Freedman
ISBN-13: 9780823429219
Publisher: Holiday House, Inc.
Age range: 12 – 17 Years
Find at a Local Bookstore
For the 50th anniversary of the march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Newbery Medalist Russell Freedman has written a riveting account of this pivotal event in the history of civil rights. In the early 1960s, tensions in the segregated South intensified. Tired of reprisals for attempting to register to vote, Selma’s black community began to protest. The struggle received nationwide attention when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a voting rights march in January, 1965, and was attacked by a segregationist. In February, the shooting of an unarmed demonstrator by an Alabama state trooper inspired a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. The march got off to a horrific start on March 7 as law officers attacked peaceful demonstrators. Broadcast throughout the world, the violence attracted widespread outrage and spurred demonstrators to complete the march at any cost. On March 25, after several setbacks, protesters arrived at the end of the fifty-four-mile march to a cheering crowd of 25,000 supporters. Illustrated with more than forty photographs, this is an essential chronicle of events every American should know.
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Searching for Silverheels
By Jeannie Mobley
ISBN-13: 9781481400299
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Age range: 10 – 14 Years
Find at a Local Bookstore
A girl’s search for the truth about a legendary woman teaches her a lot about what bravery and loyalty really mean in this gorgeous novel from the author of Katerina’s Wish.
In her small Colorado town Pearl spends the summers helping her mother run the family café and entertaining tourists with the legend of Silverheels, a beautiful dancer who nursed miners through a smallpox epidemic in 1861 and then mysteriously disappeared. According to lore, the miners loved her so much they named their mountain after her.
Pearl believes the tale is true, but she is mocked by her neighbor, Josie, a suffragette campaigning for women’s right to vote. Josie says that Silverheels was a crook, not a savior, and she challenges Pearl to a bet: prove that Silverheels was the kindhearted angel of legend, or help Josie pass out the suffragist pamphlets that Pearl thinks drive away the tourists. Not to mention driving away handsome George Crawford.
As Pearl looks for the truth, darker forces are at work in her small town. The United States’s entry into World War I casts suspicion on German immigrants, and also on anyone who criticizes the president during wartime—including Josie. How do you choose what’s right when it could cost you everything you have?
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Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters
By Laurie Ann Thompson
ISBN-13: 9781582704647
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Beyond Words
Age range: 12 – 17 Years
Find at a Local Bookstore
Empower yourself in today’s highly connected, socially conscious world as you learn how to wield your passions, digital tools, and the principles of social entrepreneurship to affect real change in your schools, communities, and beyond.
At age eleven, Jessica Markowitz learned that girls in Rwanda are often not allowed to attend school, and Richards Rwanda took shape.
During his sophomore year of high school, Zach Steinfeld put his love of baking to good use and started the Baking for Breast Cancer Club.
Do you wish you could make a difference in your community or even the world? Are you one of the millions of high school teens with a service-learning requirement? Either way, Be a Changemaker will empower you with the confidence and knowledge you need to affect real change. You’ll find all the tools you need right here—through engaging youth profiles, step-by-step exercises, and practical tips, you can start making a difference today.
This inspiring guide will teach you how to research ideas, build a team, recruit supportive adults, fundraise, host events, work the media, and, most importantly, create lasting positive change. Apply lessons from the business world to problems that need solving and become a savvy activist with valuable skills that will benefit you for a lifetime!
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Tap Tap Boom Boom
By Elizabeth Bluemle
Illustrated by G. Brian Karas
ISBN-13: 9780763656966
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Age range: 3 – 7 Years
Find at a Local Bookstore
When a thunderstorm hits a city street, children and grown-ups dash to the subway for shelter — and an impromptu friendly gathering.
The clouds are gathering above a city street and soon — tap, tap, boom, boom! As a thunderstorm rolls in, people of all stripes race down to the subway to get away from the crackling rain and wind. With quirky wordplay and infectious rhymes, Elizabeth Bluemle crystallizes an unexpected moment of community, while G. Brian Karas’s warm illustrations show the smiles to be had when a storm brings strangers together as friends.
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RESOURCES
Flying Pig Bookstore Great selection and friendly, extremely knowledgeable staff to help with all your book needs (or leave you alone to browse in peace). While they are a full-service general bookstore, we have a strong children’s book specialty. Yankee Magazine named them 2013 Best Children’s Bookstore in New England.
“Go Vote, and Take Your Kids With You” by Amy Joyce from Washington Post (11/3/14)
