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Articles 31 - 60 of 71
Full-Text Articles in Early Childhood Education
Encyclopedia Of Gardening For Colored Children (2024) By Jamaica Kincaid, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Encyclopedia Of Gardening For Colored Children (2024) By Jamaica Kincaid, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
In relating the origins, biological features, and uses of several familiar and unfamiliar plants, this Encyclopedia simultaneously offers a primer on colonialism, slavery, and genocide. Adults sharing this book with children should be led by children’s curiosity, but should also help them cultivate a vocabulary and historical understanding of oppression.
Gibberish (2022) By Young Vo, Peter Shea
Gibberish (2022) By Young Vo, Peter Shea
Picture Books
Everyone sometimes doesn’t understand what is going on, can’t find a way in, and everyone in that situation has impulses to retreat and to growl. Gibberish takes the point of view of the newcomer, the non-native speaker. One of the virtues of this presentation is that many people will say: yes, that’s what it was like – when I started school; the first day of my new job; when I first opened the chemistry book; when I landed in Vienna; as the first person in my family to go to college; when I started playing violin. And that common topic …
Simone (2024) By Viet Thanh Nguyen, Peter Shea
Simone (2024) By Viet Thanh Nguyen, Peter Shea
Picture Books
When Simone is awakened by her mom as a wildfire threatens their home, it is the beginning of a life-changing journey. Coziness and comfort disappear in an instant, without much warning, as wildfires threaten peaceful neighborhoods and families seek makeshift shelters, with little hope of going back to normal. Joined by other children sheltering in the gym, Simone, a budding artist, encourages everyone to draw as a way to process their situation.
Blackout (2011) By John Rocco, Peter Shea
Blackout (2011) By John Rocco, Peter Shea
Picture Books
In this Caldecott Honor Book, Blackout, a hot urban night takes an interesting turn when the power goes out and an urban family -- each busy with something that requires electricity -- discover new things about themselves and their community.
Hurricane (2021) By John Rocco, Peter Shea
Hurricane (2021) By John Rocco, Peter Shea
Picture Books
This book pictures the devastation of today's powerful storms. The hurricane wrecks things and drives people from their homes. The boy in the story finds his beloved dock broken up, where he used to swim and fish. The story centers on cooperation and neighborhood resilience: people can get through disasters if they work together.
Something, Someday (2023) By Amanda Gorman, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Something, Someday (2023) By Amanda Gorman, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
When children think philosophically they inevitably will, and unquestionably should engage in social criticism. In this picture book by the first U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, a Black child in an urban apartment complex surrounded by garbage cleans it up and plants a vegetable and flower garden, enlisting the help of others and overcoming some setbacks. Gorman's text warns children that some adults may say they're too small, or that it’s none of their business, or that what they're trying won’t work, but she reassures them that sometimes it’s OK to ignore those people.
I'M Trying To Love Spiders (2019) By Bethany Barton, Peter Shea
I'M Trying To Love Spiders (2019) By Bethany Barton, Peter Shea
Picture Books
This is one member of a series of books about trying to love things. In funny and engaging prose, it explores this important, usually neglected, action several ways, not all of which are successful for the narrator, whose 'natural' response to spiders is squashing. It opens lots of questions about getting beyond our first impulses.
Blizzard (2014) By John Rocco, Peter Shea
Blizzard (2014) By John Rocco, Peter Shea
Picture Books
Based on the author’s childhood experience, this book tells the story of a boy seeing his neighborhood transformed into an alien landscape by a superstorm and finding ways to get around in it when adults cannot. The book invites readers to re-see “normal” lives and to reconsider what is possible.
We Are Water Protectors (2020) By Carole Lindstrom, Peter Shea
We Are Water Protectors (2020) By Carole Lindstrom, Peter Shea
Picture Books
We Are Water Protectors is a beautiful and partisan book, and the teacher or parent who wants to help children to think better could not find a better place to start, giving the child of whatever age the opportunity to feel the force of this plea, and then to recognize the need to understand the political context within which this issue arises, and the honest differences of opinion about policy that arise in an already disrupted world.
Big Fur Secret (1944) By Margaret Wise Brown, Peter Shea
Big Fur Secret (1944) By Margaret Wise Brown, Peter Shea
Picture Books
This little-known book by Margaret Wise Brown follows a boy as he watches animals in a zoo, first just observing, then having fantasies about them: of putting squirrels in his pocket, lying down beside the panda, hugging the polar bear. But he always interrupts his fantasy: the squirrel wouldn’t like to be put in a pocket; he knows better than to lie down next to a panda or to hug a polar bear. The Big Fur Secret is importantly about animals, and about zoos, and about the ways people integrate defenseless beings into their projects and plots. But it is …
Becoming A Good Creature (2020) By Sy Montgomery, Samantha Piede
Becoming A Good Creature (2020) By Sy Montgomery, Samantha Piede
Picture Books
Becoming a Good Creature outlines moral lessons Sy Montgomery has learned from interactions with animals, both domestic and wild, such as “Love Little Lives,” “Don’t Be Afraid,” and “Make Your Own Family.” Our willingness to be attentive to other creatures – not just the ones like us with “two legs,” but also “four or even eight” – opens up the possibility of finding something ethically significant in these encounters. She tells us that “all have taught me something important about how to be a good creature in the world.”
Greta Thunberg (2021) By Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Greta Thunberg (2021) By Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
Greta Thunberg learned about climate change in school at the age of eight, when she persuaded her parents to make lifestyle changes to reduce their carbon footprint. At fifteen, after winning a writing competition about the environment, she came up with the idea of a school strike, inspired by student walkouts in the United States to protest legislative inaction on gun control. Though she couldn’t interest anyone else in the idea, her one-child strikes soon gained international attention. Greta’s story demonstrates some of the challenges and gifts that neurodiverse children bring to activism. This book also prods adults to think …
Feathers Together (2022) By Caron Levis, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Feathers Together (2022) By Caron Levis, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
Feathers Together tells the story of a mated couple of white storks who live and migrate together between Croatia and South Africa, until the female is wounded and can no longer fly. An elderly man builds a rooftop nest for them with a walkway for the injured female and cares for her when the male migrates. On one level, this story is standard animal fable that conveys truths and moral values about the human condition. But the book’s afterword, explaining that this is a true story, raises philosophical questions about the emotional lives of wild animals, the ethics of hunting …
Ugly Place (2022) By Laura Deal, Samantha Piede
Ugly Place (2022) By Laura Deal, Samantha Piede
Picture Books
Many of us can recall moments when we were stopped dead in our tracks and experienced selfless awe – sometimes in nature, sometimes in art, sometimes in the beauty of another person. The inarticulacy of these moments may present an interesting philosophical struggle for both children and adults trying to capture these phenomena. Still, the recognition that these moments are possible – and ethically significant – presents opportunities for rich discussion. The Ugly Place highlights the importance of moments in which we are reminded that we are not, in fact, the center of the universe – for it is more …
Southwest Sunrise (2020) By Nikki Grimes, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Southwest Sunrise (2020) By Nikki Grimes, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
A genuine philosophical inquiry into the natural world has to begin with a genuine encounter with that world. In this arresting picture book by Nikki Grimes, a young boy named Jayden from New York City is forced into such an encounter when his parents relocate to the desert of New Mexico. This review focuses on suggestions the book offers for experiencing a natural landscape deeply, like slowing down, using all the senses, trying ‘beginner’s mind,’ making art, and using a field guide.
Lorax (1971) By Dr. Seuss, Megan Jane Laverty
Lorax (1971) By Dr. Seuss, Megan Jane Laverty
Picture Books
Megan Jane Laverty interprets Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax (the 1971 book, the 1972 television cartoon, and the 2012 feature film) as a multi-layered philosophical fable. First, she examines how the story reveals the dangers of our enthusiastic but short-sighted pursuit of innovation, success, and wealth—ambitions that can lead to far-reaching and often tragic consequences. Secondly, she explores how the narrative vividly illustrates the environmental devastation that results when commercial enterprises treat nature as an inexhaustible resource for production and progress. Laverty proposes several ways for students to engage with the story’s philosophical themes, including the aesthetic exploration of their local …
Boy Named Isamu (2021) By James Yang, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Boy Named Isamu (2021) By James Yang, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
Author-illustrator James Yang imagines a day in the life of the artist Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) as a young child whose curiosity and sensitivity lead him to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of his surroundings.
Owl Moon (1987) By Jane Yolen, Peter Shea
Owl Moon (1987) By Jane Yolen, Peter Shea
Picture Books
A father and daughter go out together at night to visit an owl. This simple story opens discussions about what fathers owe their children, about what humans owe to wild creatures, and about going outside our comfort zones – what we owe ourselves, as multi-dimensional beings enclosed in just one small life. The pictures take the reader along on this simple and astonishing adventure, a model perhaps for how adults can sometimes be helpful to children.
Alexander Von Humboldt: Explorer, Naturalist, And Environmental Pioneer (2019) By Danica Novgorodoff, Peter Shea
Alexander Von Humboldt: Explorer, Naturalist, And Environmental Pioneer (2019) By Danica Novgorodoff, Peter Shea
Picture Books
As a young boy, Alexander Von Humboldt came up with divergent questions about the birds and mountains and animals he saw, and brought all those questions together under two big questions that stayed important for him over a long life: “How are these things different?” and “How are they nevertheless connected?” As the reader watches Humboldt looking at a hawk and a mouse, volcanoes and farmland, palm trees and pine trees, Europe and Ecuador, Europeans and Indigenous people, one comes to expect what he will say: “They are different, and yet they are connected.” This idea is much bigger than …
Snail With The Right Heart (2021) By Maria Popova, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Snail With The Right Heart (2021) By Maria Popova, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
When a London scientist found a garden snail whose shell that spiraled left to right—opposite from others of its species—he sent it to the University of Nottingham for study. The snail’s internal organs were also arranged on the opposite side from other snails, including a heart on the right side of its body—a one-in-a-million condition known as situs inversus, which also occurs in humans. In explaining the snail’s story in terms of genetic evolution and biological reproduction, The Snail with the Right Heart also raises philosophical questions about the role of genetics, education, and personal choice in determining who …
Dead Bird (1965/2016) By Margaret Wise Brown, Peter Shea
Dead Bird (1965/2016) By Margaret Wise Brown, Peter Shea
Picture Books
Children come upon a bird that has just died. It is still warm. They bury it, sing a song they have made up, and plant flowers. They visit the grave every day to put fresh flowers on it and to sing to the bird, until they forget. Margaret Wise Brown’s The Dead Bird is a story about how a new ritual happens, spontaneously, out of a shared experience of grief, expressing a shared reverence for one kind of life. The children are thinking, in a way: they are keeping something in mind for a long time, in a beautiful form. …
Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos / My Two Border Towns (2021) By David Bowles, Amy Reed-Sandoval
Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos / My Two Border Towns (2021) By David Bowles, Amy Reed-Sandoval
Picture Books
When children talk about migration and displacement, they generally speak and inquire about people. Why are some people forced to leave their homes—or why was I forced to leave my home? Why won’t other countries let them in—or why won’t other countries let my family and me in? What does it feel like to live in a shelter, or in a refugee camp, or on a bridge between two countries—or why must my family live this way, while others do not? This picture book shows how philosophical questions about migration can be inspired by, and embedded in, communities and characters …
You Are An Explorer (2020) By Shahrzad Shahrjerdi, Farzaneh Shahrtash
You Are An Explorer (2020) By Shahrzad Shahrjerdi, Farzaneh Shahrtash
Picture Books
This beautifully illustrated book, with exaggerated pictures of two unprotected children, deals with the issue of post-war displacement of children and their families. While the parents of these two explorers are absent for an unknown reason, the older brother is taking care of the younger sister by his creative thinking. He is trying to use the power of his imagination based on care, as a technique to face seemingly unendurable and oppressive situations. The children who discuss You Are an Explorer may not have experienced a real war, may not have been in any post-war situations, and may not have …
How War Changed Rondo (2021) By Romana Romanyshyn And Andriy Lesiv, Maughn Rollins Gregory
How War Changed Rondo (2021) By Romana Romanyshyn And Andriy Lesiv, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
In this evocative picture book, ‘War’ is a proper name, referring not to an event but to a malevolent being, depicted as a gigantic, shape-shifting amalgamation of buildings, war machines, and a mechanical human arm from which emerge tanks with eyes and jagged mouths, mosquito-like helicopters, and other “terrible clinking and hissing machines.” Nor does War seem to have any goal or intention other than indiscriminate destruction. These images raise a number of important questions about the nature of large- and small-scale violence. Who-all is responsible? If war requires the participation of many people, how does that happen? Have you …
Bear Outside (2021) By Jane Yolen, Maughn Gregory
Bear Outside (2021) By Jane Yolen, Maughn Gregory
Picture Books
“Some folks have a lion inside, or a tiger. Not me. I wear my bear on the outside.” The young protagonist of Jane Yolen’s 400th book for children is able to take risks and ignore bullies, not by putting on a ferocious countenance, but by summoning the persona of a giant, friendly bear, that might be an imaginary playmate or a representation of her inner courage. If I wore a bear outside today, what would I do differently? But this story also shows that even young children experience disagreement among their inner selves with different, sometimes conflicting tendencies, needs, …
Enemy: A Book About Peace (2007) By Davide Cali;, Maria Zbroy
Enemy: A Book About Peace (2007) By Davide Cali;, Maria Zbroy
Picture Books
Every person, society, and ethnic community builds its worldview on the basis of comparing in-group and out-group, the boundaries of which are variable. The one who seems closest to us may be a complete stranger. And someone who comes from afar, who belongs to a completely different community or nation, can become the closest person. Only we determine who is our friend and who is our enemy. In Davide Cali’s allegory about modern warfare and other kinds of conflict, two soldiers who have never seen each other shoot at each other from inside their trenches until one decides to take …
Story Boat (2020) By Kyo Maclear, Samantha Piede
Story Boat (2020) By Kyo Maclear, Samantha Piede
Picture Books
When the protagonist in Kyo Maclear’s Story Boat (2020) opens the book with “Here we are,” it is unclear to readers where exactly “here” might be. When safety must take precedence over familiarity, one develops a fleeting relationship with place. It is tempting, in stories like these, to emphasize the pain of the refugee experience: the uncertainty, the loss of one’s ‘heres’. But Maclear takes a different tack, giving readers the tools to focus on hope and wonder. Teachers may prompt students, in light of the book, to reflect on what they think a ‘home’ or a ‘here’ feels like …
Silan’S Box [Το Κουτί Του Σιλάν] (2017) By Άλκηστη Χαλικιά [Alkistis Chalikia], Maria Papathanasiou
Silan’S Box [Το Κουτί Του Σιλάν] (2017) By Άλκηστη Χαλικιά [Alkistis Chalikia], Maria Papathanasiou
Picture Books
Silan is an eight-year-old boy who was forced to leave his country and live in a new homeland, in Greece. He lives in a refugee center where he goes to a new school but does not speak the same language as the other children. He carries a little box with him—so precious that he keeps it with him constantly and does not share its contents with anyone. The children ask him every day about the contents of the box and try to guess what his hidden treasure might be. They think of what they would shield in their own box …
Thunder Boy Jr. (2016) By Sherman Alexie, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Thunder Boy Jr. (2016) By Sherman Alexie, Maughn Rollins Gregory
Picture Books
The uplift and the burden of a name given but not chosen are keenly felt by Thunder Boy Smith Jr., the young protagonist of this thought- and emotion-provoking picture book. Like most children at one time or another, Thunder Boy welcomes some aspects of the identity his name imposes on him and chafes against others. But unlike many of us, at any age, Thunder Boy reflects on his problem with a remarkable degree of self-knowledge and self-possession. And each of the reasons he gives for wanting a different name offers a moment for philosophical reflection.
Three Stories You Can Read To Your Cat (1997) By Sara Swan Miller, Gareth B. Matthews
Three Stories You Can Read To Your Cat (1997) By Sara Swan Miller, Gareth B. Matthews
Picture Books
When a cat's human friend leaves the house and tells it to be good, the cat does many things it considers good, like shredding the curtains, eating a house plant, and digging into the garbage. In this review, originally published in Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 16(4), 2003, Gareth B. Matthews demonstrates that young children can understand and enjoy the irony of sarcasm. They also enjoy grappling with the story's philosophical irony: the problem of clarifying the difficult question of what makes an action good or bad.