An ABC of Equality by Chana Ewing

 

An ABC of Equality by Chana Ginelle Ewing
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love that Ewing wrote this to be applicable to kids of many ages. I read it to my two year old daughter, and though she really didn't understand what anything meant, I still think it was a good way for her to become more familiar with these words, what it means to be a good, kind, welcoming person, and most importantly, a reminder for parents and caregivers to teach our children equality and embracement of diversity. So, maybe not as understandable for a two year old, but still really neat. My daughter was pretty engaged with the pictures and I appreciated the diversity in them.

Older children, maybe even up to third grade, would benefit from this book. There's an explanation for each word of the "alphabet" and how it applies in our society. 

Every letter has a word: border, xenophobia, ze. The opposite page explains what it means. A lot of the illustrations are wonderfully inclusive- people of every skin color, dressed in all different ways. 

Teachers:

This most likely *wouldn't* be appropriate for the classroom, because "B" stands for "Border" and that might enrage certain parents and likely comments too much on politics. Some others may be concerned about the definitions of sexuality, gender, and transgender- ≈I know some parents and even administration in certain place would be quite upset over a discussion in the classroom. :( So unfortunately I would stay away from it as a teacher, unless you're in a pretty liberal school district that will back you up on this. :( Which is unfortunate, because it's a really great book!

Excerpt:

  I learned something from this book too. I'd never heard "ze" or "zir" before. As much as I try, there's always new things to learn- we are never done learning how to include others. 

"Ze is a way to refer to someone instead of using "he" or "she." Because there're lots of different genders, there are lots of ways of describing someone including he/she/they/ze and more."

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