Multicultural Text Set

Multicultural Text Set
Diversity and Home Structures
By: Anna Holcomb
Book 1: Honeysmoke
By: Monique Fields, Illustrated by Yesenia Moises
Description of Book
Honeysmoke is a story about a biracial girl named Simone. Simone struggles because she
thinks that everyone has a color, black or white, and she doesn’t fit in with either of those colors.
Throughout the story, Simone asks questions and explores to find out what her color is.
This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to First.
Three key words that represent unique characteristics or themes of this book are
biracialism, self-discovery, and uniqueness.
Evaluation of the book
Overall, this book is really high quality. The story is really interesting as it addresses a
problem that students may have considered before, as to their identity. The story is age-
appropriate in topic as well as language and includes a well-developed plot with a problem and
resolution. The problem being that Simone wanted a color like everyone else but couldn’t find
hers. The story includes characters like Simone, her family, and her friends which all seem very
realistic. The illustrations are beautiful and add to the setting, plot, and characters. The book is
very focused on colors, and they are clearly shown in the illustrations such as the honey that
mom looks like, and the smoke that dad looks like. The illustrations correspond to the written
text and help to enhance the story by representing the colors written in text, which help to hold
children’s interests. Culturally, the book is very considerate and represents many “good”
characters in various cultural groups, as well as diversity within these cultural groups, as Simone
has many friends with similar and different cultural backgrounds. Additionally, Simone’s parents
represent multiple perspectives on what color means, without giving any negative stereotypes.
Lastly, both the author is the mother to biracial children, and the illustrator is biracial herself.
The book interrupts racism as it addresses the idea that colors are just words, they aren’t
people. The book encourages empowerment by exploring your identity and the identity of those
around you.
Recommended use
An activity that students in a classroom could do would be to discover their color word,
just like Simone did. Since some students may have one parent, the teacher could encourage
students to choose family members they love and find traits that they love in their family
members, and also love in themselves, just as Simone’s mom was sweet like Honey and her dad
is strong like train smoke. Since students will be encouraged to point out nouns as opposed to
colors, the overarching lesson that could summarize this activity, is that people shouldn’t be
generalized by colors, as everyone is unique.
List of SOLs each book and the recommended use may support
1. Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 1. Oral Language. The child will develop
listening and speaking skills by communicating experiences and ideas orally.
2. Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 5. Print and Book Awareness. The child will
demonstrate knowledge of print concepts and understand the connection between
the spoken and written word.
3. Virginia Personal and Social Development Foundation Block 1. Self-Concept.
The child will demonstrate self-confidence and self-reflection.
4. Virginia Visual Arts Foundation Block 4. Aesthetics. The child will examine and
express different views and experiences through the visual arts.
Book 2: Have I ever told you?

By: Shani King, Illustrated by Anna Horváth
Description of Book
Have I ever told you? is a book written for a parent to their children. The book sends an
empowering message that the child being read the book can be whoever they want to be, no
matter who they are, or what the look like. The book encourages the child to show respect as
well as stand up for others, while reassuring the child of the parents love.
This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Fifth.
inclusion, acceptance, and support.
The story in this text is age-appropriate and children can understand what is being
represented. This is clear as the author uses ideas that are relevant to the students’ lives. The
story also utilizes style and language which is appropriate for the children’s ages and interests.
The book mentions how children can become anything they want to, no matter who they are,
giving examples of things they might want to peruse. The illustrations correspond to the text.
Each page has a unique message, and a corresponding image to represent the message. These
images help to hold the interest of children while the text is being read and add to the overall
story by adding visuals to the text. The text encourages the inclusion of a variety of people of
different cultural groups, and there are no negative stereotypes of groups represented in this text.
The author is an African American man and is a member of the minorities he describes in the
text.
This book promotes inclusiveness, stating things such as “Have I told you that you should
stand up for people who need help or are being picked on? People of any color, people of any
faith, people of any size or shape or ability?” This promotes including and standing up for people
of different cultures.
Recommended use
This book encourages students to reach out to others who need help and stick up for
people being picked on. An activity that could be completed would be for students to making
drawing for people in nearby hospitals, to show their support for their surrounding community
and encouraging the support of others.
3. Virginia History and Social Science Foundation Block 5 Economics/World of
Work The child will develop an increased awareness of the types of work people
do and the variety of tools people use in their jobs.
Book 3: Dreamers
By: Yuyi Morales
Description of Book
Dreamers is a story about a woman and her child who immigrate to another country. The
story is based off the true experiences of the author who traveled from Mexico to America. The
mother struggles as she doesn’t understand the language or culture, but finds an amazing place,
the library. The mother and son were able to learn how to read, make their voices heard, and
dream of the world.
This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Third.
immigration, language, and imagination.

This book is also a really high-quality children’s book! The story is interesting and offers
a variety of things to think about. Children may think about their experiences having to learn
English or learning how to read. This text is age appropriate in both story as well as language,
using some tier two words, that the teacher could explain to their student. The story is excellent
in that it carries a good plot and introduces a problem and resolution. The problem in this story is
that the mother and child couldn’t make their voices heard in this new space, and through book
they were able to resolve this issue. The text describes realistic, convincing characters which are
accurately depicted in the illustrations in correspondence to the text. Each page is full of rich
photos depicting the story and holding the children’s interest. The photos help to enhance the
magic of the books the mother was reading. The stories that she was reading were depicted
around her, as she used her imagination. The characters in the story represent a cultural minority
in America, exposing children to multiple perspectives and values of people that might be
culturally different from themselves. The lifestyles of the mother and child are genuine and
complex, showing their struggle in detail. The characters use speech that represents their culture,
flowing from Spanish to English sometimes. The author not only is a part of the represented
group, the story is based off her real experience of this happening to her.
The book promotes social and political consciousness as it explores the idea of
immigration and English language learners. Recently, immigration has been a hot topic, and this
story helps to bring a personal story into the debate.
Recommended use
This book could be a really good transition into a lesson on the importance of literature
and books. This book talks about the importance of libraries, so it would be an excellent
opportunity to introduce students to a library as well. The distinction of photos from text could
be introduced here as well. Since the woman in the story didn’t understand the words at first as
well, she used picture books to begin reading. By reassuring students, they can explore reading
by looking at pictures first.
Book 4: Two Homes

By: Claire Masurel, Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton
Description of Book
Honeysmoke is a story about a biracial girl named Simone. Simone struggles because she
thinks that everyone has a color, black or white, and she doesn’t fit in with either of those colors.
Throughout the story, Simone asks questions and explores to find out what her color is.
This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Second.
Three key words that represent unique characteristics or themes of this book are divorce,
acceptance, and support.
The story that the book tells offers children the opportunity to think about family
structures which are different from their own. The story is age-appropriate as it addresses a
sometimes very painful topic in a positive and empowering way showing the positives of having
parents that are separated. The story uses language which is appropriate for the children’s ages,
using few tier two words. The story also includes realistic, convincing characters such as Alex,
the main character who is a fairly normal child. The illustrations are accurate in terms of setting,
plot, and characters, and help to enhance the story by showing the differences between Alex’s
two homes but reinforcing the idea that both are good. The illustrations correspond to the text
and help to hold the children’s interest. Although the story doesn’t address a variety of cultural
groups, it addresses the multiple values and perspectives of children who have separated parents.
The story also does a nice job of eliminating stereotypes about divorced homes, such as “they are
painful for the children” by showing the positives of having multiple homes.
The book promotes social consciousness through the identification of non-traditional
families. This book makes students aware of family situations they may have been unaware of
before reading the text.
Recommended use
One thing that Alex, the main character does is draw his mother and father on different
sheets of paper, to show that they each are in a different home. To encourage students to
represent self-concept ideas, an activity could be to encourage students to do the same. Students
would be encouraged to use as many sheets of paper as they need to represent their families and
homes. This could be something they could choose to share to the class as an activity to build
classroom community.
3. Virginia History and Social Science Foundation Block 7. Civics/Citizenship. The
child will participate as a member/citizen of a classroom community
5. Virginia Personal and Social Development Foundation Block 4. Interaction with
Others. The child will interact easily with one or more children and with familiar
adults.
6. Virginia Visual Arts Foundation Block 4. Aesthetics. The child will examine and
express different views and experiences through the visual arts.
Book 5: Last Stop on Market Street

By: Matt De La Peña, Illustrated by Christian Robinson
Description of Book
Last Stop on Market Street is about a boy, CJ, and his grandma who ride a bus across
town after church to a soup kitchen. At the beginning of the story, CJ is upset about having to
take the bus, but his grandma shows him all of the interesting things about the city, and the
people in the city. During his trip on the bus, CJ decides that he is happy he went with his
grandma to the soup kitchen.
This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Kindergarten.
homelessness, city-life, and poverty.
The story is interesting to children as they may also go through similar situations,
especially in Harrisonburg where there is a lot of public transportation as well as poverty. The
book offers children a variety of things to think about such as transportation, families, poverty, as
well as city living. The story and language used are age-appropriate, conveying realistic
convincing characters in a rich, thick plot. The problem of the story addresses CJ’s resistance to
traveling to the soup kitchen, and it is resolved through his interest in the beautiful things the city
has to offer, like the people there. The illustrations are accurate in terms of the setting, plot, and
characters, detailing the things CJ describes, such as the dirty city and the rainbow that his
grandmother spots. All of the illustrations correspond to the text and enhance the story through
their detailing of the text. This helps to hold the children’s interest, as they can see the story
which is being read to them. The characters represent a variety of cultural groups through the
people that sat on the bus, as well as attended the soup kitchen. There was diversity among these
people as well with one man being blind, and another being covered in tattoos, but the story also
shows no negative stereotypes of these diverse set of people. Children are exposed to multiple
perspectives and values of city living, as CJ sees it as an inconvenience, and his grandmother
sees the beauty in it. The lifestyles of CJ and his grandmother are genuine and complex. “Good”
characters such as those who volunteer at the soup kitchen with CJ and his grandmother
represent a variety of backgrounds. The author is Latino, and the illustrator is African American,
both members of minorities and different cultural groups as well.
The story interrupts many isms, one being ableism. One man on the bus is shown to be
blind, but he is still able to enjoy the bus ride like everyone else. The story primarily focuses on
classism however. Although CJ cannot ride in a car, he doesn’t have an iPod, and he has to get
off the bus in a “dirty” part of town, the world around him is still beautiful.
Recommended use
Travel and Transportation are topics present in the Harrisonburg City Preschool
Pacing Guide. This book could transition into an activity about transportation, where students
explore different ways for people to transport from one location to another. Many classrooms
have supplies to build cars or other automobiles. A teacher could encourage her students to
explore different automobiles they can make, using this as a station during centers.
5. Virginia Personal and Social Development Foundation Block 4. Interaction with
Others. The child will interact easily with one or more children and with familiar
adults.

Multicultural Text Set

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Multicultural Text Set

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Multicultural Text Set

Diversity and Home Structures

By: Anna Holcomb

This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to First.

biracialism, self-discovery, and uniqueness.

Evaluation of the book

generalized by colors, as everyone is unique.

Book 2: Have I ever told you?

This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Fifth.

inclusion, acceptance, and support.

Evaluation of the book

and encouraging the support of others.

dream of the world.

This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Third.

immigration, language, and imagination.

Evaluation of the book

story helps to bring a personal story into the debate.

by looking at pictures first.

Book 4: Two Homes

This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Second.

acceptance, and support.

Evaluation of the book

The book promotes social consciousness through the identification of non-traditional

before reading the text.

Book 5: Last Stop on Market Street

grandma to the soup kitchen.

This book would be appropriate for grades around Pre-K to Kindergarten.

homelessness, city-life, and poverty.

Evaluation of the book

both members of minorities and different cultural groups as well.

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