Book Review: "The Keeping Quilt" by Patricia Polacco

Polacco, Patricia. The Keeping Quilt. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

"The Keeping Quilt" is a touching story about the author's, Patricia Polacco, family history and the quilt that has been there through out their lives in America. This keeping quilt is made out of Patricia's Great-Gramma's dress and babushka and other clothing from family and friends. The quilt was used for many religious holidays, different events and was the wedding huppa for each generation of daughters. Through out the story readers notice how the times are changing between each generation, for example how the guests at the weddings behave and even the minor changes in the contents of the handkerchief that is present at each wedding and at the birth of a child, but the quilt always is there exactly how it was many many years ago. This aspect is shown beautifully through the illustrations by they only thing colored on the pages is the quilt representing the staying power of not only the quilt, but the family and its traditions.

After reading this story it brought a tear to my eye. I thought it was very sentimental and not only told the story of Patricia Polacco's family, but also the strong Jewish traditions that even after going through some alterations still hold the same values they did long ago. Patricia Polacco is an insider author of Jewish literature and with this book won the Sydney Taylor award from the Association of Jewish Libraries. Making this book feel even more authentic was the mention of different religious terms, such as wedding huppa, and describing the way things were and how they are today in Jewish tradition. I think that this book is a great edition to any classroom library, about K-3 or 4th grade, because it shows an accurate and positive view on Jewish culture and tradition that only an insider can bring to the pages.

GLBTQ

Last week was one of the most interesting weeks because this type of literature I know very little about. Before this class I have never, to my knowledge, any other GLBTQ piece of literature. I learned a lot from class last week especially some terms and what words are considered offensive to some people. One word that I was really surprised to be part of GLBTQ lingo was "down low" I never knew that that's where its meaning came from. I have heard tons of people say it, but I don't think they know its original meaning either!
While reading "Boy Meets Boy" I focused more on the romance between Paul and Noah and sometimes Kyle more than the fact that it was a piece of GLBTQ literature. I loved the book and there was a character for everyone, no matter what sexual orientation you identify yourself as. Even though the book was a little out there with some of its events, like the cheerleaders coming in on Harleys and the quarterback of the football team being a cross-dresser, I thought it was very creative and created an ideal world where everyone gets along and things aren't always so cut and dry! This week made me want to go out and seek more books featuring GLBTQ characters as the leads!

Interpretations

Taking this class and looking back on other classes I have taken I have really started to notice how many opinions there can actually be about a book and or author. While being in class I get to share my own points of view and opinions on certain books and I also get to hear what others have to say. With all these thoughts swirling around about a book it has opened my eyes to how much scrutiny a book is up to when it is published to the public. I think I would be very frustrated if I was an author because there is a great chance for the book that you have written is going to be interpreted wrong or looked into to deep. When we are sharing opinions in class about books there are things that stuck out to some people that really bothered them that I didn't even notice and I am sure there are things that I have found that might not have even crossed the mind of anyone else. I was just going over things I had to do for this class and I started to reflect on the course and this idea just popped in and it made me think for a second and I thought I would get my thoughts on this blog. It just shows how carefully an author has to put a book together to make sure their ideas get across in the text.

Asian-Pacific American Literature

This week in our semester long discussion on multicultural literature we focused on Asian-Pacific American literature. I have really enjoyed learning about all the different classifications of multicultural literature. This specific genre of literature I have the least amount of knowledge on so I was eager to learn more about it. I thought that it was really cool the way that we started off class this week. We started off by viewing some stand up comedy by Margaret Cho. It was very entertaining and funny. During her standup she was poking fun at herself and also her mother. I thought it was good introduction to what we were focusing on this week. One big thing that I learned is actually how many countries are included, that I would have never thought, in the title of Asian-Pacific. Obviously Hawaii is included in this grouping, which I already knew, but because it is one of the 50 states it didn't come to my mind right away but I was reminded when I did the readings for the week.
I believe that this is one genre of literature that is the most under represented. When I look back on my educational careeer I can't really remember reading a lot of books by or about Asian-Pacific Americans. The only books I sort of remember had to do with WWII and I don't really know if they were good representations. By watching Margaret Cho it put it out there that there also isn't a big representation in the media. Yeah there are famous actors and actresses who are Asian-Pacific, but I can't think of one prime-time show that the main family unit or group of friends are Asian-Pacific. And then Margaret Cho mentioned in her comic performance that the producers of the show didn't think she was being "Asian" enough on her series, but then pulled her the opposite way by saying her face was too round. I thought that was ridiculous. I don't like how a lot of things are going on in Hollywood. Nobody is ever perfect as themselves there is always something to change about yourself and it really effects young children. I know I have been pulled into the nonsense of what Hollywood thinks the perfect body is.
This week opened my eyes to some new ideas to think about when it comes to multicultural literature especially when picking out my classroom library. I want to make sure to represent ALL cultures and do it successfully with credited authors.

Personal Philosophy

Today in class we discussed a lot about critical pedagogy and critical literature, which are big components in our own personal philosophies on teaching literature to our own students. The main reason on why I am here in this specific class is so that I can have a more elaborate philosophy and actually be able to reach my own goals about multicultural education when I have my own classroom. This class will and is giving me the tools to go about multicultural education especially when it comes to literature. So in fact this class connects a lot to my professional goals. I want to create an environment no matter where it may be that is culturally aware of others and most importantly accepting. This is class is helping me reach this by starting with the library and literature I will share with my students.
Issues of diversity play a lot of roles in literacy teaching and learning. An indirect role it has is that no matter what piece of literature you read there is some type of culture or race represented in that text. However the way these different cultures may or may not be represent correctly or fairly. So this is when multicultural literacy teaching and learning comes into play. Teachers need to recognizes this and teach their students about the cultures or races they are reading about so that their students have accurate knowledge and accepting views of people who are different from them. These are important things to do in school because that is where students become culturalized a lot of the times because they meet and interact with a diverse group of students and outside of their home life. My personal views on multicultural education definitely are going to be included in my classroom. I think it is very important to be a teacher and have a diverse view on education because you aren't going to get students who are clones of eachother. There are going to be diverse back rounds. I don't think that it is appropriate to ignore that fact and should embrace it so your students will as well. This will make, I think, a more comfortable and inviting learning environment. Literacy is a great way to introduce new cultures and races and good representations of multicultural literature should be included in all classrooms. There are many ways to include different multicultural literature in all subjects.
When I think about multicultual education and my own classroom of course there are concerns I have in insuring that I do it correctly and well. I am very nervous being a white female I will have a difficult time relating to some of my students, but I will try my hardest and try to bring in as many resources I can so that everyone feels that they have good role models. I also am concerned about choosing the right literature. I am excited to see what I can do and what resources will be available to me. For starters I think this class is giving me some great ideas and representations of multicultural literature to use on my own.

Awards

Last week in class we got to quickly overview all the different types of literature awards. I had no idea there were so many awards for all the different types of literature. I knew that there were book awards for African American literature, but I didn't even think about there being awards for Middle East literature, Asian-Pacific American literature to just name a few. After learning about all these different awards I understand why I had never heard of them before. There isn't a lot of information or publicity for these awards. My group was assigned the Middle East award and when we researched we could hardly find any information about the award except for a small paragraph rattling off general information. The website that we did find had all the books that had won the award from the past and when one of our group members went to the library none of the books she found had a seal or any recognition that it had won the award. Our assigned award wasn't the only award that was like this. I was surprised that there weren't seals for these awards that were put on the book. I think that these awards are important because it points out exceptionally good work for these different groups of literature, but most of them end up being pointless if these awards aren't recognized on the book or in the inside covers of the book. No one will even know that these are good books to read or have in your classroom just by going to the library. Obviously teachers and readers should do research on the literature they are reading, but if you are just browsing the library you would be more likely to read a book if it had won an award. So I personally think that these awards should get more publicity and have recognition on there books. I learned a lot this week in just about an hour I had no idea there were so many awards and I am looking forward to reading books from each of the different categories.

Bronx Masquerade

This past week I got to the pleasure to read "Bronx Masquerade" by Nikki Grimes. It was a refreshing novel to read. The poems that followed each character's feelings really broke up the readings and made the book read much faster. I did however think that focusing on 18 different characters was too much for me to handle. I found myself forgetting who was who. Sometimes characters were mentioned and then not revisited to later on and I thought they were completely new characters. So I had to write down every new character with a little description so I could keep everyone straight. Also the amount of characters made me wonder why the author focused on some of the characters more than the others. She started to talk about one character, but then not really elaborate on them except for one poem by that certain character. Also I felt that some characters were developed more than others and I would like to know why she chose those certain characters to develop more instead of the others. I thought all the poems were very well written and it made me wish I could express my feelings and thoughts as eloquently as the students did. I felt all emotions and events that a teenager might experience in high school were touched on, which made the novel relatable to almost anyone. I found myself going back to my high school years and relating to a character or two. Some issues that the students were dealing with were very deep and sometimes taboo to talk about, such as losing a parent to an Overdose. Obviously these issues are out there and I think it is important to talk about them and to let the children who are experiencing these issues to know they aren't alone. Besides the confusing characters overall I really enjoyed this book and it definitely didn't feel like homework when I was reading this novel.