Chapter Books: Black Girls Just Being Kids

Chapter Books: Black Girls Just Being Kids | Heritage Mom

source: https://heritagemom.com/index.php/2020/05/31/chapter-books-black-girls-just-being-kids/

I recently received a comment asking for chapter book recommendations for a book club of girls in 2nd-5th grade. The mom said that what she wants most is a book "that has black children in a fun situation, just living life." I responded to her comment but decided to turn it into a post because I'm betting that a lot of parents are looking for the same thing.

If you've been following me for a while you know that this has been a real struggle of mine - finding books with Black children and families who are just doing their thing. So many well-written, wonderful books featuring Black people focus on "the struggle." I appreciate and use those books in my homeschool because they're important and necessary, so please don't misinterpret my issue. It's not that I don't want those books; it's that I don't want ONLY those books.

Sometimes we just want to read about Black kids doing the things that all kids do - like hanging out with siblings, navigating friendships, playing outside, going to ballet class, baking cakes, solving mysteries, coding, going on field trips, exploring the garden, competing in contests, doing science experiments, and even living in the White House. You know...having FUN!

Thankfully, over time, I've collected a good stash of these books, and they have been well-loved by my family. In fact, I had to travel around to every corner of our home to gather all of these for the photo, and many are missing - lost to outdoor spaces and hidden places, I'm sure.

I'm so thankful for the authors who take the time to write these stories and the illustrators who draw people that look like us (my family). They may not know it, but they've played an integral role in helping me raise my children. I'll continue to support them with book purchases and shoutouts forever. If they keep writing, we'll keep buying.

But...Yes, there's a but...before you Charlotte Mason mamas start adding everything to your cart, I want to make a confession:

Most of these are not what we consider living books.

There is no magic list of awesome living chapter books featuring Black children frolicking about through life having fun or amazing adventures. So if you're looking for a bunch of books like Heidi, The Secret Garden, Pollyanna, The Railway Children, The Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie, and all of that but with Black characters...it ain't happening.

There are certainly some living chapter books with Black characters, but they usually aren't just about the ups and downs of childhood; they very much feature the realities of historical and current issues of enslavement, Jim Crow, racism, severe poverty, broken families, colorism, and more. And then there are fun light-hearted books that are often not living books. And there are a few that meet the standards of both, in my opinion.

So where does that leave us?

Well, if ensuring that your fiction book list features 100% living books is a requirement, then it leaves you with a lot of very white books. If you're open to expanding your parameters to include Life-Giving Books, as necessary, in order to round out your child's literary experience then I'd say it leaves you standing next to me, with a chai tea latte in hand, watching our kids' healthy imaginations soar.

Ultimately, the book club mom who asked the original question will have to consider whether she's willing to step away from the classic literature model. Many of the chapter books featuring Black children just being children aren't written the same way as the titles that are on typical lists of living books. There is a difference, and it can be a hard pill for some to swallow, but there is also a pay-off.

Several years ago, I started a book club for homeschooled girls 7-10 years old, and we're still going strong. We meet monthly and choose Life-Giving titles that will excite our girls and provide plenty of topics for discussion. We often choose series books so the girls can "get hooked" and continue reading the rest of the books on their own. These are not school books. They're just FUN books for the girls to dig into in their leisure time or at night in bed.

Disclosure:

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Please note: We have nearly every book for each series, and I just grabbed the ones I saw first, so some of the ones in the pic aren't the first books. It's easy to find the series order on Amazon though.

Where should you start? I'm recommending all of these books, to be sure. But if you're just starting on the path to include more diverse options, here are my quick start choices:

For young readers or as a read-aloud: Anna Hibiscus For older readers or fans of the Christian movie War Room (the author played the daughter in that movie): Hello Stars For living book enthusiasts: The Great Cake Mystery For everyday general interest: Starring Grace (the sequel to picture book Amazing Grace)

Additional Notes:

All of these books feature girls. If you have sons, I'm so sorry about that! I'm not a professional book reviewer. I just share what we use in our home (school), and my chapter book readers are 3rd & 4th grade girls. But guess what? My next 2 kids are boys, and I'm slowly in the process of updating our home library to reflect their needs and interests. I promise that a post like this for boys will come, but my boys will read some of these books too! I definitely don't feel that a boy has to be the star of every book my boys read. [Update: HERE IS THE LIST! Chapter Books: Black Boys Having Fun] These are ideal for 2nd-4th grade. My rising 5th grader has moved on to middle grade fiction, for the most part, but these were some of her favorites. Maybe she'd still be reading some of them if she hadn't already read them so many times. I asked her which ones she recommends for 10 year old girls, and she said, "Liberty Porter, First Daughter is my very favorite!" So, there you go. Hello Stars has the most text density on this list, and the main character is 12 years old, so that's another one that could work for older girls. Every scene of every book is not filled with literary genius. When I started introducing these books to my kids, I occasionally stumbled across things that weren't necessarily bad, but they were...different. It felt like there was quite a jump from the sweet picture books we'd been reading to some of these books that had things we hadn't really encountered in our typical literature at that time. No curse words or inappropriate relationships - nothing like that AT ALL. Perhaps some of the scenes just have common school yard "nothingness." That's the only word I can come up with. Some scenes of nothingness. My girls are a little older now, and frankly, the stuff doesn't bother me anymore, but I remember feeling slightly annoyed at times with just a few of these books - not most of them, by any means.

Exposing children to the finest literature available while leaving them with an impression that "white is fun and black is not" doesn't feel like a win to me. And the fact that you've made it this far in my post without clicking away tells me that it doesn't feel like a win to you either. I hope you'll give yourself permission to expand the pool of possibilities in order to expose your kiddos to the sweet girls in these books. Happy reading!

You can find me on Instgram at @HeritageMomBlog.

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