Today I’m gonna chat more about this book, The ABCs of Black History, written by Rio Cortez and illustrated by Lauren Semmer. This is a wonderfully made book inspired by the late great James Baldwin.
You can see. “History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.”- James Baldwin. I just love this. Whenever we talk about black history, it’s more than just the month.
Throughout the year, we must learn about all our country’s innovators, explorers, organizers, artists, engineers, scientists, and diplomatic people. I always did that in my classroom, and I know you can do it for educators. It starts with A is for Anthem, lifting our voice strong, and it does ring true to the black national anthem.
It continues and the illustrations that Lauren has created. It reminds me a lot of Faith Ringold. I loved her book Tar Beach and Dinner at Aunt Connie’s house, which I believe was the one. Also, another black history book, one of my favorites from back in the day. Rio also talks about the diaspora, what that means, um, and it continues through.
F is for folklore, and H is for Harlem. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. My husband and I went to Harlem on our honeymoon, eh, another H word. It’s a beautiful neighborhood. It even talks about J’ouvert and Juneteenth, how the people organized and marched and stood up for themselves, and the different queens throughout Africa and our American history.
Just wonderfully done. Ooh, this is such a well-done book. Talks about, like I said, our scientists, our astronomers, our writers. It’s a good launching pad. For your research studies, every year when I taught, we did African American biographies throughout the year with my students, and I would have a list of African American contributors from the past president in the future, and my students got to pick, and this is a great launching pad to start that project as.
And then it ends with Z for Zenith, the highest peak always reminded me of Dr. King’s speech. I’ve Been to the Mountaintop. Another beautiful one is that we’ve got much more to do, grow, and thrive. Love this. It even has a glossary people of the terms and the. And figures from this book. Very well done.
I am so proud of this book, and I recommend you get it as soon as possible to kick off your learning for Black History month and beyond.
