He Leadeth Me

Gibson Christmas Letter 2020 This post is a letter to all of our friends and family sharing with you  our year of 2020.   It is also a diary of sorts  to remind me in the future of this  crazy year of Pandemic.   Warning :  It is long and picture heavy.  My feelings won't be hurt if you stop right here. Please know that you are loved and missed. Our new year started out ordinarily enough.  We hosted a Nana Camp where  each child picked their own recipe, and we all cooked together.  We had great expectations for 2020.  After all, 2020 had a great sound to it in January.   2019 had been a year of a great deal of travel for David and me, and 2020 started out the same way.  In January, I visited Houston and enjoyed time with family and friends.   In February, our dear friend, Mike Kirksey passed away after he and his family battled valiently  against a horrible disease.  David and I again traveled to Houston and...

I have been thinking a lot about ways that I can play a part in racial reconciliation.  As a lover of Children’s Literature, I have long known the power of children of color seeing themselves on the pages of a well written picture book.  I have also seen white children better understand their black or brown classmates by reading books both written and illustrated by people of color and books where the characters are black or brown but who are “just like me”.   Sometimes these are biographies of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., but often they are books about ordinary people who just happen to be people of color.   Because of my desire to be an advocate for reconciliation, I am sharing some picture books with you that fit the descriptions I mentioned above.  Never forget that picture books are not just for very little children.  Some of the books featured in this post will be more appropriate for upper ele...