You have spoken, and we have our Fall Family Read! Librarians and voters who completed our survey chose Look Both Ways: A tale told in ten blocks by Jason Reynolds, the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, as this season’s title.
It’s an award-winning collection of 10 short stories about kids on their way home from school. Chapters can be read separately, but they occasionally interconnect in unique ways. We bet you can’t read just one! If you’ve read other books by Jason Reynolds, you know he has a sense of humor. His writing feels like it’s coming from real kids, but beneath the surface you’ll find many themes to generate conversations at home—bullying, friendship, grief, poverty, anxiety, empathy, tolerance, hope, and more.
Copies of the book will be available starting October 1, and guest readers from the local alumni associations of Alpha Phi Alpha and Alpha Kappa Alpha, an African American fraternity and sorority, will create video read alouds of each chapter for teachers to use in their Google Classrooms. YDL staff are developing detailed lesson plans to go with the read alouds that include links to Jason Reynolds’ Write. Right. Rite. video series and more.
Some themes lend themselves to our ongoing series on building tolerance and empathy, so check out our antiracism web pages for extension activities and conversation starters.
Reserve an activity pack to use at home, available for pick up in mid-October.
