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Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship
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Item specifics
- Condition
- ISBN
- 9781512404425
- Book Title
- Can I Touch Your Hair? : Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship
- Publisher
- Lerner Publishing Group
- Item Length
- 10.2 in
- Publication Year
- 2018
- Format
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- Illustrator
- Alko, Selina, Qualls, Sean, Yes
- Item Height
- 0.4 in
- Genre
- Juvenile Nonfiction
- Topic
- Social Topics / Friendship, Poetry / General
- Item Weight
- 11.4 Oz
- Item Width
- 7.2 in
- Number of Pages
- 40 Pages
About this product
Product Information
Diverse Books: #OwnVoices Diverse Books: Race & Ethnicity Diverse Books: Social Justice SEL: A Self-Awareness SEL: C Social Awareness SEL: D Relationship Skills
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Lerner Publishing Group
ISBN-10
151240442x
ISBN-13
9781512404425
eBay Product ID (ePID)
3038742484
Product Key Features
Book Title
Can I Touch Your Hair? : Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship
Number of Pages
40 Pages
Language
English
Publication Year
2018
Topic
Social Topics / Friendship, Poetry / General
Illustrator
Alko, Selina, Qualls, Sean, Yes
Genre
Juvenile Nonfiction
Format
Hardcover
Dimensions
Item Height
0.4 in
Item Weight
11.4 Oz
Item Length
10.2 in
Item Width
7.2 in
Additional Product Features
Intended Audience
Juvenile Audience
Dewey Edition
23
Reviews
"In tantalizing free verse poems, Irene Latham and Charles Waters reimagine themselves as fifth-grade strangers, then classmates, and finally friends. Can I Touch Your Hair? is a compelling portrait of two youngsters dancing delicately through a racial minefield."J. Patrick Lewis, former US Children's Poet Laureate, "Qualls and Alko's layering of print newspaper clippings over paint begs readers to take a closer look. . . . [A]n excellent read-aloud or a launch pad for collaborative classroom writing."--The Horn Book Magazine, "In tantalizing free verse poems, Irene Latham and Charles Waters reimagine themselves as fifth-grade strangers, then classmates, and finally friends. Can I Touch Your Hair? is a compelling portrait of two youngsters dancing delicately through a racial minefield."--J. Patrick Lewis, former US Children's Poet Laureate, "When they can't find partners quick enough, Charles and Irene get stuck working together on their poetry project. To Irene, Charles is too opinionated. To Charles, Irene is mousy and dull. They are too different, especially since Irene is white and Charles is black. In mirrored verses, the pair discover their similarities and respectfully examine their differences--covering topics as mundane as buying shoes, and as topical as police brutality, corporal punishment, and white guilt. Latham and Waters see this work as a conversation between their fictional, young poet doppelgängers, meant to heal divides and start conversations. Similarly, the art is a collaboration between a husband-and-wife team, that blends collage, colored pencils, and acrylic paint into dreamy abstractions that feature a motif of word flowers blooming across pages where Irene and Charles finally seem to connect. Young readers searching for means to have difficult, emotional, and engaged discussions about race will find an enlightening resource in Irene and Charles' explorations."--Booklist, Synopsis: ''How can Irene and Charles work together on their fifth grade poetry project? They don't know each other . . . and they're not sure they want to. Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is black, use this fictional setup to delve into different experiences of race in a relatable way, exploring such topics as hair, hobbies, and family dinners. Accompanied by artwork from acclaimed illustrators Sean Qualls and Selina Alko (of The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage), this remarkable collaboration invites readers of all ages to join the dialogue by putting their own words to their experiences.'' (Taken from Goodreads) Review: I was really excited to read this book after I heard how the authors wrote this book - by sending poetry back and forth over email. And what I really found interesting was that this book not only has two authors, but also has two illustrators, both who I admire for their mixed media and collage style. But, I'll admit what really drew me to this book was the title. My partner has locs that reach all the way down his back to his waist and on more than one occasion he's dealt with people walking up to him and touching his hair (very similarly to when people touch a pregnant woman's belly) without asking. He's an extrovert and journalist, so he's able to take control of the situation pretty quickly, but I find it remarkable how invasive people feel they can be (especially complete strangers). Another example, my aunt has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair and is also nonverbal and even as young kid, I'd recognize the pointed stares of others kids while on vacation or just walking around the mall. I can remember once instance while on the metro in DC and my mom telling a child (who was staring) ''She has a disability which is why she can't walk and uses a wheelchair to get around.'' I honestly don't remember the child's reaction, but in my head that was the best way to handle the situation - acknowledge the difference, explain the accommodation and move on. Granted, this acknowledgement can get old if it's done over and over again during a person's life, but that brings up the point of how else will a child learn? Parents and other adults in a child's life can provide context for teaching kids about similarities and differences in the world and books are a great way to start a conversation. I think this is an amazing title to share with kids who want to learn more about people who are different from themselves. For a long time, parents have tried the approach , ''We don't see color.'' Well, people are different colors, different cultures, different abilities, etc. and if kids don't have conversations with the adults in their world about these differences, how can we expect them to accept them and understand them? Most kids I know may have a few questions, but once they learn, they're pretty accepting of differences. This was a really interesting book and one that is definitely geared toward the older elementary school and middle school student - one that would be a great book to share a poem or two to start a conversation and maybe a poetry project as well., "When they can't find partners quick enough, Charles and Irene get stuck working together on their poetry project. To Irene, Charles is too opinionated. To Charles, Irene is mousy and dull. They are too different, especially since Irene is white and Charles is black. In mirrored verses, the pair discover their similarities and respectfully examine their differences--covering topics as mundane as buying shoes, and as topical as police brutality, corporal punishment, and white guilt. Latham and Waters see this work as a conversation between their fictional, young poet doppelgngers, meant to heal divides and start conversations. Similarly, the art is a collaboration between a husband-and-wife team, that blends collage, colored pencils, and acrylic paint into dreamy abstractions that feature a motif of word flowers blooming across pages where Irene and Charles finally seem to connect. Young readers searching for means to have difficult, emotional, and engaged discussions about race will find an enlightening resource in Irene and Charles' explorations."--Booklist, "A fresh and heartwarming take on bridging the racial divide."--Carole Boston Weatherford, author of Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, "[A]n unusually candid book for pre-YA kids about race and difference, allowing for the possibility of the mistakes (the word is right in the subtitle) but also a hopeful outcome as Irene and Charles find enrichment in their friendship."--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, "A fresh approach to exploring interracial communication. In an unusual, long-distance collaboration, poets Latham and Waters have crafted a collection of poems that explore the intersection between race and childhood friendships. Each poet reveals his or her individual perspective on shared experiences by imagining their childhood selves existing in the current day of complex racial realities. Their interactions, expressed through poetic verse, navigate the ambiguous and often challenging feelings that children encounter as they grapple with identity and race--a process forced on them when they are paired for a classroom poetry project. The story takes readers through school days, interludes with concerned parents, and polarizing peer interactions. In one scene, young Irene, who is white, feels ostracized when she isn't invited to play freeze dance with the black girls on the playground. At the beach, young Charles, who is black, is teased by white kids who wear dreadlocks and cornrows, appropriating the culture of black people, while bullying and spewing hate toward Charles. In between the uncomfortable moments are lighter, universal childhood scenarios, as when Charles asserts his choice to be vegan at a traditional soul-food dinner or when Irene describes the solace she finds in her love of horses. Interracial couple Qualls and Alko contribute graceful illustrations that give the feelings expressed visual form. A brave and touching portrayal worthy of sharing in classrooms across America."--starred, Kirkus Reviews, "A fresh approach to exploring interracial communication. . . . A brave and touching portrayal worthy of sharing in classrooms across America."--starred, Kirkus Reviews, "A fresh approach to exploring interracial communication. In an unusual, long-distance collaboration, poets Latham and Waters have crafted a collection of poems that explore the intersection between race and childhood friendships. Each poet reveals his or her individual perspective on shared experiences by imagining their childhood selves existing in the current day of complex racial realities. Their interactions, expressed through poetic verse, navigate the ambiguous and often challenging feelings that children encounter as they grapple with identity and racea process forced on them when they are paired for a classroom poetry project. The story takes readers through school days, interludes with concerned parents, and polarizing peer interactions. In one scene, young Irene, who is white, feels ostracized when she isn't invited to play freeze dance with the black girls on the playground. At the beach, young Charles, who is black, is teased by white kids who wear dreadlocks and cornrows, appropriating the culture of black people, while bullying and spewing hate toward Charles. In between the uncomfortable moments are lighter, universal childhood scenarios, as when Charles asserts his choice to be vegan at a traditional soul-food dinner or when Irene describes the solace she finds in her love of horses. Interracial couple Qualls and Alko contribute graceful illustrations that give the feelings expressed visual form. A brave and touching portrayal worthy of sharing in classrooms across America."starred, Kirkus Reviews, "Salt-and-pepper teams of poets, illustrators and characters offer young readers a fresh and heartwarming take on bridging the racial divide. The poems show that social interaction is the key to finding and forging common bonds. I hope that this book will spark conversations across school cafeterias where students too often self-segregate."--Carole Boston Weatherford, author of Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, "Two classmates--serving as stand-ins for poets Latham and Waters--reluctantly pair up on a poetry-writing project and reflect on their identities, relationships, and the role race plays in their lives, in more than 30 candid, thought-provoking poems. The students aren't initially close ('She hardly says anything. Plus, she's white,' thinks talkative Charles after being assigned to work with Irene), but that soon changes. The children's passions and preoccupations are revealed in poems that explore topics in parallel--new shoes, dinnertime, parental punishments, and police violence, among them--and the racial divisions of the children's churches, communities, and school become clear, too. 'I smile when Shonda/ comes over, but she doesn't/ smile back,' writes Irene. 'You've got/ the whole rest of the playground,/ she says. Can't we/ at least have this corner?' Qualls and Alko (Why Am I Me?) play into the moody, reflective atmosphere in mixed-media collages whose teardrop/budding leaf motif underscores the way that conversation can lead to growth. The poems delicately demonstrate the complexity of identity and the power of communication to build friendships."--starred, Publishers Weekly, "Young readers searching for means to have difficult, emotional, and engaged discussions about race will find an enlightening resource in Irene and Charles' explorations."--Booklist, "Salt-and-pepper teams of poets, illustrators and characters offer young readers a fresh and heartwarming take on bridging the racial divide. The poems show that social interaction is the key to finding and forging common bonds. I hope that this book will spark conversations across school cafeterias where students too often self-segregate."Carole Boston Weatherford, author of Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, "These poems explore diversity with refreshing honesty and complexity--and truly capture the personalities and voices of these two rising stars of poetry."--Janet Wong, author and co-creator of The Poetry Friday Anthology series, "Poets Irene Latham and Charles Waters assume, respectively, the voices of a young white girl, Irene, and young Black boy, Charles, who are paired together for a poetry project. A series of over thirty poems follows them as they deal with each other and their classmates, negotiating points of friction both racial (Irene wants to play freeze dance with Shonda and her friends, who are Black; Charles wonders why the Jesus in his church is white) and personal (Charles is a motormouth while Irene is quiet). The poems appear in tandem pairs, their speakers differentiated by font, that relate to each other thematically, sometimes illuminating the commonality of the kids' experiences and sometimes operating in complementarity. The result is an unusually candid book for pre-YA kids about race and difference, allowing for the possibility of the mistakes (the word is right in the subtitle) but also a hopeful outcome as Irene and Charles find enrichment in their friendship. Though there's a touch of historical flavor at times (the authors base the poems on their 1980s childhoods), the underlying issues remain relevant in contemporary classrooms and playgrounds. The illustrations, acrylic, colored pencil, and collage, mostly focus on figures crisply edged against white space but vary the images with complexly layered colors. The art links each pair of poems further with compositions that echo and mirror each other (in the pair of church poems, for instance, congregations are viewed both from above and behind the pews). Kids will appreciate recognition of their challenges and the value of surmounting them, and in skilled hands this could prompt some useful curricular responses. Authors and illustrators both include notes about their inspirations and intentions."--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, "[D]elicately demonstrate[s] the complexity of identity and the power of communication to build friendships."--starred, Publishers Weekly, "These poems explore diversity with refreshing honesty and complexityand truly capture the personalities and voices of these two rising stars of poetry."Janet Wong, author and co-creator of The Poetry Friday Anthology series, "It took four people to bring us Can I Touch Your Hair? and countless others to bring it to our library and bookstore shelves. It takes only one person to buy it and show it to a kid. And it takes only one to use it as the conversation starter we've needed for so long."--A Fuse #8 Production, "This clever book of poetry is about finding an unlikely friend. Classmates Irene and Charles (also the names of this book's coauthors) are paired together for a poetry writing project. Irene is white and, according to Charles, 'hardly says anything.' Charles, whose 'mouth is like a race car / that never stops to refuel,' is black. Each spread contains poems from both of their perspectives, with Irene's poem on one side of the page and Charles's on the other. The children write about topics such as shoes, hair, school, and church. As they get to know each other better, the poems traverse even trickier areas, such as slavery and contemporary police violence against African Americans. Irene and Charles also bond over the difficulties of making friends and a love of reading; the poem 'Author Visit' is about their excitement upon meeting one of their favorite writers, Nikki Grimes. The illustrations are in acrylic paint, colored pencil, and collage, and range from ordinary classroom scenes to spare, dramatic images to double-page spreads that visually connect Irene's and Charles's experiences into one, showing their similarities. Qualls and Alko's layering of print newspaper clippings over paint begs readers to take a closer look. Appended authors' and illustrators' notes provide more information about the book's background and development. This volume would make an excellent read-aloud or a launch pad for collaborative classroom writing."--The Horn Book Magazine
Lccn
2016-045348
Grade from
Third Grade
Dewey Decimal
811/.6
Grade to
Sixth Grade
Lc Classification Number
Ps3612.A8685c36 2017
Copyright Date
2018
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eBay item number:355734343939
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Will buy from this seller again. Fantastic price and I do belive the book was shipped exactly as described. That being said it was shipped in a thin envelope that was about as thick as construction paper and the inside was covered with glue. Book still arrived in decent shape but I think adding some bubble wrap in the future would be a good idea. I'm still giving a 5 star review because it was shipped quickly and I belive when it was given to the post office it was in the described condition.
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condition of the book was as described. packaging was great and protected the book well. price is crazy cheap considering how rare this book is. took a few days to ship, but shipping was free, so no big deal. great seller.
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- Apr 25, 2022
Can I Touch Your Hair
Condition: Pre-OwnedSold by: oldsoulsue
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