“Finding Home: Words from Kids Seeking Sanctuary” by Gwen Agna & “Small Places Close to Home: A Children’s Declaration of Rights” by Deborah Hopkinson
These two picture book selections are great resources for social workers, teachers and students. Finding Home uses photographs of children seeking refuge and quotes from them to share what they love to eat, play and learn. It also shares why they left their home countries, like Afghanistan and Ukraine and what it was like acclimating to a new place. The back matter includes lots of quality resources for teachers and social workers. The author, Gwen Agna, hopes that this picture book will, “promote empathy and love for those who have been displaced and are trying to find a new home.” We need more of that, thank you, Gwen.
Head: An essential question that was at the root of the 7th grade social studies curriculum I taught was: What are the roles and responsibilities of citizens? It got students grappling with the question of what kinds of responsibilities come with our rights. We studied the rights in the Bill of Rights and further amendments and we also studied the rights laid out by Eleanor Roosevelt and the UN in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The sentiment of this video always resonated with my students.
Heart: Small Places Close to Home is inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarks to the United Nations in 1958: “Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet, they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” What if we all lived our lives in accordance with Eleanor’s words?