NEW picture book offers many gifts,
including a Positive Identity
Author Caroline Brewer is leading highly inter-active and musical conversations with students, educators, parents and community groups about her new book Say Their Names, with Reycraft Books. In Say Their Names, a fictional 7-year-old Aliya responds to the aftermath of George Floyd’s death with poetry, history, and an invitation to a love-inspired future. Brewer says the book comes with more than 30 “gifts” for children, such as hope, courage, and empowerment, which all work together to form a positive identity. (See page 5 for the list and student-youth engagement opportunities).
“As we have seen, especially since September 11, 2001, traumatic incidents, such as school shootings, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, racist and religious attacks, wars, pandemics, and the like, keep happening, seemingly with greater frequency, here and all over the world,” said Brewer, “In the face of the world’s ugliness, we’ll be counting on today’s youth to one day stand tall and lead our families, communities, and countries. So it’s critical that we – and they -- are equipped with the confidence, language, empathy, mental and emotional stamina to handle the hard stuff. If I could give a child any gift, it would be the gift of a positive identity, and that’s what Say Their Names is all about,” says Brewer.
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Goals of the picture book, Say Their Names: To be a channel for children’s agency, positive identity, strength, intellectual stimulation, healthy, self-actualized communication, to expand supportive communities, to be a source of hope, and a tool for imagining ways forward.
