They help us prepare for difficult transitions, or provide solace during impossible times. They matter for understanding greater ideas, and different lifestyles. …the impetus for this sometimes difficult and ongoing conversation is a book…īooks matter. Let me rephrase an important concept from earlier: I hope with such intensity, for all of humanity, that I am winning. But there are bad laws too, like how sometimes people don’t want to have a baby but strangers say they have to keep it anyway.” … Am I winning? In those moments of translation, it can be hard to say. When we get into the car and I ask my 4-year-old to buckle up, he will remind me that this is a “good law because it helps keep me safe, like if we got into a big crash. I will use it as a tool to bring my kids into the framework of thinking about laws and how they affect people: “Do you remember that book about the little girl who couldn’t sit at the counter just because of the color of her skin?…” This is a book that keeps on opening its pages to us, even after it is back on the shelf. When other big (Texas-sized) issues, like a woman’s right to body autonomy, or a transgender child’s right to gender-affirming healthcare, come up in conversation and my children are listening and start asking questions, I often find myself referencing this book. In our household, it has prompted conversations about racism, standing up against injustice, and the idea of “good laws” and “bad laws”. By making the narrator a young girl, Weatherford presents a complicated historical event through the lens of a child, which allows huge concepts to flow easily into essential lessons. (UM, sidenote: I just googled her right now and am so lifted up and inspired and I will be going down this rabbit hole ASAP!)įreedom on the Menu is a fictional book that tells the story of the Greensboro sit-ins from the perspective of a young Black girl, Connie. My 4-year-old, and thus my 2-year-old by proxy, and I talk about “good laws” and “bad laws.” This topic has come about in a myriad of ways and takes many forms, but the impetus for this sometimes difficult and ongoing conversation is a book we picked up at a neighborhood Little Free Library (love ‘em) titled Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins by Carole Boston Weatherford.
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