The Day You Begin

"This beautifully and brightly illustrated book is about a little girl entering into a new world. It could be a classroom or it could be anything. It features this beautiful African American girl with big, beautiful hair, talking about her expectations about entering someplace new and her thoughts about how she might be received. She eventually figures out how to make herself seen and heard. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids. I read The Day You Begin at the beginning of my first grade year and leave the book prominently displayed through the year, because it captures what a lot of children go through as they experience new things. We all experience so many similar things and yet we each bring a different perspective, different expectations and different fears. It is part of our mission to be really inclusive and to teach history from all perspectives. So in first grade is we have a civil rights curriculum. We learn about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. We teach about the Civil Rights Movement. We also focus on child activists, like Ruby Bridges, the first African American child to integrate her school. We showcase stories of children standing up for themselves. It can be very inspirational to a young child."