This past Friday, TLAM students Robin, Jake, Katelyn, Jenny, and Mary traveled with Omar to Lac Courte Oreilles to present a hands-on workshop entitled, “Evaluate It: Strengthening Relationships with American Indian Communities through Children’s Literature”. We were invited by Caryl from the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College Library to present to the Northern Waters Library System Librarians.
Our workshop was designed to inform our participants about culturally appropriate childrens books for their libraries. In our workshop, we had participants work with a stack of mixed “good” and “bad” books.
Working in groups, our participants were asked to review the books using a list of 10 questions that Debbie Reese suggests when evaluating Native Materials for children and the MUSTY criteria for book deselection. MUSTY? What in the world does that mean? What does that stand for?
- Misleading
- Ugly
- Superseded
- Trivial
- Your collection
We had a good discussion about what was difficult and what was less challenging about the evaluation. We offered more resources for librarians to consult, including A Broken Flute as well as the American Indian Library Association.
Thanks to Debbie Reese for the inspiration and some of the resources for this presentation.
Here are our powerpoint slides from our presentation: http://goo.gl/ZDl73K
This looks like an excellent workshop–serves as a great model!
Thanks to my daughter I am learning and growing in my profession more than ever before. I am so much more aware of the books I read to my preschool children and the ones I choose for myself. I share information with my colleagues at the school where I teach and whenever I get the chance in my community.
Thanks, Kate, and everyone else who works to make this world a better place!