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Re: Book Reading | Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty via TeachingBooks.net
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From: Ebony Elizabeth Thomas <ebonyt_at_gse.upenn.edu>
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 18:05:23 -0400
Dear Tonya,
Thank you so much for a wonderful discussion about your book (and thanks to Nick for the link to interview). I particularly loved reading about the choices that you made as a visual storyteller about what to include and why, as well as the responses of the students at the school in Queens to Lincoln’s role in emancipation. Next year, I’ll be on fellowship, working on a research project on young readers’ responses to representations of slavery in contemporary children’s literature, so I am keen to get my hands on this book. Needless to say, I’ll be ordering it tomorrow as soon I get to campus! I only wish I had gotten my hands on it prior to this discussion. I did read the preview sample available online, and the beginning of it had me in tears. (I have enjoyed other stories you’ve written in the past, and had the privilege to have your book on George Washington Carver signed at NCTE several years ago, a gift for my niece and nephew.)
Before this year, I never considered the Emancipation Proclamation or responses to it beyond the small bits that we learned in history class about slaves in Texas not getting the word until later (the genesis of Juneteenth), or my church talking about the origins of Watch Night services. I designed a unit on Atlantic slavery for my high school students around 15 years ago because I wasn’t satisfied with what was in our textbook, but I concentrated far more on the rise of racialized chattel slavery (a lifelong obsession of mine) without talking much about how it ended. But recently, a photographer friend of mine in Detroit, Dale Rich, urged me to think more about how to teach my preservice and inservice teachers to help today’s young people understand the significance of the EP. He curated a 150th anniversary exhibit on the Proclamation at the Detroit Public Library, “Henceforth and Forevermore Free,” that I saw when I was home this spring. It was the first time that I actually read the words of the document beyond just doing work for a school assignment.
(The contraband issue that you’ve mentioned is chilling. Recent genealogical research reveals that at least one of my great-great grandparents may have been contraband. It reminds me that just five generations ago, our ancestors were capital — goods to be bought, sold, and traded. I cried all night and did not sleep when I found him on the 1860 slave schedule, and a death notice in the AME bulletin in the 1910s. It is beyond my imagination to conceive of what his parents’ lives must have been like — I cannot find them anywhere after 1860, and don’t know if they even survived the war. I lost my grandmother a couple of years ago, and never really thought about what it meant when she said that her grandparents were born in slavery until recently.)
I can’t wait to read what seems like a magnificent — and necessary — book, and will look for ways to share it with teachers.
With sincere appreciation for your storytelling talent and for your humanizing of history,
Ebony
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 18:05:23 -0400
Dear Tonya,
Thank you so much for a wonderful discussion about your book (and thanks to Nick for the link to interview). I particularly loved reading about the choices that you made as a visual storyteller about what to include and why, as well as the responses of the students at the school in Queens to Lincoln’s role in emancipation. Next year, I’ll be on fellowship, working on a research project on young readers’ responses to representations of slavery in contemporary children’s literature, so I am keen to get my hands on this book. Needless to say, I’ll be ordering it tomorrow as soon I get to campus! I only wish I had gotten my hands on it prior to this discussion. I did read the preview sample available online, and the beginning of it had me in tears. (I have enjoyed other stories you’ve written in the past, and had the privilege to have your book on George Washington Carver signed at NCTE several years ago, a gift for my niece and nephew.)
Before this year, I never considered the Emancipation Proclamation or responses to it beyond the small bits that we learned in history class about slaves in Texas not getting the word until later (the genesis of Juneteenth), or my church talking about the origins of Watch Night services. I designed a unit on Atlantic slavery for my high school students around 15 years ago because I wasn’t satisfied with what was in our textbook, but I concentrated far more on the rise of racialized chattel slavery (a lifelong obsession of mine) without talking much about how it ended. But recently, a photographer friend of mine in Detroit, Dale Rich, urged me to think more about how to teach my preservice and inservice teachers to help today’s young people understand the significance of the EP. He curated a 150th anniversary exhibit on the Proclamation at the Detroit Public Library, “Henceforth and Forevermore Free,” that I saw when I was home this spring. It was the first time that I actually read the words of the document beyond just doing work for a school assignment.
(The contraband issue that you’ve mentioned is chilling. Recent genealogical research reveals that at least one of my great-great grandparents may have been contraband. It reminds me that just five generations ago, our ancestors were capital — goods to be bought, sold, and traded. I cried all night and did not sleep when I found him on the 1860 slave schedule, and a death notice in the AME bulletin in the 1910s. It is beyond my imagination to conceive of what his parents’ lives must have been like — I cannot find them anywhere after 1860, and don’t know if they even survived the war. I lost my grandmother a couple of years ago, and never really thought about what it meant when she said that her grandparents were born in slavery until recently.)
I can’t wait to read what seems like a magnificent — and necessary — book, and will look for ways to share it with teachers.
With sincere appreciation for your storytelling talent and for your humanizing of history,
Ebony
-- Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Reading/Writing/Literacy Division Graduate School of Education University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6216 Office: (215) 898-9309 Fax: (215) 573-2109 Email: ebonyt_at_gse.upenn.edu Website: http://scholar.gse.upenn.edu/thomas Twitter: _at_Ebonyteach Tumblr: ebonyteach Blog: thedarkfantastic.blogspot.com ==== CCBC-Net Use ==== You are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: ccbc-archive_at_post.education.wisc.edu. To post to the list, send message to... ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu To receive messages in digest format, send a blank message to... digest-ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu To unsubscribe, send a blank message to... leave-ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu ==== CCBC-Net Archives ==== The CCBC-Net archives are available to all CCBC-Net listserv members. The archives are organized by month and year. A list of discussion topics (including month/year) is available at... http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ccbcnet/archives.asp To access the archives, go to... http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbc-net ...and enter the following when prompted... username: ccbc-net password: Look4PostsReceived on Sun 29 Jun 2014 05:05:51 PM CDT
