The Ohio State University

Blog Post: A Lesson Plan For Indian Cultural Diversity in The Blue Umbrella

Being a future educator, I am always looking for ideas and literature I can use in my own classroom one day. After reading The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond, I wanted to create a lesson plan for elementary school children,…

Book Review: Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono

Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono is a novel that originally became popular in Japan but then became popular in North America through a TV show. This novel is about a young witch who goes off on her own for…

Blog Post #2

For my second post, I would like to address the importance of using children’s literature as a gateway to helping children understand trauma and adverse events. Ursula Dubosarsky uses her brilliant novel, “The Golden Day”, to help children and adults…

Book Review: Umbrella or Olive Branch?

The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond is a children’s fiction book that explores the importance of being kind, even when it is inconvenient to oneself. The Blue Umbrella is set in India in a small village in the mountains. The…

Blog Post – Books for Africa, Books from Africa

For my blog post I decided to focus on a project called Books for Africa, Books from Africa by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) which is an exhibition of children’s books that are published by African…

Book Review: From Another World – Caitlyn Harrington

From Another World by Ana Maria Machado is a Brazilian children’s novel that was originally published in Portuguese in 2002 under the name Do outro mundo and was translated into English and published in Canada in 2005. Ana Maria Machado…

Book Review – “The Golden Day” by Ursula Dubosarsky

Set in the late 1960’s, Dubosarsky’s novel follows eleven school girls and the impact of their teacher’s sudden disappearance on their lives.  Miss Renshaw is a spunky, old – yet, not the oldest – teacher in an all-girls school in…

Blog Post: Apartheid in South Africa

The Apartheid in South Africa, 1948 to 1991, was a system of segregation on the grounds of race, which was instituted by a white minority group who was ruling in Africa. This allowed racism and discrimination to be in the…

Book Review: Rider & the Hummingbird – Zena Shapter

Rider & the Hummingbird is written by Zena Shapter and co-authored with the Northern Beaches Writers Group (ISBN: 9780994487315), published in Australia. The setting of this book takes place in Australia, with the main character Lan, short for Lancelot and his…

Blog Post

The Scramble for Africa was a time when the world was trying to colonize Africa. European powers were rushing to escape the economic depression that was faced in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s. There are many children’s books related to…