About the Book
"When can we move beyond representation to liberation?"
This question from a young Black girl moved New York Times #1 bestselling author Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul to offer a vision for antiracist teaching that goes far beyond adding diverse texts in a classroom library. Antiracist Reading Revolution provides an actionable antiracist teaching framework and models how K-8 educators can create opportunities for transformative reading and discussions in classrooms.
Dr. Cherry-Paul offers six critical lenses that help educators to adopt an antiracist teaching stance, spotlighting the importance of instruction built around love, joy, community, justice, and solidarity. Educators are invited to reflect on their instructional practices, dismantle ideologies that are barriers to students’ critical and creative thinking and cultivate identity-inspiring learning experiences where students can show up fully as themselves and recognize the full humanity of all people. This is what it means to move beyond representation to liberation.
Chapters feature several children’s books that center BIPOC characters and creators. Dr. Cherry-Paul provides prompts and pathways for each children’s book that guide teachers toward putting into action the six critical lenses at the core of the Antiracist Reading Framework – affirmation, awareness, authorship, atmosphere, activism, and accountability. And she provides toolkits for students and teachers to use when selecting and reading books on their own.
Chapters in this book also …
Offer personal and insightful anecdotes, supported by research and scholarship, that illustrate the power of antiracist teaching in working toward equity, justice, and freedom
Provide a clear and actionable guide for K-8 literacy educators including classroom teachers, instructional coaches, and librarians
Encourage critical reflection, pausing to ask educators to examine their own identities and values, and how these influence their teaching
Guide educators toward selecting and teaching with books that center the lived experiences of BIPOC students
This book is a call to action. In Dr. Cherry-Paul’s words, "In an antiracist classroom, reading helps us to dream, experience joy, engage in collective struggle, liberate our minds, and love. Let’s move forward together to realize our vision of an antiracist reading classroom rooted in love and liberation."
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
Introduction: There′s No Such Thing As Antiracist Fairy Dust
Chapter 1: Be A Dandelion: A Metaphor and Vision for Antiracist Teaching
Chapter 2: Center BIPOC in Texts
Chapter 3: Recognize Cultural, Community, and Collective Practices
Chapter 4: Shatter Silences Around Racism
Chapter 5: Help Students Acquire Racial Literacy
Chapter 6: Learn About Community Activists
Chapter 7: Sustaining the Revolution
Epilogue: Building the Movement for Human Liberation
Appendix
References
About the Author :
Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul is the founder of Red Clay Educators, co-director of the Institute for Racial Equity in Literacy, co-director of the Teach Black History All Year Institute, and executive producer and host of The Black Creators Series. She is an educator with more than 20-years of classroom experience who has written several books that support reading and writing instruction and has adapted the #1NYT Best Seller, Stamped (For Kids). Sonja leads professional development for schools and organizations in equity and antiracism. She invites you to visit her online at sonjacherrypaul.com.
Review :
I find myself in awe of what Dr. Cherry-Paul has skillfully crafted—a true masterclass and a work of art in the field of antiracist education. This book is not just a mere publication; it symbolizes a dedicated pledge to love, intersectionality, justice, and the crucial process of repair. It goes beyond being a standard resource; rather, it stands as a testament to the transformative power of education when approached with a commitment to creating an antiracist world.
Rooted in the love and collective scholarship of Black women, Dr. Cherry-Paul’s Six Critical Lenses are an essential (not additional) component of reading instruction in the classroom. Antiracist Reading Revolution meets the reader at their intersection of years of antiracist readings and equity trainings, and extends a concrete framework for both adult and young learners to develop and apply their racial literacy and consciousness alongside one another. Beginning so beautifully with affirmation, the Antiracist Reading Framework summons every reader to continue practicing the critical and transformative conversations necessary for progress.
Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul has listened to teachers, librarians, literacy coaches, curriculum developers, teacher educators, and researchers in children’s literature and anti-racist teaching! Antiracist Reading Revolution compels all to move beyond the book lists and into liberating pedagogy — an invitation to "think deeply and possibly differently" through children’s literature and, in that process, better facilitate literature and life discussions with children.
This book is an inspiration to make a commitment. A commitment to love. A commitment to construct a classroom that is deserving of and centers BIPOC students. A commitment to push ourselves beyond representation and to use our agency to create curriculum that brings us closer to creating a more antiracist classroom. Dr. Cherry-Paul challenges us to interrogate how our identities, biases, and assumptions influence our instructional decision making. The Antiracist Reading Framework provides applicable, transferable skills that can be implemented meaningfully in the classroom. With the tools Dr. Cherry-Paul provides, Antiracist Reading Revolution will not only create a change in ourselves and our students in the classroom, it will help create a more antiracist world beyond.
In this creative masterpiece, Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul centers the work of four incredible Black women scholars to create the Antiracist Reading Framework. This framework teaches educators how to select and engage youth in multicultural literature, while providing the practicality of meaningful prompts, reflection, and an actionable antiracist curriculum. Antiracist Reading Revolution is necessary and urgent for anyone who dreams of and seeks a better world.
Antiracist Reading Revolution is both a mentor and a needed companion to educators that includes an expansive foundation grounded in research, reflection, and action. Dr. Cherry-Paul’s Antiracist Reading Framework provides a supportive guide that creates pathways for educators to collectively engage in necessary conversations and teach centering love and humanity within all parts of a younger reader’s experience. Dr. Cherry-Paul’s work will continue to thrive across time and spaces.
Antiracist Reading Revolution peels back the often unquestioned layers of reading as a means for socialization and oppression. Dr. Cherry-Paul models the self-scrutiny and deliberate planning teachers must do to wield reading as an instrument for liberation. The accessible resources she provides guide teachers at any stage of their journey toward becoming antiracist educators.
In this powerful tool for individual and collective professional learning, Dr. Cherry-Paul demonstrates not only the self-work needed to begin - or delve deeper into - antiracist pedagogy, but also the ways to make that work actionable with students by implementing critical lenses woven together to form the Antiracist Reading Framework. Through dozens of examples applying the framework to recently published books, she provides clear pathways to teaching toward liberation.
Antiracist Reading Revolution is a tremendous gift for teachers everywhere and an essential addition to every literacy educator′s professional library. Dr. Cherry-Paul offers a comprehensive toolkit that synthesizes decades of research in culturally responsive and liberatory instructional practices. The beauty and power of this book is the way Dr. Cherry-Paul guides teachers throughout, modeling expertly along the way what it means to be an antiracist reading teacher and teacher of young readers. The text selections, rich scholarship, and practical and engaging framework will deepen new and experienced teachers’ practices. Following Dr. Cherry-Paul’s lead, may we all be dandelions, planting the seeds of change that our young people deserve.
One of our oaths as educators is to teach children how to think, not what to think. Antiracist Reading Revolution teaches us - teachers and librarians - how to think about the texts we lovingly place in our students′ hands, heads, and hearts. More importantly, it teaches us how to center the essential work of antiracism in the classroom and in the library. This book is the educators’ educator’s guide, teaching readers how to use any text in ways that center activism and advocacy, love and liberation.
It is not enough to diversify our bookshelves. How can interactions with a broader selection of voices and perspectives positively influence students’ literacy development and their growth as global citizens? In this timely guide, Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul supports and challenges teachers who are striving to dismantle historically racist pedagogies and build expansive, "identity-inspiring" learning opportunities with students. Rich with ancillary resources, practical strategies, and extensive ideas for teaching reading using critical, antiracist lenses.
Antiracist Reading Revolution is a powerful gift for educators and serves as a guide on how to take an antiracist teaching stance to create classrooms that center affirmation, joy, love, and liberation. This is a must-have book for all educators and schools to have in their professional library — and one I will be sharing in my work with my teachers.
What does it mean to be an antiracist educator? In Antiracist Reading Revolution, Dr. Cherry-Paul skillfully and artfully leads educators through a framework that provides the necessary skills that work to build interpersonal relationships, establish affirmational environments, and the important questions and language needed to teach and engage with literacy that is both loving and critical. The moves she shows teachers are not only grounded in the research but they are practical and inspiring. Above all else, Dr. Cherry Paul teaches us how to bring an antiracist lens to all books that we read. This book will not only support educators in building stronger readers but it will also help us all be better humans.
Antiracist Reading Revolution has the power and potential to create just that, a reading revolution. In this book, Dr. Cherry-Paul does more than make an argument for the need for books in classrooms that reflect and represent a diversity of human beings. She gives us the tools to use those books with our students in a way that will allow every single student to better enter into the world ready to view themselves and others in a positive way and to create positive change. This book is more than a road map for better reading instruction; it is a heart map for better living and better existing in the world.
This gift transcends the boundaries of traditional education, equipping educators with tools to foster liberation in the classroom that go beyond mere representation. It uplifts and empowers the souls of educators, igniting a powerful wave of change for a brighter and more beautiful tomorrow.
This is such an important book for teachers! School is about education. Education is about creating critical thinkers. Critical thinkers need to have all the facts. The facts are that this is a culturally diverse world filled with people of all colors and cultures. All colors and cultures must be SEEN by children, and adults, in the classroom as fully functioning and contributing members of society. Test scores will sort themselves out just fine if Black and Brown children are SEEN in the classroom.
As an antiracist classroom elementary educator, I know the importance of my growth and having tools to improve my pedagogy. Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul′s Antiracist Reading Revolution: Framework for Teaching Beyond Representation Toward Liberation demands we self-interrogate the development of our racial identity in a racialized society and reflect on how that influences our instruction. The framework′s six critical lenses of Affirmation, Awareness, Authorship, Atmosphere, Activism, and Accountability require thoughtful and purposeful creation of lessons on social justice that even our youngest learners deserve to receive. The tools and guiding lessons Cherry-Paul offers have strengthened how I teach all my students to recognize the humanity of others and be agents of change in our diverse world. I am even more intentional about selecting books that provide opportunities to teach students how to be racially literate, using specific language, and increasing their awareness of recognizing, analyzing, and discussing injustice, race, and racism. I believe it is essential that our current and future generations of learners be empowered thinkers and activists, and Cherry-Paul′s framework is a powerful means to get us there.
Sonja Cherry-Paul provides a powerful antiracist reading framework that compels educators to lead with love, seek and state the truth, and teach toward liberation. Guided by six critical lenses, the reader is inspired to imagine what is possible – especially important during a time where professional autonomy is increasingly challenged. Sonja lights a path for antiracist educators and we are emboldened to act – centering humanity, justice, and hope.
I have never met an educator who does not want to make their teaching match their values. But the reality of teaching today means teachers are inundated with mandates, theories, and student needs with very little offered in terms of practical, step-by-step lessons, explanations, and resources to meet the avalanche of demands and very real concerns. Antiracist Reading Revolution is the book I dreamt of but never thought possible. Cherry-Paul gives us clear definitions and explanations of foundational scholarship while also holding our hand and walking us through lessons we can teach our students tomorrow, all within a framework that keeps our teaching from feeling disjointed. This is a gift of a book for educators and their students.
Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul’s Antiracist Reading Revolution is such a powerful book for all educators. Grounded in the latest culturally responsive research that centers the possibilities of Black and other children, Dr. Cherry-Paul has crafted a thorough handbook that provides educators with the how they are often searching to find. This robust text offers up resources and guidance for educators at all levels of their work with children; thus, with Antiracist Reading Revolution, there’s no excuse not to do the work—immediately—that gets us closer toward truly equitable literacy practices. Dr. Cherry-Paul is leading the way. May we all follow!
