Books for Special Situations:

Modeling Courage For Kids Facing Racism

 

Today's Snack: They have a funny expression for astronauts when they are in their small capsules going into outer space: "Spam in a can." By "spam," they mean the canned meat product, not the junk email. If you have never eaten Spam, now's the time. It's pretty good on a Ritz cracker, and is a very good source of protein. Wash it down with a nice glass of grape juice.

 

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Supplies:

Order this book, available used from online bookstores

For a very reasonable price

Take kids on an after-school field trip to the public library

Bring this book and talk with the librarian about this incident,

which happened in 1959; find out if your library ever

denied anyone checkout privileges because of their race

 

 

Here's a true story about a brave kid who grew up to be a world-famous brave person. American astronaut Ron McNair grew up in a small town in South Carolina. Back in the 1950s, there was still racial segregation going on. That meant that there was rampant discrimination against people just because of their skin color.

 

In this small town, African-American people could not get a library card or check out library books.

 

In this true story, Ron McNair, then age 9, loved reading books about airplanes - which is poignant, since he grew up to be an astronaut. But he wasn't allowed to check them out and bring them home.

 

Even though he was a little scared, he insisted that he should be able to check out books from that library, just like everybody else. At first, they said no.

 

He stood his ground. His mother arrived . . . the police arrived . . . things got pretty tense . . . but eventually, he won out, and got his library card.

 

 

Tragically, McNair died in the 1986 Challenger explosion. But the library in his hometown is now dedicated to him and his lifelong record of reaching for the stars and courageously standing up for what is right.

 

This book would be a good launchpad for teaching kids about McNair, who was a physicist, graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an expert in laser physics. He was one of 35 people to be accepted into the astronaut program out of 10,000 applicants. McNair was the second African-American astronaut in space.

 

 

Even though discrimination ended in the 1960s on buses, in stores, and even in the public library - a place you'd expect to treat people fairly - this gentle book with expressive illustrations would be a good way to teach children about the reality of racism in the American South that persisted up until 50 years ago.

 

This would be a great choice in the process of teaching children that you're never too young to fight for social justice with determination, and to follow in the footsteps of great people like Ron McNair, who showed that even a little kid can change the world.