Raising Black Children Who Love Reading and Writing: A Guide from Birth through Grade Six

Abstract

Raising Black Children who Love Reading and Writing: A Guide from Birth Through Grade Six, by Deirdre Glenn Paul. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000.168 pp. $35.00, cloth. Reviewed by Ming Shi Trammel (doctoral student), Howard University. (ProQuest Information and Learning: Document begins here in the original) bell hooks, a leading feminist scholar and writer, recalls, when as a young girl she fell in love with the Schomburg Library-a library filled with books written solely by Americans. It was in that moment of discovery that hooks knew she wanted to read all of those books in the library by American writers. It was at that moment she knew she wanted to become a writer. It is this love of reading and writing that Deirdre Glenn Paul. is trying to help American parents encourage with their own children in her book, Raising Black Children Who Love Reading and Writing: A Guide from Birth through Grade Six. In the introductory chapter of Paul's book, she explains to parents the Black community's deep oral and literary history that dates back to slavery. In spite of the challenges that Africans had when they were brought into slavery, Paul writes, African Americans learned to use oral language in ways that bridged aspects of their native tongues with standard American and British (p. 1). Paul narrates in the latter part of this introductory chapter the debate that White slave masters had over teaching slaves to read and write and the subsequent passing of laws that would forbid slaves to become educated. She also describes how, despite such laws slaves like Fredrick Douglas would still learn how to read and write-skills Douglas eventually used to seek his physical emancipation (p. 3). In the ensuing chapters of Paul's guide book, she gives an overview of the American child in the United States school system, and she details prescriptive ways for parents to impact their child's reading and writing abilities from birth to adolescence. In Chapter 2, about the history of the American child in the school system, Paul describes segregated school systems, desegregated schools, and multicultural education. There is also a small section in this chapter about the high placement of minority children in special education, especially Latino and American boys. Chapter 3 of this guide engages the reader in the spirited dialogue on the context of language in the minority community. Paul takes us through the debate over Ebonics and then through the struggles of the Latino community over the issues of Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language programs. In Chapter 4, the new parent learns how infants acquire language. The author tells parents that they should actively be working on their children's learning development from infancy. Parents can do this by talking to their infant children. According to Paul, at this stage of development, it is important that American parents' talking be full of praise and compliments on their racial features, thereby, instilling an early sense of racial pride. …