Islandborn

Title: Islandborn

Author: Junot Díaz

Illustrator: Leo Espinosa

Genre: Multicultural

Awards: Pura Belpré Honor

Age Group: 1st-3rd grade

Islandborn is what Lola is, even though she can't remember her life on the Island. When she gets an assignment at school to draw a picture of the place she is from, she becomes sad, because she has no memories to draw. Her teacher encourages her to ask her relatives and neighbors about what they remember most about the Island. Lola eagerly writes down about the blanket bats, sleep dancing, coconut water, rainbow people, poetic beaches, and even the Monster. Pretty soon she has a collection of ideas to base her picture on, and she has a book full of doodles all about the Island where she is from. Back at school, the class gathers around her to see her drawings, and when she opens up her book, "out burst the Island".

I will absolutely use this book in my classroom. The illustrations alone make it worth reading–they are seriously that beautiful! Why this book did not get a Caldecott medal I have yet to discover, because the pictures are so bright, colorful, and whimsical that I think everyone needs to see them. Hopefully I didn't hype up the illustrations enough to disappoint anyone (what can I say, I just love color!), but this book probably has my favorite illustrations out of all the picture books I have read so far for this blog. The story is really cute, as well.

I would suggest this book for 1st through 3rd graders! It does a good job of introducing the idea of culture in a simple and relatable way. Everyone is from somewhere, and that's what this book talks about. We are shaped by where we come from and the people we interact with, and that's a concept that children can start to learn about. This book would be a fun read aloud!

A couple of activities to go along with Islandborn...

• Heritage Bag: This is a really neat activity that is similar to the kids drawing a picture of where they are from in the book. Each student gets a brown bag and will fill it with 3-5 small items representing where they are from and can share with the class why those items are important.
• Spanish Vocabulary: Some of the words in this multicultural book are Spanish, so students could find those words in the book and try predict what they mean based on context clues. They could then look up the real meaning or you could provide them with a matching activity if it is for younger kids.