In praise of books that speak your language

January 10, 2024 - Heather D. Martin

Our community is proud to be an asylum city. We wish the families were joining us under happier circumstances, but since we can't change that, we have turned our focus to what we can do: namely, make sure they feel welcome.

School plays a pivotal role in this. As anyone who has parented kids knows, the school quickly becomes your social hub, your way into a sense of place and belonging.?

School also poses some interesting challenges for these kids, most especially language. Most of the children arriving don't speak English. Yet.?

Their abilities to learn what is arguably one of the most difficult, confusing, and frustrating languages on earth is pretty astounding. If you've ever vacationed in a? foreign land where you don't speak the language, you'll know how exhausting that is. Even the simple task of ordering a coffee is enough to make you want to weep. And that's on vacation. This is their life.

In the Library, we were worried.?

After all, in homeroom you might be able to sort of follow along. Phys ed, art, and music are all pretty navigable without language - but the Library, a place which I believe must always, always be felt as a refuge and safe haven - we are words. Lots of them.?

Clearly, that just won't do.

With the arrival of our first "ESOL" (English Speakers of Other Languages) students, I bought what I could find for the library. Which was something. It wasn't great, but it was something. I had found a collection of books written both in English and various other languages. There was also a "pen" that would speak the page in whichever language.?

My intentions were good, but even I could see as I unpacked the books that there were not the books the kids would want. They had novelty value, nothing else. I never once saw any of our new students actually take an interest in them, let alone check them out.

We live, we learn.

What our new students did enjoy were the graphic novels. Even without the words on the page, the illustrations allowed them to follow the story to some extent … and they're popular. They're the books everyone wants.

We were happy to see the graphic novels going out and being loved - and yet - we still felt we could do better.?

We are blessed in our school to have a school climate that supports, reinforces, and rewards kindness. We are blessed in the library with Mrs. Reich, our? Ed Tech who is a huge part of creating that culture - and who is also very, very good at her job.?

Mrs. Reich became staff advisor to a group of fifth grade students who had expressed an interest in holding a fundraiser to buy books for the new students. She helped them secure items from local businesses and organize a raffle, without ever once making it feel like they weren't in charge the whole time.?

Mrs. Reich networked with other Librarians to source the books and when other adults felt maybe the project was more bother than it was worth, she smoothed ruffled feathers, and took things off others' plates. When the red tape of school bureaucracy bound the entire project into a dead standstill… she found a machete and hacked her way through.

This term, the books began to arrive. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, in Spanish. Journey of Coyote Sunrise, in French. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in Mandarin! These are just a few examples of the initial - and growing - collection, and let me tell you, they are a hit! They are in heavy circulation - and a source of deep interest to the other students as well.

The process was not easy. It was a lot of hard work and there were times when angry noises rose from her desk, but I have zero doubt that the look of pure joy on the faces of the students when they saw books in their first language more than made up for it all.