My Text Set: Poverty

Text set as a whole:

My text set includes three picture books, On Mother’s Lap by Ann Herbert Scott, Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth, and Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting. These three books all represent different aspects of poverty but all have family dynamics as their common theme. These three books are a great start to a diverse library for my classroom. I thought these three books were important to include because each book is focused on a certain culture, one on Inuit family, another on an African American girl, and finally one focused on a Caucasian family. I thought it was important to include these three different cultures because it is important for students to understand that poverty can happen amongst any culture. Poverty is an issue that I feel isn’t very well represented in children’s book or in classroom libraries. Cultures are becoming more prevalent in libraries but I believe poverty is a sub-culture that should also be addressed which is why I have chosen this sub-culture as the topic of my text-set. Each book describes a different aspect of poverty yet in each circumstance there is a family member who takes care of the young individual and allows them to feel safe and loved within their circumstances. I thought it was important to consider each of these books when looking at poverty because each brings a unique aspect and can be read to different age groups.

On Mother’s Lap is a book that I would read to a younger audience especially when doing units on home’s and families. This family is unique because only a Mother, son, and baby are shown. It is also unique because of the limited possessions that the family has yet the son finds that there is love and comfort always on his mother’s lap. Something Beautiful is a book that can be read to an older elementary audience and gives a great message of what beauty truly means and how this meaning can be different depending on the person. The important thing to remember is that beauty is everywhere. Fly Away Home is a book I would also read to older students because homelessness is a difficult topic but I believe that is something that all individuals will have experience with at some point in their lifetime. The book is realistic and offers hope but not an unrealistic idea of the possibility of things taking awhile to change. The young boy living in the airport finds hope within a bird that is able to leave yet we don’t see the boy escaping. Instead we see his trust in his father and his determination to save money. In all three stories there are things that any child could relate to, whether it is the aspect of money, family, or community. These books also give children who may not have much experience with poverty a glimpse into the lives of families who may have different situations. Overall I think this text set represents a broad range of aspects of poverty allowing students to be able to relate to some aspects of poverty but also allowing them to understand some of the things they may not be as familiar with. By looking at these books my hope is that students gain a better understanding of different cultures as well as sub-cultures.
I would recommend these books to individuals of all age groups. As an adult I really enjoyed reading these books and found that even I was gaining information and insights into lifestyles unlike my own yet I was also able to see my like mirrored in some aspects of these books as well which made the experience worthwhile. These authors did a wonderful job representing different aspects of poverty in a realistic yet gentle way in order for readers to gain the most from these picture books.