Page 7 - 2019 Reading Summit Event Guide: Denver
P. 7
Who Gets to Be the Hero? Imagining a More Just Future Through Diverse Children’s Fantasy
Sayantani DasGupta
Children’s literature plays a critical role in shaping and transforming our collective imaginations
— movements such as #weneeddiversebooks and #ownvoices ensure that marginalized readers can see themselves re ected positively, but also so we can collectively engage in acts of radical imagination — bending the arc of all our futures toward justice. Yet, how do we move from seeking and writing stories that “teach a good lesson” toward diverse tales that “tell a good story?” In
this workshop, we will examine middle-grade and YA fantasy novels that are exercises in radical imagination, and put them in the conversation with theory around multicultural futurism. We will collectively generate a list of diverse middle grade and YA fantasy to share with our students and communities, while using them as models in our own writing.
Best suited for grades 3-8.
WORKSHOPS
