They Say, "Never Teach the Books You Love." I Counter This, "Teach Books, and You Will Love Them."

With knowledge that Jacqueline Woodson would come to the Quick Center at Fairfield University on March 18th, I quickly put her book Harbor Me into all my professional development work, workshops, undergraduate courses, and graduate classes. I read the book last semester and reread them this semester in preparation with 100s of students and just as many teachers.

I once heard that if you really want to know the power of a book, you should teach it.

I kept this in mind as I revisited Harbor Me and initiated the first conversations surrounding the text. Rereading Woodson's book this past weekend captivated me. I fully understood the six young people in their ARTT room and fully grew with them as they questioned their world of ICE deportation, imprisonment, ADHD, ELL loss of dogs, and need to record stories in a voice recording machine. This is all to say, "These young people had stories to tell."

It's impossible to capture the power of Jacqueline Woodson's Harbor Me in a blog post such as this, but I can state without reservation that this book is needed, is powerful, and is superbly crafted. I think the power, however, comes from the questions needing to be answered in a democratic community of individuals who have read it. What does it mean to be American? How do our schools divide and create expectations through tracking and labeling? Whose story gets told? What is the true mission of this nation? What do 5th and 6th graders have to say about it? What about that Superpower of forgiveness?

Woodson really did write a perfect book for middle school teachers to read. In my workshop today I brought in Pimple Pete (as a metaphor for early adolescence)(a little nonsense now and then, relished by the wisest men). My students resonated with the story and the narrative exploration that Ms. Laverne's students did within the ARTT room - A Room To Talk. The 6 kids, all with stories of their own, brought a middle school life to readers - demonstrating that they, too have stories to tell and voices to be heard.

The Day You Begin, Woodson has written in other locations, is when you begin to tell your story and realize it is equally important to the fabric of this nation.

Woodson, with this book, creates a bridge during a time of walls. History shows that walls don't work. The American story is the story of all of us, including those shared by the young people we work with. We need more ARTT rooms for all.