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    Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship
    Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship
    Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship
    Ebook38 pages23 hours

    Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship

    By Irene Latham, Charles Waters, Selina Alko and Sean Qualls

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Two poets, one white and one black, explore race and childhood in this must-have collection tailored to provoke thought and conversation.

    How can Irene and Charles work together on their fifth grade poetry project? They don't know each other . . . and they're not sure they want to.

    Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is Black, use this fictional setup to delve into different experiences of race in a relatable way, exploring such topics as hair, hobbies, and family dinners. Accompanied by artwork from acclaimed illustrators Sean Qualls and Selina Alko (of The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage), this remarkable collaboration invites readers of all ages to join the dialogue by putting their own words to their experiences.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2018
    ISBN9781512472141
    Author

    Irene Latham

    Irene Latham is the author of more than a dozen current and forthcoming works of poetry, fiction, and picture books. Her work includes Charlotte Huck Honor Book and ALA Notable Children's Book Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship (co-written with Charles Waters) and the Caldecott Honor Book The Cat Man of Aleppo(co-written by Karim Shamsi-Basha). In 2016 she won the ILA Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award. Visit her at www.irenelatham.com.

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    Reviews for Can I Touch Your Hair?

    4.5/5

    58 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Normally this reader is bad at reading poetry. It was worse as an audiobook. Telling where one began and one ended was not easy. Plus i think listening to it as an audio book instead of reading it, left off the emotion and made it hard to tell what was actually happening.
    • 3/5
      A decent tool to start a conversation with kids about race, diversity, microaggressions, etc. It's a cute concept, where the authors, a black man and a white woman, imagine how they might have developed a friendship if they had gone to school together as children. It says it's poetry, but don't let that scare you off, as it is free verse where sentences just seem to have random hard returns in the middle of them.
    • 4/5
      Mixed race is not only the topic of this wonderful poetry book but the two authors and two illustrators also had different racial backgrounds.The book is written from two different perspectives. A white girl and a black boy are partnered together on a poetry project. They are not very enthusiastic about the partnership and the poems are about topics they both have in common but show different experiences; shoes, hair, and church are some examples. Over time they discover they have things in common and become friends. The Poems become more serious and tackle issues like slavery and police violence. The very last poem is written together by the main characters.The authors and illustrators explain on the last pages the book’s background and development.The typeface clearly shows the reader when it is Irene’s poem or Charles’. They are always placed side by side. The illustrations are made up of mixed media which is very appropriate.A great book that can be used for classroom discussions or language projects and should be in every library.Oral3rd - 5th gradeR
    • 4/5
      This book is a tough one for young children. I am not sure if they would understand the concept. I think older primary and junior or intermediate students would understand the messages much better. This is not poetry that rhymes or follows patterns, it is free-style with a serious message. The poems depict situations that the authors have either been involved in or witnessed. It shows that there still are race issues in our society, but there is hope they can be overcome with listening to others, taking time to understand others' situations and feelings. A book that could be used to start the discussion about race issues in a middle grades or even intermediate classroom. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley.
    • 5/5
      Book a poems that are write it in a conversation form. The story of a Caucasian girl and an African American boy. They are both in the same school. They have to be writing partners. the poems are about the races experiences in the school, the boy Charles, gets picked first for team basketball, until they other children see that the ball passed the basket board, or how in the classroom the children won't think that he will read good. The girl (Irene) wants to have afro hair instead of blonde straight. When she goes to the beach she likes to get tan instead of applying sunblock lotion. All poems are about Irene and Charles' experiences in regards of racism.

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    Can I Touch Your Hair? - Irene Latham

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