Sunday, May 23, 2021

Korean Children's Book and Ocean Songs

One of the wonderful things about social media is finding wonderfully inclusive children's literature. JoJos Book Club is one of my favorite pages on instagram. I appreciate the honest and straightforward reviews and have found some really beautiful inclusive books there.  A couple days ago I found The Ocean Calls which is very new- just published in August 2020. Written by Asian American Tino Cho and illustrated by Asian Canadian Jess Snow this is a beautifully told and illustrated story of a South Korean island community of haenyeo - deep-sea divers. Grandma and her fellow divers, all older women, dive without oxygen deep into the ocean to gather abalone, sea urchins, and other treasures. Granddaughter Dayeon wants to be a haenyeo like her "treasure hunting Grandma" but she’s scared. Grandma shows patience as she listens then says, “Can’t you hear what the waves are saying? They’re calling to us to come home.”
The book can be used as a jumping off point to connect culture in so many ways.

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