LibGuides: Literature & Representation: Windows & Mirrors

Introduction/Narrative

What are Windows & Mirrors?

Mirrors

When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part. (Bishop, 1990b, p. 557)

Windows

Books are sometimes the only place where readers may meet people who are not like themselves, who offer alternative worldviews (Tschida, Ryan, & Ticknor, 2014).

Windows and mirrors are ultimately about power. For too long our publishing industry has failed to represent everyone in our society. There has been a long history where books have only reflected people from dominant groups with very few exceptions. Published authors have also skewed white, straight, cisgender, and male. There are currently some seeds of change in the publishing industry. Many more authors of color, queer authors, and authors with disabilities are being given space to share their stories and craft with the world. However, there are still many issues and publishing is still failing to reflect the demographics of the world we all live in. It is essential that everyone can see themselves in a large variety of stories and just as important that people are provided opportunities to see those different from them in story form.

State of Publishing

WHS Book Recommendation Committee

During the 2018-2019 school year a group of students convened with concerns that the books available to them through the English Curriculum were not representative of our student body. This group of highly motivated students met once a month to discuss different books that they felt represented by or they felt would provide windows into worlds different from theirs. Over time they created a list of acclaimed books to be presented in order to add them to the English Curriculum. Six of these amazing young people presented their final list books written by authors typically marginalized out of curriculum to the Windsor Board of Education. These students from the WHS Book Recommendation Committee spoke elegantly about the need for these books so our student body could see themselves reflected in the books they are assigned.

With the support of some dedicated teachers, the English Department head, and the Head of Humanities, the Board of Education officially adopted the requested books into the eleventh and twelfth grade curriculum as of September 2019!

The Book Recommendation Committee continues to do their work to increase representation in the English Curriculum and beyond.

Books Added to the Curriculum

Books Added to Curriculum

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
ISBN: 9781481449632
Publication Date: 2016-01-19
After the suicide of his boyfriend, Henry deals with depression, a confusing family life, and a complicated new romantic relationship all while wondering if he was really abducted and told he has 144 days to decide whether to save the world or let it be destroyed forever.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
ISBN: 9781524700485
Publication Date: 2017-10-17
Julia refuses to conform to her Mexican family's expectations of her, wanting to become a writer instead of following her older sister Olga on the path of community college, part-time job, and taking care of their parents. Then, Olga dies mysteriously, and her best friend Angie hints to Julia that there may have been more to Olga than everyone thought. Julia and her best friend, Lorena, investigate, and in the meantime Julia has to figure out how to fall in love with Connor, a white boy whom she is sure could never understand her family.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
ISBN: 9780812993547
Publication Date: 2015-07-14
"For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him--most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear. What were they afraid of? ... Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings--moments when he discovered some new truth about our long, tangled history of race, whether through his myth-busting professors at Howard University, a trip to a Civil War battlefield with a rogue historian, a journey to Chicago's South Side to visit aging survivors of 20th century America's 'long war on black people,' or a visit with the mother of a beloved friend who was shot down by the police"
Rest in Power by Sybrina Fulton; Tracy Martin
ISBN: 9780812997231
Publication Date: 2017-01-31
"[A]... portrait of Trayvon Martin shares previously untold insights into the movement he inspired from the perspectives of his parents, who also describe their efforts to bring meaning to his short life through the movement's pursuit of redemption and justice"
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
ISBN: 1594134324
Publication Date: 2011-05-03
Examines the experiences of the children and husband of Henrietta Lacks, who, twenty years after her death from cervical cancer in 1951, learned doctors and researchers took cells from her cervix without consent which were used to create the immortal cell line known as the HeLa cell; provides an overview of Henrietta's life; and explores issues of experimentation on African-Americans and bioethics.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
ISBN: 9780812994520
Publication Date: 2014-10-21
The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
ISBN: 0307383415
Publication Date: 2007-01-09
President Barack Obama tells the story of his life as the son of a black African father and a white American mother, searching for a workable meaning to his life as an African American.
The House of Purple Cedar by Tim Tingle
ISBN: 1935955691
Publication Date: 2014-02-18
Skullyville, a once-thriving Choctaw community, was destroyed by land-grabbers, culminating in the arson on New Year's Eve, 1896, of New Hope Academy for Girls. Twenty Choctaw girls died, but Rose escaped.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
ISBN: 1565126807
Publication Date: 2010-02-16
Rachael, whose mother is Danish and father is an African-American, loses both her parents and is forced to move to a new city to live with her strict African-American grandmother, but when she is immersed into an African-American community, her physical appearance draws attention and Rachel struggles with her own uncertainties about her identity.
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
ISBN: 9780399588174
Publication Date: 2016-11-15
The author, comedian Trevor Noah, shares his personal journey from his birth in South Africa to his job behind a desk at "The Daily Show."
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
ISBN: 9781608196265
Publication Date: 2012-04-24
Enduring a hardscrabble existence as the children of alcoholic and absent parents, four siblings from a coastal Mississippi town prepare their meager stores for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina while struggling with such challenges as a teen pregnancy and a dying litter of prize pups.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
ISBN: 9781595581037
Publication Date: 2010-01-05
Argues that mass incarceration of African- and Latino Americans in the United States is a form of social control, and contends the civil rights community needs to become more active in protecting the rights of criminals.
The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller
ISBN: 9780062456717
Publication Date: 2017-07-11
The less he eats, the more Matt seems to have powers, the ability to see things others cannot and to tune into the thoughts in people's heads, maybe even the ability to bend time and space. He goes on a hunger strike in order to stalk Tariq and his band of bullies and find out what they did to make his sister, Maya, run away in the middle of the night.
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
ISBN: 9781935955955
Publication Date: 2014-10-14
Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy's pregnancy, her friend Sebastian's coming out, her father's meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity.