Interview throwback - Tandem Early Learning

This was last summer in Oakland at the Tandem Early Learning office. The cool thing about this org is that they study and encourage early literacy. They are one of many organizations nationally that do this and here in the Bay Area they go out to a bunch of school and read to kids. They also lend books to families and give them free books. So that is how a bunch of families have gotten a copy of "Furqan's First Flat Top" a book I wrote and illustrated. It was great talking with Tandem!

Support of literacy in a child's life early has been proven to help them later in school in so many ways.

Tandem-Black History Month book picks!

This is a photo of my good friend J reading to children at Tandem! J used to be an elementary school teacher and now works for Tandem which seeks to improve the reading level of children of color in the Bay Area, and its working.

So I was asked by Tandem to go through their many many books featuring all kinds of people and pull out some cool ones to share for Black History Month. I chose five books to talk about and this is one of them. Here us an excerpt from the blog post about the books. Please go to TANDEM and read the rest!

"This is just the kind of everyday life book that I love, with beautiful and technically precise illustrations. It follows a little boy and his momma as they walk, stomp, and run through their neighborhood. It is awesome to see the mother and son relationship as the mother loves her son and plays with him. It shows imagination as the boy imagines things on their path. Its not about a historical figure or a painful African American experience, it is about a day in the life and kids need to see that ease, that love, and happiness."

LINK to the other books I reviewed : http://www.tandembayarea.org/more-childrens-books-black-history-month/