Will’s Race for Home Discussion Questions
Download the Discussion Questions here.
Educator’s Guide: Will’s Race for Home
Download the Will’s Race for Home Educator’s Guide for your classroom! You will find Before, During, and After Reading activities to perform in the classroom.
Ghost Boys Banned
Jewell Parker Rhodes’ novel Ghost Boys was banned in at least one school.
The Kingsburg (CA) Elementary Charter School District removed this book from its curriculum after a parent complained about the political views expressed in the book. The novel concerns a Black boy who is killed by police while playing with a toy gun. The district removed the book without going through a reconsideration process. (Source: Marshall Libraries)
In an interview by Refinery29, Jewell spoke about her feelings over the ban:
“I was honestly shocked when Ghost Boys was banned. I spent two and a half years writing a book that educators and parents could use to discuss the differences between racism and unconscious bias. The book is about love and how children, in terms of their open-heartedness, can help rid the world of oppression, discrimination, and prejudice to become a collective group of heroes and heroines who engage in an affirmative, nonviolent change. We are failing in our job as educators and parents and adults to equip our children with the skills they need to be responsible citizens if we take away discourse around these issues. We’re saying we want our kids to grow up in a fantasy rather than to be prepared to take over and run the world. And they will run the world. They’re going to be old enough to vote, and they will be reshaping our destiny, so important conversations must be had to get them to be educated and to be a citizen in the deepest, deepest sense.
There are a lot of young writers today who are just so self-assured that they’re just going to stand up and speak. When I was a young writer, the banning would make me want to shut down. But of course, today, I can’t shut down because I tell the truth, I’m an artist, and I have a commitment to my craft and my own humanity more than anything else. If I had been a different kind of person, I would have quit, but I was born to tell stories and educate.”
Book Club Guide: Paradise on Fire
Book Club Guide: Paradise on Fire
Download the Paradise on Fire Book Club Guide for your classroom!
This guide was created by Little Brown and Company
www.littlebrownlibrary.com
New York Times review of Paradise on Fire
Click the link below to read The New York Times’ review of ‘Paradise on Fire.’
How the Paradise fire, Northridge earthquake and Hurricane Katrina inform this author’s work
In “Paradise on Fire,” an East Coast kid named Addy is spending the summer learning about nature out West. She’s in all-new terrain, but her natural ability to make and understand maps comes in handy when faced with one of the region’s greatest threats, a forest fire.
New Jewell Parker Rhodes Novel Inspired By Arizona Wildfires, Nature
The past few years have seen some of the biggest wildfires in Arizona history, and other states across the West have also been dealing with increasing wildfire activity.
It is in that context that author Jewell Parker Rhodes sets her newest young adult novel, “Paradise on Fire.” It tells the story of six kids who have little experience in nature, trying to survive a raging wildfire.
Author explains impact of 9/11 on kids in book ‘Towers Falling
For those who lived through it, September 11th, 2001 will always carry deep emotional impact. But for a whole other generation, they only know what they’ve read or been told. Jewell Parker Rhodes wanted to help push the conversation along with her book ‘Towers Falling’ which focuses on a group of 5th graders trying to fully understand what that day meant for the country.
Jewell Parker Rhodes and Towers Falling featured on CBS Sunday Morning: The Unfolding Meaning of 9/11
Young adult author Jewell Parker Rhodes said, “One of the things that I discovered is that a lot of adults were still so traumatized, are still so traumatized, by 9/11 that they don’t want to talk about it. So, in fact, when I was writing ‘Towers Falling,’ it was a very hard journey.”
Rhodes sees herself among the writers and educators finally beginning to grapple with 9/11. “If you look at 9/11 literature, we’re building a canon that you can start in elementary and all the way up, move to more increasingly complicated, well-told stories about the legacy of 9/11 and the time that we spent in Afghanistan,” she said.
Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures Acquires Jewell Parker Rhodes Novel ‘Ghost Boys’
EXCLUSIVE: Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures has acquired global rights to Ghost Boys, Jewell Parker Rhodes’ 2018 novel for young readers that weaves genres to explore what happens after a Black child is killed by a white police officer.
Ghost Boys to Become a Feature Film
Jewell Parker Rhodes’ novel Ghost Boys has been picked up to be filmed as a major motion picture.
Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures has acquired global rights to Ghost Boys, Jewell Parker Rhodes’ 2018 novel for young readers that weaves genres to explore what happens after a Black child is killed by a white police officer.
Said Rhodes, whose other middle-grade novels include the bestsellers Magic City, Paradise on Fire and Towers Falling: “I’m delighted Byron Allen’s movie division will create an inspiring feature film to empower us to be more empathetic and to ‘bear witness’ against social injustice. Protecting all children’s innocence and humanity is paramount. I’m not surprised that it was an amazing youth, Mr. Allen’s daughter, who helped advocate for Ghost Boys to become a movie. I’m thrilled and humbled to have Ghost Boys adapted and transformed to a new life.”
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