This event will be presented virtually. Use the link below to log in from your computer, phone, or tablet for this engaging event. Participants’ cameras and microphones will be disabled during the speaker’s presentation and slideshow. Questions may be submitted ahead of time to Gilda Ross, Glenbard District 87 student and community projects coordinator, at [email protected].
The link to join the webinar is https://www.cod.edu/GPS
Note: The event will not be recorded, please tune in “live”
The Glenbard Parent Series has selected the electrifying Long Way Down as its first semester Community-Wide Read. GPS will host the book’s author and the 2020-21 Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jason Reynolds.
Long Way Down, written in free verse, is told from the perspective of a teenage boy mourning the death of his brother and contemplating revenge. The novel is set during the sixty seconds it takes the boy to ride the elevator down from his apartment. At each floor along the way, he encounters family and friends destroyed by gun violence. Each has advice for him as he struggles with the burden of revenge and grapples with a life-altering dilemma: to kill his brother’s murderer or not.
Jason Reynolds will also discuss his criticality acclaimed non- fiction exploration of racism and antiracism, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You. This remix of Kendi’s book Stamped From the Beginning similarly traces the origins of anti-black and racist ideas as well as proposes tools for identifying and combating them- all approachable for a younger audience. Reynolds writes, “This is a book about the here and now”. The book is number one on the NY TImes Bestseller List from the most in-demand youg adult author in the U.S.
Jason Reynolds is a number one New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors. Among his 14 books are Ghost, All American Boys, and Long Way Down–which was a recent Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner. The Chicago Tribune says books by Jason Reynolds are among the “best to lure kids from screens during the coronavirus lockdown.”
Printable flyer for this event with Jason Reynolds HERE (PDF)
CBS This Morning Teaching kids about the complicated history of racism Mar 10, 2020 (YouTube)
Stamped: Rasicm, Antiracism and You free educator guide here (PDF)
