Babysitting But Different
2012
The other night my girlfriend and I babysat her 6-year-old nephew, Kaleb. Now I may not have kids yet, but I know enough to be prepared.
We were armed with a book. What’s more, we were armed with an activity guide to go along with the book. It’s one of the 45 activity sets for parents (and babysitters), teachers and community volunteers that RIF has created for its Multicultural Book Collection. And it made the evening a memorable one.
Same, Same But Different is by Jenny Sue and Kostecki-Shaw and tells the story of two kids — Elliot and Kailash — who are pen pals. As you might surmise from the title, they realize they’re alike and different.
The guide helped me figure out how to talk about the book with Kaleb. It was a great conversation and one that left Kaleb with an understanding of differences that I think went deeper than he’d had — ultimately concluding life would be pretty boring without differences. And with a strict bedtime looming, Kaleb and I agreed to leave the other activities — like taste-testing with different apples and cheeses — for our next visit.
Reading will be the same but different from now on in Kaleb’s house — as his mom is going out to get more of the books in the collection and download the activities.
3 comments
Trackback & pingback
No trackback or pingback available for this article
Great post, Marcus! Readers might be interested in fact this book recently won the 2012 Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award for Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw. You can read about the author’s receipt of the award at http://us.macmillan.com/samesamebutdifferent/JennySueKosteckiShaw.
The publisher’s page as well as learning of the author’s page and more at http://us.macmillan.com/samesamebutdifferent/JennySueKosteckiShaw.
Oops, I hit send too early…SAME, SAME BUT DIFFERENT has also been named a South Asia Book Award (http://southasiabookaward.org/) winner to be presented in October of 2012 (http://southasiabookaward.org/award-ceremony/).
Great post, Marcus! I can’t wait to look at the activities. By the way, how much are your services? Do you travel?