Last week we received a number of new books purchased by the Vancouver School Board for all school libraries. These books represent a diverse array of voices and perspectives, and are part of a district-wide effort to decolonize our library collections.

A small selection of from the district bulk buy – the rest are checked out!

This week in the library we’ve been reading one of our new books, Greetings Leroy by Itah Sadu.
Itah is an author and bookseller based out of Toronto, Ontario and shares stories from the Caribbean, Africa and Canada. This is a story about Roy writing a letter to his friend Leroy in Jamaica. Roy has recently moved from Jamaica to Canada and shares the story of his first day of school in Canada. He also shares his love of musician Bob Marley, and the pride he feels knowing that they both come from Jamaica.

After reading the story we learned about where Jamaica is, and listened to the song “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley and discussed the way the music made us feel (calm, happy, sleepy, and like we wanted to sing along!)