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Kid Size Servings of Black History! by Tamicia Currie
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Rated "G" by the Author.
When it comes to history lessons, forget about an "all you can eat" buffet. In this case, stick to the Kid Size portions for a quick filler!
Karina Bland
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 18, 2008 12:00 AM
In a case of art imitating life, the characters in Ahwatukee mom Tamicia Currie's book, Peanut Butter & Sweet Potato Pie, learn about Black history from their grandfather.
Currie's real-life children, 5-year-old Ashiana, 2-year-old Myseth and even Meilon, just 6 months old, hear stories about their African-American heritage from their grandfather, Charles Currie.
"These stories are so fascinating that they're worth keeping alive," she says. advertisement
Currie is sitting on a small table in the children's section of Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Chandler Fashion Center, sipping a frappuccino and talking about what brought her to start a series of books about notable African-Americans.
Taking Ashiana to school one day, Currie saw a little Black girl carrying a backpack bearing the image of a fair-skinned Disney princess. She said she thought, "The girl on her backpack doesn't really represent her." The child might really like Cinderella, but Currie figured that she should have a wider choice of characters.
Currie previously had noticed a lack of Black characters in children's books. Most children's books about African-Americans were limited to slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. or civil-rights advocate Rosa Parks. So Currie, a 32-year-old businesswoman who had started her own company, Asiana Media, in 2006, decided to publish a book.
In Peanut Butter & Sweet Potato Pie, Papa Juice tells his grandchildren, Rhonda Berrie, and her brother, DJ, about George Washington Carver, an African-American botanical researcher and educator who taught former slaves self-sufficient farming techniques.
"He taught them to see the value in others and to refrain from looking up to the rich and down on the poor," Papa Juice tells the children as a sweet-potato pie bakes in the oven. "He said telling the truth is a sign of bravery."
Carver, who worked in the agricultural extension at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, advocated for growing alternatives to cotton, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, that would not deplete the soil.
Currie wanted to portray a positive relationship between children and a grandparent because so many families are scattered and children don't get the chance to gain from their wisdom.
"There are some things you can only learn with age," she said.
She thinks that children should be able to find in books role models who look like them, rather than having to find them predominantly in sports and the music industry.
"African-Americans did other things. We read. We invent," Currie said.
She wants all children to learn from her books. Her subjects should be admired for what they accomplished, not the color of their skin, she says.
In the book, Papa Juice tells the children that knowing your history is as important as knowing your name: "When you know your name, then you know who you are. When you know your history, then you know where you come from."
Currie's next book, V-O-T-E!, about the importance of having a say in the electoral process, is due out in March.
The books cost $4.99 and are available at www.thejuiceandberries.com.
The familiar lament of dual-career parents raising children is, "I just can't do it all." The Libra Solution provides an alternative - a more satisfying and sustainable work and life approach - to the overwrought modern day norm.
Let this coming of age story of a boy named Bean take you back to a simple time. Set in a small southern town in the 1960's, encircled by a river and gleaming white cotton fields.
