Relatable story
While framed as a story about the immigrant experience, K'naan believes newcomers and citizens alike will find the story relatable.
"The implications are similar," he said. "One of them is for relating to and the other is for understanding; and so I wanted to contextualize the immigrant experience for children so that it doesn't seem like it's some 'other.'
The idea of an immigrant to a child, it can seem like its own universe where 'That's what those people are.
I love what K'naan is saying here. Some of the kids will hear this story and relate to it. Others students will have no experience with immigrating and hearing stories like this will help them realize some of the hardships that their peers have encountered. We tend to shield kids, keep them in a little protective bubble. Our children don't need to be so bubble wrapped. In fact, the opposite is true. Our kids live in a global, digital world. They will see more in a week than we have seen in a lifetime. Parents will share news from all over the world. Think: internet, youtube, snapchat, twitter, vines, facebook, and more. Kids are more connected than we know. As adults it is our responsibility to help kids make sense of the world, have a critical eye, and most importantly - have empathy.
"No one is inherently such; and immigrants have had their own language and their own family, and they were loved by their own grandparents. These are things, I think, that for a child need contextualizing."
K'naan has a great point. It is not like people are really from somewhere else, we are all just citizens of earth. We all have a family and are loved. We have more in common that we could ever list. CBC article about the book
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