Facilitating Conversations on Difficult Topics in the Classroom: Teachers' Stories of Opening Spaces Using Children's Literature. Occasional Paper Series 44

For this edition of the "Bank Street Occasional Paper Series," educators were invited to share stories from their practice: times when they utilized children's literature and conversations to address real life; the difficult topics that children experience through the mirror of their own experiences or the windows of their peers, communities, or world. These stories are the stories of educators who have tried, and sometimes stumbled, and are showing their vulnerabilities. In each story, there is profound learning from the conversations that emerge from books. In the range of stories offered in this issue, there is one commonality: teachers are responding to the challenges that students of all ages face in their lives. These include concerns about gender and sexuality, racism, death and grief, climate change, police brutality, class issues, trauma, family insecurity, and mental health challenges. The essays are arranged in pairs by age/grade levels from preschool, to early elementary, middle elementary, late elementary, middle school, high school, and college, however, every one of these authors offers thoughtful guidance to educators (and non-educators), no matter the level with which they most identify.