Reviewed by:
Nashally Garcia-Alvarez EDS 131/139
Patchwork by Matt de la Pena shares an uplifting message about how our stories are still being written. In his book he makes his readers the main characters. Through multiple characters the author successfully communicates the idea that one single thing does not define who we are, instead it is our lived experiences that can shape who we are and become. The author uses the word, ¨patchwork¨, metaphorically, to illustrate how our life is different bits and pieces sewed up together creating a beautiful piece of patchwork, the bits and pieces representing our experiences and feelings.
Anti-Bias Elements:
(1) Positive and Inclusive Illustrations: De la Peña and the illustrator do a great job of incorporating children of different shades of brown, black, and white. There are multiple children of color incorporated in the story and they each have their own story, rather than having just one among the white majority. Not only do the illustrations depict characters of different races, but they each have different hairstyles (curly, straight, braided), genders, and exhibit different interests.
(2) Empowers Self and Social Identities: De la Peña includes the story of the class clown, who had once used their abilities to make anyone laugh, now uses those same abilities to help anyone learn. This avoids harmful stereotypes that ‘those’ children won't ever become anything in life and helps children learn to accept themselves. De La Peña validates children's experiences and see’s endless possibilities for every character in his book, thus every child reading him book.
(3) Appeals to Young Readers: This book incorporates simple and colorful images for children. These colorful and simplistic images easily captivate children's attention. This book also includes onomatopoeia, so children are able to associate sounds to different actions, such as bored with ‘sigh-sigh’ and happiness with ‘beam-beam’.
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