So with all the waiting going on around here I been trying to occupy myself by preparing for our new addition. (I am sure those of you who live near us are laughing now, because you know we hardly have a moment to sit idle..but I do need something to keep my mind off the wait!) One of the ways I have done this is by adding to our children's books and toys.
At Christmas this year, I was shopping at the local Wal-Mart or Wally World as we call it in our house, and I came to a quick realization as I was strolling through the toy aisles. There were no African American dolls or other AA toys. I quickly found myself outraged. WHAT??? I thought to myself what are kids of color supposed to play with around here? I know there are other toys that they could play with, but my girls love to play with dolls that look like them. They can't be the only ones. American Girl and other companies have whole merchandise lines based around dolls that look just like the girls playing with them. So how can our Wal-Mart not have any. There isn't a huge population of African Americans in our area but there are some families here. Anyway, after I left Wal-Mart that night I got home and started digging through my girls books and toys to see what we had at home. Do you know what I found? I found three babies that had a little darker skin and maybe three or four books that had darker skinned children in them. Ugh! I was so disappointed that I hadn't paid that much attention to it before.
If we were going to bring a child from a different culture into our house I wanted them to be represented in it as well. So my mission began! Since that time I have been picking up a few toys and several books so that when our child comes home they will see themselves in the things around them, as well as things that look like the rest of the family.
And I happy to report, I was in Wal-Mart yesterday afternoon and I found a couple of African American dolls and an Asian one as well. = )
Here are a few of the books we have bought for our new addition and all of our children.
He's Got the Whole World in His Hands by Kadir Nelson
Whose Toes Are Those? by Jabari Asim
Whose Knees Are These? by Jabari Asim
Most of All Jesus Loves You! by Noel Piper
A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza
We're Different, We're the Same by Bobbi Jane Kates
~ANDREA
3 comments:
Love your book collection! We're working on that, too. And diversifying our toy collection--it is surprisingly hard, though!
~Gini :)
These are some GREAT books, great selection! We noticed that right away as well...how little diversity we HAD and how hard it was to FIND...hopefully with the adoption community growing WE can be a voice and that will begin to change.
love this Andrea! I am so needing something to occupy me a bit these days as the wait is really starting to get to me. I had found a precious little silkie soft doll at target over christmas. Had her in my cart all ready to buy, only to realize that she was white as snow! I just didn't even realize it as that is really all there is to buy.
Love the books!
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