Photos of Mixed Heritage Storytime!

CBBG co-presented Mixed Heritage Storytime! with Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.  This was CBBG's first program for young children and brought in over a dozen families for stories that reflect and celebrate mixed and international identity.  With the help of Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, co-owner of Greenlight, we welcomed three authors:

Selina Alko, a local Park Slope author/illustrator, and a mother of biracial children, read from her brightly illustrated, I’m Your Peanut Butter Big Brother. Her book takes a whimsical look at the process of a young child anticipating the arrival of a new sibling with a focus on the spectrum of colors, looks, and "flavors" -to use her words- within mixed families.  She brought in her original artwork from the book and talked about using paint and collage.

Sylviane Diouf, a renowned historian and Curator of Digital Collections at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, read from her one children's fiction book, Bintou’s Braids. This story, about a girl in a Senegalese village, illustrates how young people learn culture from elders. In this case, Bintou learns why little girls in Senegal have simple hairdos and she finally earns her hair decoration following an act of selfless bravery.

Toyomi Igus, formerly in publishing for UCLA’s Center for African American Studies, now a marketing and communications professional, read from her personally inspired book, Two Mrs. Gibsons.  She  explained that she wrote the book for her kids about her own Japanese mother and African American grandmother.  After the reading she showed us photos of the real Mrs. Gibsons!

All photos by Willie Davis for Brooklyn Historical Society, 2013