Little Voices, Big Ideas

This season, we’re looking at books that inspire the minds of the future presidents in your family. Those kiddos who write carefully-crafted pleas to the Tooth Fairy. Or rally their classes around calls for longer recess. The ones who inspire the family to shirk plastic straws in the new year. Or who would really just like a healthy planet to live on, thank you very much. Theirs are the little voices with the big ideas that stand to shape our shared futures, and we are HERE it.  We close this season of ‘Little Voices, Big Ideas’ with Sofia Valdez, Future Prez. This 2019 title, written by Andrea Beatty and illustrated by David Roberts, tells the story of what one girl–”just a kid”--can accomplish through summoning the courage to speak up. In Sofia’s case, the truth that needs speaking is that a dangerous garbage pile stands to harm the town of Blue Creek. Once Sofia rallies her friends, family, and neighbors around her, a movement grows, and a park gets built where Mount Trashmore once stood. Host Sarah DeBacher is joined by fellow bookworms and co-conspirators in using picture books to change the world, Susan Larson, host of the podcast “The Reading Life”, children’s book author and public scholar, Freddie Evans, and philosophy professor and author of multiple books on teaching philosophy to the youngest among us, Thomas Wartenberg. We will also hear from 8-year-old Leah and her father, Thomas, who you may recognize from another episode, recorded back when Leah was just 5. The two of them let Sofia Valdez, Future Prez lead them–and us–through a broad range of topics on what it means to live, young and old, in a country built Of, By, and For the People. Let’s do it. Let’s go… beyond the bedtime story.

Of all the experiences we share on our unique and individual life journeys, there’s none quite as unifying as catching big feelings on the first day of school. It's a day filled with promise: New friends! Old ones! New teachers! New ‘fits! New shoes!  But it can also be a day filled with the weight of realizing you’re different. Everyone but YOU went to faraway places, had the Best Summers Ever. Your name, when you say it out loud, gets laughed at by classmates unfamiliar with its sound. At lunch, someone turns up their nose at the rice and kimchi your mom packed. And at recess, you’re not wanted on the team. As we near the closing of this season of the podcast, it felt important to include a book that takes on our country’s diversity, including the immigrant experience. After all, we are a Melting Pot, a Nation of Immigrants, a TAPESTRY of histories and cultural experiences. The Day You Begin is a great starting point to discuss our nation’s diversity–and how our differences make us stronger, both collectively and individually–while also allowing grownups and children to talk about the personal and interpersonal challenges that come with being Different, whatever our differences may be. Host Sarah DeBacher is joined in by three panelists–each with their own, unique stories: historian and children’s book author, Freddi Evans, emerging literacy scholar and writer, Kyley Pulphus, and philosopher and author of multiple books on discussing big ideas with little ones through picture books, Tom Wartenberg.  In today’s family discussions, we’ll hear from two mothers and their children–Caitlin and 7-year-old Fisher, and Shana and 6-year-old Silas.

Farmer Brown has a problem. Not only have his cows taken up… typing, but they’ve used their newfound skill to put their hooves down. The barn, they say, in typewritten notes tacked to its door, is cold. And unless Farmer Brown supplies them with some electric blankets to help them brace the herd against the biting chill? Well? No more milk.  Not one to be cowed by the threats of… cows, Farmer Brown lets the herd know it’s a no-go. But then hens cluck up, too, hatching a plan to join the cows. No blankets? No eggs. What’s a Farmer Brown to do?  ‘Little Voices, Big Ideas’ organizes itself around the idea that children’s picture books build solidarity–and allow us to have collective conversations–brothers and sisters and grownups, alike–about the big ideas that strike chords in all of our hearts. This season, the big deal of democracy. Each episode, we explore a story with themes like justice, liberty, and speaking truth to power… or, speaking MOO to power. On this episode, Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin’s Caldecott Award-winning book, Click Clack, Moo: Cows That Type. Published in 2000, this barn-raiser of a book uses anthropomorphism (that’s when non-human things, like cows, take on human characteristics, like announcing a milk-strike through type-written notes) to help the youngest among us understand labor moooovements.  Joining the herd on this episode are children’s book author and historian, Freddie Evans, philosophy professor to the youngest among us, Thomas Wartenberg, and literacy scholar and writer, Kyley Pulphus. We will also hear from 7-year-old JoJo and his uncle James, and from some familiar voices from season 1, host Sarah DeBacher’s 9- and 12-year-old sons, Charlie and Robin.  We hope you’ll join us, too! Find Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type at your local library and go with us… beyond the bedtime story.

This season, we jump headlong into the murky waters of American democracy, swimming amongst stories with themes that look at the power that the littlest voices can have to enact the biggest of changes. On today’s episode, We are Water Protectors. Written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade, this 2020 title tells the story of a young Native American girl who exercises her First Amendment right to engage in peaceful protest. It connects the symbol of a black snake to a contemporary example of collective action–the 2016 Standing Rock Sioux Tribe protests against the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline. And it acts as a rallying cry for readers to protect our shared planet. Sarah DeBacher is joined on this week’s program by fellow exercisers of free speech, Susan Larson, host of the podcast “The Reading Life”, children’s book author, Freddie Evans, and philosophy professor to the youngest among us, Thomas Warternberg. We will also hear from 9-year-old Alex and his 7-year-old sister, Harper, who, along with their mother, are members of another indigenous tribe, the United Houma nation, and who welcomed us into their home to listen as they discussed the stunningly gorgeous, and important book, We Are Water Protectors. It’s time to jump in, and go… beyond the bedtime story.

One morning in rural Alabama, Michael’s granddaddy unexpectedly dons a fancy suit. Now, Granddaddy was ordinarily a man who wore coveralls and work clothes, and it wasn’t a church day, either, so Michael knew that something really special must be happening. He put on a necktie, himself, for whatever the occasion. This was the civil rights era in the South, and the occasion, as it turned out, was voting day–the first one that Granddaddy–or anyone in Michael’s family–was allowed to vote. Michael’s teacher said that a law had just been passed making it so. But, as he soon learned, in the South of the 1960s, the journey toward racial justice was long.  It is, in fact, a journey we’re still on. On this week’s episode, Granddaddy’s Turn: A Journey to the Ballot Box. Published by Candlewick Press, this award-winning book, written by Michael S. Bandy and Eric Stein, and illustrated in vivid watercolors by James E. Ransome, was published in 2015 and shares one family’s struggle for voting rights in the civil rights era South. Today, we’ll walk with Michael and his granddaddy to the polls, exploring how this story can shine a light on an important period of American history–and on the promise of one voice, one vote, through the discussion of this book.  Host Sarah DeBacher is joined by fellow registered voters, Susan Larson, who hosts another book-loving podcast “The Reading Life”, children’s book author and public scholar, Freddie Evans and philosophy professor and author of multiple books on teaching philosophy to the youngest among us, Thomas Warternberg. We will also hear from Crystal, in conversation with her two daughters, 10 and 6-year-old Bow and Arrow, and from a grandmother, Carmen, who, along with her 8-year-old granddaughter, Alexiah, and her younger bestie, Leilani, talk about Granddaddy’s Turn.

Mr. Plumbean lives on a neat street, where all the houses are the same. That is, until a seagull drops a giant can of bright orange paint on the roof of Mr. Plumbean’s house. Will Mr. Plumbean “fix” that splot, returning his house to the ticky-tacky neatness that existed before? Or, will he do something altogether… different, changing his block, and his neighbors, forever? The second season of Little Voices, Big Ideas, kicks off with a SPLOT. Daniel Manus Pinkwater’s 1977 book, The Big Orange Splot, highlights a key tension encountered by all of us living in a shared democracy: that of individual freedom versus collective responsibility. Where does one end and the other begin? Host Sarah DeBacher, along with panelists Tom Wartenberg and Freddi Evans, discuss the book’s themes and approaches to discussing them with young people. Highlights from a conversation about The Big Orange Splot between eight-year-old Jude and his mother, Kelly, are also included. This podcast is a production of Prime Time Family Reading, a project of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and is funded by generous grants from the Community Foundation of Northwest Louisiana and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

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