Guest - Malik Books

Mrs. C learns how Malik Mohammad uses his bookstore, Malik Books, to help African American/Black readers.  This episode offers great reads for children and adults who are able to understand their identities as a pathway to loving others by first loving themselves.

Resources:

Malik Books

Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall

3650 W Martin Luther King Jr Blvd Ste #245

Los Angeles, Ca 90008

(323)389-8040

Email: malikbooks@att.net

Malik Books

Westfield Culver City Mall

6000 Sepulveda Blvd Ste #2470

Culver City, Ca 90230

(858)800-1162

Email: malikbooks@att.net

Website:  www.malikbooks.com

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I'm here with Malik of Malik BookS. Hello, I’m executive director of Oak Tree View Park Windsor Hills Preschool at Slauson in Angela's Vista and here we're I mean I'm a former english teacher full disclosure. So this is like being in heaven. You know just sitting around and talking about books, and so for black history month um I didn't necessarily want to just talk about history books but I just wanted to go through some selections that you recommended. This is a great time the great moment. This month although we need it for 365. I mean if you black you, you black for 365. So your history is 365. Yeah you can't be black just like today. No, no, not at all not at all but, Malik Books this is our growth of me wanting to share what I discovered in books with our community because if it changed me i just felt that it changed others it would change other people for the better you know and so if you love yourself you love your neighbor. Yes. And so I think that collectively um if we love each other by first start loving ourselves you know I think books gotta contribute to that and I think image and how we view ourselves have a lot has a lot to do with the books that we read. Yeah, like it's interesting you talk about it in terms of self love but I look at in the preschool and and elementary school space not so much once we get to middle and high school because the assumption is that kids will have a solid sense of self-esteem but in those younger years we do this thing called Maslow's hierarchy and one of the the lowest things is like psychological security and knowing that you're okay is that knowing that and I think that's something that. People don't understand when we talk about trauma and repeated trauma is when you see people who look like you are traumatized, then you start like as a small person you internalize that so imbuing a sense of worth kind of balancing some of the scarier things that kids may hear or see because you know I try to buffer kids from some of the realities of the world not shield, not sugar coat, but make sure that we had like a little bit of a buffer so that they can get into that that psychological security without worrying, and I think books are a great way to do that. Absolutely, that remind me of this one book that just came out called Black Magic and the the the subtitle is what black leaders learned from trauma and triumph and so we all have experienced that being black. We experienced both trauma as well as triumph because uh we've overcome a lot of things and our blackness has overcome whatever adversities they were put in front of us and so we have all of us have shared experiences, um and the thing is you can overcome whatever cards you're dealing with it and that's what resilience is, and that's one thing I know about black people I know one thing for certain is that we are resilient.