Join Maya at the “Navigating the New” CLA/CSLA Conference this weekend!
Join Maya in Sacramento this weekend at the “Navigating the New: Charting the Future Together” Conference, presented by the California Library Association and the California School Library Association. In addition to Maya’s Sunday morning workshop about Claiming Face, she will also be one of the authors hosting a table at the CYRM/Beatty Award and Author Banquet on Saturday evening from 7-9pm. Come have dinner with Maya, get your books signed, and learn more about her Claiming Face curriculum. Look forward to seeing you there!
| Important Details about the Conference: | |
| Conference Location & Dates: | Friday, Nov. 12th-Monday, Nov. 15th Sacramento Convention Center 1400 J Street, Sacramento, CA |
| CYRM/Beatty Award and Author Banquet: | Saturday, Nov. 13th, 7-9pm at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento |
| Maya’s Workshop: | Sunday, Nov. 14th, 9:30am-10:30am |
More details about the conference on the conference website, plus view the Program Schedule.
Filed under CLAIMING FACE, Conferences, Events | Tags: CLAIMING FACE, conference, educators, library, presentations | Comment (0)The Blessing of a Ban
This week we celebrate Banned Books Week. Banned books are insights into a culture’s deepest fears. They speak to what we’re trying not to face, what we’re in total denial of or what we feel we must suppress to maintain and protect the current order. Clearly these books hold power. For one, a book like this has become visible enough to be a problem and two, its contents are so powerful they must be controlled. These are books to pay attention to.
I imagine one day we will look back as a planet and be impressed with how limited our thinking was during this time. 
I imagine in this future day, we will generally think many more thoughts than we do now and we will feel completely free to do so. This is a natural future to me because in my imaginary world, thought and awareness always expand.
I have a professor friend I work with in Alabama. Last year during an interview I told him I didn’t think my new coloring book, Gender Now, would be banned despite the fact that it has naked children showing multiple gender expression. He said I should be so lucky to have my book banned. I laughed. Yesyes. I should be so lucky! Lucky enough for my book to join the list of those books that in their mere existence present the great opportunity for us to expand our minds to the point of freedom.
Here’s to all the banned books, the good, the bad, the brilliant and the brave. To you I show respect by happily falling through the dark, out of my clothes and into the dough of the night kitchen! In salutation of all those who have helped expand our minds…I play. I expand. I know. I am free.
And I sing into that night…You will never imprison my mind. (Gandhi)
About Banned Books Week: Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. More at: http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/
Filed under Events, General, LGBTQI Families | Tags: acceptance, ban, courage, gender, lgbt, library | Comment (0)Listen to Maya read I Know the River Loves Me on the SF Public Library Children’s Storyline
The San Francisco Public library has partnered with Children’s Book Press to promote Hispanic Heritage Month and the Children’s Storyline. Children’s Book Press generously granted the library permission to record I Know The River Loves Me: Yo sé río me ama by Maya Christina Gonzalez in four languages. Maya recorded the English language version for their growing Storyline library.
You can listen to her read the book by Continue reading »
Filed under General, Maya in the Classroom | Tags: children, hispanic heritage month, library | Comment (0)Endings are Beginnings
Ahh…well here it is, the end of the school year. The feet are standing in summer already. School is like a memory. It was a very busy Spring up until the very end. And while the school visits are over, we are heavy into our next big project, our latest venture, Gender Now Coloring Book, but more about that later.
It’s time to remember and close the books on this last school year. May 13 we went into Paul Revere Elementary School here in San Francisco. I was asked to come visit the school by the mother of one of Zai’s close friends, Virginia, who I adore. So not only was Virginia there (they met in nursery school and became deep friends) but for the first time Zai got to come visit me “at work.” 
This made it extra special. I always tell her tales of my adventures, but I LOVED having her there in person. I always have a lot to learn from kids, but having one of my greatest teachers with me, my sweet Zai, was awesome.
The very next day Matthew and I were off to El Granada Elementary School near Half Moon Bay. I got to talk to some excellent Continue reading »
Filed under Maya in the Classroom | Tags: children, family, fun, library, presentations, school visit | Comment (0)Dancing in Half Moon Bay – Celebrating Día de los Niños
Oh the traveling about…we have been everywhere! And truly it has felt like a party everywhere we go. But everywhere there is a treat, a special prize to be had…and the Half Moon Library on April 29th, was no exception.
Beforehand, Matthew shared with me that he thought Armando Ramirez, the Librarian who invited me to the event, and I were old friends because of the way he worded his email to us. I laughed. “Nah, we’re just Mexican.” I joked, “I don’t think we’ve ever met, he just needed a favor.” I was joking, but the truth is that at times, cultural differences are clear and do bond us. It’s not that Mexicans are friends right off the bat. Of course not, life is not that simple. But there is a sentiment, a cultural aura that has been handed down to us through???eating tamales only our grandmother could have made, the bond of menudo, nature, sangre?, genes, or just culture??? Truly, it is impossible to pinpoint the heart of a Mexican. But as each race knows, there is something that is inherent to each of us. It may be tagged as a stereotype or a profile by outsiders, but there is a heart within us that remains uniquely our own, a shared navigational tool to face the reality of “westernization” through centuries of familial colonization… or possibly just this moment.
As I suspected, when I met Armando, he felt like family, a familiar fellow.
We set up for the event. We played with fantastically awesome kids who looked just like me or the kids in my books. It was good. Together, we read I Know the River Loves Me (see video below) and later Continue reading »
