Article Annotated Bibliographies

Gilmore, Deanna Peterschick, and Kari Bell. "We Are Family: Using Diverse Family Structure Literature with Children." Reading Horizons. 46.4 (2006): 279-299.
Gilmore and Bell offer great insight to librarians, teachers, and parents on the importance of representing diverse family structures to children. They offer many different types of families, showing the differences between them as well as the similarities among them. There are lists of recommended titles with reasons behind what makes those titles accurate and acceptable for children. They argue that the importance of having these stories told is for the children’s confidence and feeling of acceptance. By offering reasoning to back up their recommendations, the authors turn an otherwise lengthy article into a worthwhile read for educators.

Schimmel, Nancy, and Susan Love. "Books on Adoption for Young Children: Looking at Language." School Library Journal. 43.7 (1997): 32-33.
Adoption is pushed to the forefront in this article, hammering home many important ideas that authors need to be weary of—as well as readers when selecting literature for their libraries, classrooms, or homes. It gives thoughts and feelings of many adoptees, particularly those that may be incorrect. Schimmel and Love address misconceptions of many children that may arise from certain verbiage used in literature that has been used in the past. They also touch on different types of adoption, showing that even within this realm of literature there are yet more subsets that need to be touched on. This article helped my findings by providing me with a better understanding of what a good book on adoption looks like—using language cues.