About

Oprah Winfrey said of  reading Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,  “For the first time, as a young black girl, my experience was validated.”  In the world of culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy, validating and affirming underserved and marginalized learners is key to building and bridging towards academic achievement. For underserved and marginalized students finding a book in which they see their lives validated and affirmed can be key to fostering engagement in the classroom, and a lifelong love of reading.   Responsive Reads is committed to shining a light on books by and about diverse cultures of people. All readers, can and should find a book that they see themselves in - authentically. 

I have been an educator for 25 years, and a secondary English teacher for 20 of them.  My passion for reaching and teaching underserved and marginalized learners began early on in my career. For the last 15 years I have been deeply dedicated to my work as a consultant, lead teacher and mentor  of culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy. During this time I have developed curriculum, conducted workshops, coached and trained 1000’s of teachers with the  Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning(CCRTL), where  Dr. Sharroky Hollie is the founder and Executive Director .  It is through my work with Dr. Hollie and CCRTL that my childhood passion for reading was reawakened.  Now, I am thrilled to be able to grow many trees from one seed;  reading for pleasure constantly, illuminating the many authors who write culturally diverse books, and helping teachers validate the experiences of their students with authentic texts. 

Please note: The majority of books that you will find on Responsive Reads are ones that are considered culturally authentic/specific, because our aim is to illuminate authentic cultural experiences, and not stereotypes and/or misrepresentations.  If any books reviewed on the site fall into the generic category(and there are many wonderful books that fall into this category), they will be identified as such.