Hello.

If you read my last blog you’ll know I’m struggling at the moment to do these. My brain is struggling to write as it feels like it shouldn’t do such a normal thing I think, when things are not normal.

I follow Sho Shibuya on Instagram. Initially he began painting daily images of sunrises over the front page of the New York Times newspaper to contrast “the anxiety of the news with the serenity of the sky” during lockdown. However this has evolved, and while he continues to paint over the front covers daily - they are no longer serene. Instead they visually depict a news story that day. Reveal his feelings. His reactions. Three days ago he posted this. And I can’t get it out of my head. To drop these leaflets, ordering those on the ground to evacuate, while knowing there is nowhere to evacuate to is just another layer of cruelty, of evilness, in this genocide. The visual and the horror have not left my thoughts.

Then the news of Charlie Kirk. Sometimes this strange thing happens to me when I read/hear certain news stories. I have this image of a future history textbook, asking questions like Describe the events that led to the outbreak of Civil War in 2025. Maybe that’s a way to distance myself from the news. To distance myself from a reality that is becoming increasingly difficult to cope with. I’m never sure if this history book I see is surrounded by any positive future place or not. I was shocked the next day to hear how many of my students were oh so very knowledgeable about Charlie Kirk. Some of them would struggle to name our First Minister or the Prime Minister but they knew who Charlie Kirk was. The media I consume as an elderly millennial and the media teens consume are at such odds. I had no idea the reach he had on this side of the Atlantic. I was born in the USA, my dad was from Chicago, I lived there till I was 5. I love that city. I have close family still living there. And I weep because I don’t want to return to this city I love right now. I don’t want to take my kids to this city I love right now. Or when? My Dad, growing up in the south side of Chicago before moving out to the leafy suburbs would be turning in his grave. I hear from my family, they tell me the human stories of Trump’s “clean up”. His declaration that Chicago would find out why he had rebranded the Pentagon to the Department of War. What is this world?

To top off this week, areas near me seem to have all of a sudden become very patriotic! I feel full of rage as well as sadness that far right racists are trying to claim this flag as theirs. To represent an anti immigration rhetoric. To represent a fearful, angry, isolated nation that doesn’t welcome anyone that has been “othered” or blamed for our society’s ills by a group of wealthy, narcissistic, not-going-to-be-impacted-by-any-of-the-fire-they’re-igniting-believe-me individuals. Don’t they know our flag represents a football team we continue to love and support like masochists with short term memory problems? (I make light at times of emotional overwhelm!) Thankfully Refuweegee is there to give me a wee dose of hope.

“Refuweegee is a community-led charity that gives people a way to welcome and embrace those newest to arrive. We strive to ensure that people who have been forced to flee their homes arrive in Scotland to a warm welcome and some of the things that will help them to feel more at home here”

If you are able please visit their site and donate money or your time or share their posts or follow their page. They do amazing work.

So to finish this fairly disjointed ramble of my current headspace here’s a wee list of books that seem pertinent for today. All up on our site. Read and learn with your children. It’s somehow become almost a radical act of defiance!!

We Are Not Strangers by Josh Tuininga (12+)
The Home we Make by Maham Khwaja and illustrated by Daby Zainab Faidhi (6+)
This is Not a Small Voice: Poems by Black Poets selected by Traci N Todd and illustrated by Jade Orlando (7+)
We Are Palestinian: A Celebration of Culture and Tradition by Reem Kassis & illustrated by Noha Eilouti (7+)
Illegal by Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin and illustrated by Giovanni Rigano (9+)
The Bicycle by Patricia McCormick, Mevan Babakar and illustrated by Yas Imamura (5+)
We Are Here by Kate Rafiq (6+)