English language learners helping teacher Leah Kitamura recommends Your Name is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow to kick off #FridayReads for the 2024-25 school year.
I recommend Your Name is a Song for the beginning of the school year because it teaches us the importance of learning how to say each other’s names respectfully. Our names are meaningful because they connect us to our identities, families and cultures.
The main character, Kora-Jalimuso, comes home from her first day of school very upset that her teacher could not pronounce her name. Her mother encourages her to sing her name and to teach everyone that names are songs. When she returns to school the next day, Kora-Jalimuso gathers her courage and sings her teacher’s name in front of the class in her lovely tone and voice, encouraging everyone to hear their names as songs, including her own.
All the names in the book are written out phonetically on the pages to help readers pronounce them. The author, Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, has also uploaded a video pronouncing the different names in the book.
Your Name is a Song is available in most SD42 libraries. It’s also available as an audiobook on Sora.
