What is Book Talks

The purpose of this chapter is to provide teacher educators with considerations on how to incorporate diverse picture book read alouds into their own education courses in an effort to promote race talk with preservice teachers (PST). The chapter begins by explaining the need for children to talk about race and the resistance of many PST engaging in these important discussions. Next, an explanation is provided of why diverse picture book read alouds may be a catalyst for preservice teachers to engage in race talk. The chapter continues with a description of the developed Race Talk Read Aloud Curricular Framework which includes a Race Talk Text Set. Eight considerations explain how the curricular framework and text set were developed with the purpose of promoting race talk with PST as they read and discussed the history of racism in the US, how it applies to ourselves, and current literacy instruction in our nation's schools.