In the silence of the heart

Smith, Michael Bennett

Reflection Press

CLAIMING FACE curriculum is designed to support everyone, but especially children to engage with creativity in order to know their selves and be empowered to live their best lives. It is not about art, although art is made. It is about process. It is about life. After 15 years working with students and educators, award-winning multicultural children's book artist, author and educator, Maya Christina Gonzalez brings her CLAIMING FACE curriculum into singular focus. Through exploration of the philosophy and its development, imagination exercises and questions, resource materials for art and literacy, as well as an entire school year of self-portrait projects, Maya lays out a feast of creative involvement to support first the educator and then the student in the classroom. This is an excellent tool to support higher thinking, strong self esteem, life skills, cultural diversity, ESL education and a lifelong connection to creativity.

Claiming Face: Self-Empowerment Through Self-Portraiture

Education & Teaching

Gonzalez, Maya Christina

Schools & Teaching

The kids of the gender team are ready to show you the way, are you ready to color, learn, and play? Inside you'll find stories, pictures, games and more to encourage and remind you that you are free to be! Gender is something relevant to all of us because we all express gender. You may or may not be transgender. You may or may not know a transgender child. The truth is that doesn't matter. We are all on this planet together. Gender Now is meant to provide reflection and support unity by showing multiple genders standing together. It is a specific opportunity to create balance and awareness by including gender expressions that are under-represented in our current culture.

Gender Now Coloring Book: A Learning Adventure for Children and Adults

Maya Christina González

Teen & Young Adult

Adapted from the original Gender Now Coloring Book, this activity book brings the Gender team into the classroom with more activities and stories to guide children in learning and understanding gender and its expression. Did you know that clown fish can change their bodies from boy to girl? Or that in some countries they know there's not just boys and girls? The Bugis of Indonesia have 5 genders! Gender is something relevant to all of us because we all express gender. You may or may not be transgender. You may or may not know a transgender child. The truth is that doesn't matter. We are all on this planet together. Gender Now is meant to provide reflection and support unity by showing multiple genders standing together. It is a specific opportunity to create balance and awareness by including gender expressions that are under-represented in our current culture.

Gender Now Activity Book: School Edition

Focusing on the very big idea of peace, this small book is compact enough to carry with you wherever you go. Part story book and part guided journal, i see peace uncovers the truth about a very real and personal experience of peace and how to create it in our own lives. Award-winning children's book illustrator/author and educator, Maya Gonzalez uses simple words and even more simple ink drawings to create both a universal and intimate experience of peace. Readers are invited to not only write in the guided journal portion of the book, but to draw or color all over the book. Come play with Maya and learn that peace is often closer than we think.

i see peace

Gonzalez, Maya

Religion & Spirituality

Self-Care for Kids! This is not your usual kid’s book! This book is a call to BE, to step forward and LOVE yourself, LOVE your community, know your history and your powerful place in it and strengthen your own creative power! This book is a tool to use. I created it because I know you are an important part of our world and your strength matters. Bullying is real, but we can change the story by changing the focus. Begin with yourself. Begin the journey of art activist. You are the artist. You are the storyteller. Change yourself. Change the world! Playful ink and watercolor illustrations support a powerful journey that touches on bullying in the founding history of the US, how that history may still be impacting kids and families today, and ways to use creativity and self respect in the face of negative messages for all marginalized communities. The first part of the book briefly acknowledges the United States' past and present and shows some basic forms of activism that kids engage in. The next part talks about walking away from a bully or de-escalation and focusing on how to take care of yourself and community. Finally practical ways creativity and portraiture can be used to support self respect and spread respect in community are explored. Communities reflected include Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Chicanx, LGBTQ Americans, disabled Americans, Americans who identify as women and girls, Muslim and Sikh Americans and Asian Americans. Story text is in English and Spanish. The back includes related resources and referrals. Award-winning children’s book artist and author Maya Gonzalez draws from 20 years working with kids using her Claiming Face curriculum, to provide a place for kids to land during difficult times and counteract the impact of oppression with truth, expression and personal creative power.

When a Bully is President: Truth and Creativity for Oppressive Times (Spanish Edition)

Children's Books

History

"I cry for all of us who bear the burden of these times." Aaaaaaaaaaaooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!! One day at the river changed everything. So begins the terror from the pale ones who remake the lands and the people to suit their pale vision. But the ghost woman and her one true love conjure a plan. Will La Llorona's heart be strong enough to fulfill it? More importantly, when the time comes....will the people be ready? In times filled with terror and torment, one woman's haunting grief rises from beyond to become the people's howl in the dark. Sometimes a heartache is so great, it belongs to everyone. Sometimes a healing is so powerful it holds within it the spark to change everything....if we're ready. A queer reclamation of the classic Mexican ghost story, La Llorona, that spans the ages and the Americas (MesoAmerica 1500 to present day San Francisco) to reunite the people with their ghosts and mend what was torn apart. In her debut YA novella, award-winning children's book artist and author Maya Gonzalez takes readers on an emotional and layered journey that weaves history with love, spirit with flesh, and merges ancient myths with current political times. Powerful themes of love, pre-colonial queer identity, sacred feminine, loss and endurance course through the pages as the story gathers and flows and gathers again to support healing, negotiate deep ancestral trauma and ultimately, transformation. In a style akin to poetic prose with a potent cathartic undercurrent that lies shimmering just beneath the surface, Ma Llorona's reach doesn't end at the page. Like a river, she will flow into your dreams, call up your ghosts and have you howling in the night. "They called you La Llorona And told terrible tales But I know who you were I know the truth You are the woman As big as all the stars You are the woman As big as all the land and sea The river mirrors your face The wind carries your wail The grass and cool soil your beautiful body When I am here I am with you in total You are never alone... I know because I am the woman Who loves you forever I will count every star and say I love you A thousand times Like our last night together, my love I will tell the truth of your tale A thousand times So you remember who you once were Your name is my name now I am La Llorona I cry for you I cry for me I cry for all of us Who bear the burden of these times."

Ma Llorona: a ghost story, a love story

Historical Fiction

Sometimes you just need to color. Here’s a coloring book to love and lift yourself up; a place to relax and open up. Using your hands with your heart makes you strong. And strength is what we need for the times ahead. When the going gets tough, the creative start making art! Inspired by both playful and radical 60’s poster styles, activist/artist Maya Gonzalez offers 29 black and white images for you to play with and color. Strong women, femmes, and children, inspiring words, as well as nature imagery open the first in the Coloring the Revolution series. Remember the 3 Rules! #1 EVERYONE is an Artist. #2 There is never a right or wrong way to make art. #3 Art is ALWAYS an act of courage. Appropriate for most media. 70# paper with images printed on one side allow for watercolors, markers and other materials that bleed. Leave them in the book or rip them out and color your world with them.

Coloring the Revolution #1

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Crafts & Hobbies

“This is our world. Like many things in nature it’s round and holds everyone at the same time. This is the Gender Wheel. Like our world it’s round and holds everyone at the same time too…” In 2010 Maya introduced the Gender Wheel and the Gender Team in the Gender Now Coloring Book. It was a jammed packed coloring extravaganza exploring bodies, nature and history in relation to multiple gender identities. It also opened up the possibility of play and expansion around our still limited language of “boy” and “girl.” Now the Gender Team returns, expanded and stronger than before, inviting you on a picture book journey through the Gender Wheel. This body positive book is a powerful opportunity for a supportive adult and child to see a wide range of bodies, understand the origins of the current binary gender system, how we can learn from nature to see the truth that has always existed and revision a new story that includes room for all bodies and genders. The Gender Wheel offers a nature-based, holistic non-western framework of gender in a kid-friendly way. (Also available as a clothed School Edition.) www.genderwheel.com They She He Me: Free to Be! is a powerful companion to this book and uses pronouns as a place toexpand ideas about gender and celebrate personal expression. Together these books offer an integrated foundation to talk to kids about gender and expand our thinking as we remember that we ALL belong.

The Gender Wheel: a story about bodies and gender for every body

Science, Nature & How It Works

How do you daily confirm and celebrate gender fluidity when the 'he' and 'she' binary is so prevalent in EVERYTHING, everywhere, all the time!? Pronouns serve as a familiar starting point for kids and grown-ups to expand ideas about gender and celebrate personal expression with fun imagery that provides a place to meet and play. Award winning children’s book author and artist Maya Gonzalez is joined by her partner, Matthew, in their first children’s book together. With virtually no reflection for different gender presentations in children’s books available, together they created a book to do just that. They She He Me, Free to Be shows many gender presentations under each pronoun and invites even more. A go-to place to help keep the conversations alive, break down assumptions of who is “she” or “he” and expand beyond the binary to include “they” and more. The back offers a playful narrative about pronouns, inviting kids to know themselves inside and out, claim the pronouns that express the spirit of who they are and respect that in others. Also included is some discussion for grown-ups on how to hold a supportive space for kids (and for themselves). This book stands on its own, but it also serves as a great reference to expand gender in other books and media. They She He Me also pairs perfect with, The Gender Wheel, a story about Bodies and Gender for every body. Together these books offer a firm foundation of radical gender inclusion for parents, educators and caregivers to share with their kids.

They She He Me: Free to Be!

SG, Matthew

Education & Reference

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