Whether sung around a campfire, in a classroom, or on a family road trip, call and response songs, in which a leader sings a phrase and a group sings back a reply, are a wonderful interactive experience for kids! Because they are easy to learn and fun to sing, call and response songs are a wonderful way to engage children, while at the same time plant the seeds of musical sensitivity and imagination. This special book, for the first time, collects the most cherished of these songs (some in danger of being lost or forgotten), enabling your family to carry on the tradition of laughter and learning that call and response songs have inspired for generations!

Poetry. "Rob Carney is tuned to some amazing frequency--it comes from 500 North and Morton, it comes from beyond, it comes from when we were wooded slopes--but he listens and returns with these poems, thrumming with 'lifeblood,' these songs which throw down and call out (see 'Poetic Justice'), which are often rich with praise but never falsify. Sure, one might want to 'lovetalk' nature but nature will always kick our ass. It's always there, underneath us, 'with teeth.' I find this book both serious and joyful. CALL AND RESPONSE is such a good journey."--Kate Northrop

During 2020, widespread protests rooted in the call-and-response tradition of the Black community gained worldwide attention in the wake of high-profile wrongful deaths of Black people. From the founders to watershed moments, follow the activists and organizers on their journeys and discover the ways that protest has been fundamental to American democracy, eventually making meaningful change.

This comprehensive, chronological anthology of African and African American literature asserts that there is a distinctly black literary and cultural aesthetic, one that originated in the oral traditions of Africa and was kept alive during the American slavery experience. This text represents the centuries-long emergence of this aesthetic in poetry, fiction, drama, essays, speeches, sermons, criticism, journals, and the full range of song lyrics from the spiritual to rap. Produced in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution, the audio CD is a one-of-a-kind collection of many of the poems, chants, and songs included in the book.

Call Ampersand Response is a collaborative artwork made through an exchange of images via email. Between 2011 and 2017 Michael Dumontier and Micah Lexier conceived this activity as a way to share with each other their mutual interest in found images, line drawings and used books. The starting image was of a circle on a rectangle; every subsequent image was visually connected to the previous one. It was understood from the beginning that they had to use images that could be scanned from physical items they already had at home (no images from the Internet) such as children's books, personal collections of technical manuals and assorted ephemera. The call-and-response nature of the enterprise can be appreciated in the distinctive pairs of facing pages that present themselves as you go through the bound book. To reinforce their dual roles each image appears twice in the book, once as response and again as call. One can see the resulting series of images as a closed loop with no beginning and no end. This second, expanded edition includes the entire project of 196 exchanges that make up Dumontier and Lexier's clever, competitive, and meandering loop of images. Creative people in art and design will take pleasure in browsing the book and discover formal analogies, witty poetic correspondence and dadaesque follies, which congregate to an unseen visual narrative. Truly an inspirational tool for creative activists! AUTHOR: Micah Lexier is a Toronto-based artist whose activities including making, collecting and organising. He has presented over 100 solo exhibitions, participated in more than 200 group exhibitions and has produced a dozen permanent public commissions. In 2015 Lexier was honoured with a Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Michael Dumontier is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Winnipeg. His work has been exhibited internationally including in New York City, Boston, and Padova, Italy. He is known in particular for his minimal paintings and collages. He may be best known for his collaborations with Marcel Dzama, Neil Farber, and others as a founding member of The Royal Art Lodge.

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

Writer Susan Tweit and her economist-turned-sculptor husband Richard Cabe had just settled into their version of a “good life” when Richard saw thousands of birds one day—harbingers of the brain cancer that would kill him two years later. This compelling and intimate memoir chronicles their journey into the end of his life, framed by their final trip together, a 4,000-mile-long delayed honeymoon road trip. As Susan and Richard navigate the unfamiliar territory of brain cancer treatment and learn a whole new vocabulary—craniotomies, adjuvant chemotherapy, and brain geography—they also develop new routines for a mindful existence, relying on each other and their connection to nature, including the real birds Richard enjoys watching. Their determination to walk hand in hand, with open hearts, results in profound and difficult adjustments in their roles. Bless the Birds is not a sad story. It is both prayer and love song, a guide to how to thrive in a world where all we hold dear seems to be eroding, whether simple civility and respect, our health and safety, or the Earth itself. It’s an exploration of living with love in a time of dying—whether personal or global—with humor, unflinching courage, and grace. And it is an invitation to choose to live in light of what we love, rather than what we fear.