Talking Walls introduces young readers to different cultures by exploring walls around the world, showing the impact of walls on the people who build and are divided or unified by these partitions. We’ll wander into a dark cave with four French children to discover the amazing Lascaux cave paintings, and we’ll see how an Australian aboriginal boy adds the image of his own hand to a wall of paintings going back thousands of years. These stories will spark the curiosity of young readers as they learn about our world and its incredible diversity.
Margy Burns Knight has received the National Education Association’s Author-Illustrator Human & Civil Rights Award for the body of her work with Anne Sibley O'Brien (Talking Walls and other books) and the 2001 Children's Africana Book Award for Africa Is Not a Country (also illustrated by Anne Sibley O’Brien). In addition to her work as an author, presenting in hundreds of classrooms around the world, Margy is also a teacher and community volunteer. She is the Service Learning Coordinator for the Winthrop, Maine, public school system and has taught English as a Second Language to high school students from Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Jordan.
Anne Sibley O’Brien has illustrated thirty-one books, including five titles by Margy Burns Knight. She is also the author of fourteen of these books, including The Legend of Hong Kil Dong: The Robin Hood of Korea and A Path of Stars. O’Brien’s passion for global subjects was kindled by her experience of being raised bilingual and bicultural in South Korea as the daughter of medical missionaries. The mother of two grown children, she lives with her husband on an island in Maine.
The original books are still available in paperback.
Talking Walls
Paperback, $8.95, English ISBN 978-0-88448-154-6
(Spanish edition no longer available)
9.5 x 11, 40 pages, color illustrations
Talking Walls Teacher's Guide
Paperback, $9.95, ISBN 978-0-88448-106-5
Talking Walls: The Stories Continue
Paperback, $8.95, English ISBN 978-0-88448-165-2, Spanish ISBN 978-0-88448-167-6
9.5 x 11, 40 pages, color illustrations
Talking Walls: The Stories Continue Teacher's Guide
Paperback, $9.95, ISBN 978-0-88448-168-3
Teachers throughout the U.S. have been intrigued and inspired by these nationally acclaimed books. If the Talking Walls books have not been introduced to students in your classroom, we encourage you to arrange a "visit." These books and their teacher's guides are a wonderful way to spark interest in our broader world and its issues.
The Talking Walls books will help inspire classroom conversations about:
The function of walls around the globe and throughout history
The influence of architecture and design on peoples daily lives
Comparative cultural studies
Justice and injustice
Activity: An Exercise in Discussing Stereotyping and Prejudice
Adapted From: Talking Walls; the Stories Continue Teacher's Guide by Margy Burns Knight and Thomas V. Chan (Tilbury House).
Students today need to understand the concept of a stereotype and appreciate the potential damage that may occur if important decisions are made based on incorrect assumptions. Introduce the idea of stereotypes by writing the sentence fragments below on a chalkboard. Ask students to complete the sentences. Help them reflect on whether or not they have formed stereotypes and prejudices based on their assumptions about groups of people.
A) All teachers are
B) Airline pilots are
C) All rap singers are
D) The CEO from McDonald's must be
E) Single parents are
F) All male nurses are
G) All refugees must be
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