English
All (board book)
Activism
Global Community
Collective Action
Mona Damluji & Innosanto Nagara
summary
Y’all, remember when I did the cover reveal for this book?? Well, it’s finally out in the world tomorrow! You know I’m an Innosanto Nagara stan, and his art brings Mona Damluji’s words to life in the most beautiful and powerful way possible.
One movement, sound, action is beneficial…but when we create community and work towards a common and equitable goal, this is when the magic happens. By magic, I obviously mean the dismantling of patriarchal white supremacy but ya know potato potahto…
I know I use the phrase “collective liberation” a lot (sorry, not sorry) and these are the books that will create the foundation for future generations to carry on (and succeed) in this. WE are the ones that choose to be cohesive or divided in the us vs them mentality when fighting for justice. Once we recognize that the dominant culture pits marginalized folks against each other, it becomes shockingly apparent just how much of an insidious plan is perpetually enacted to have us, the marginalized, police ourselves and each other.
Am I going too hard when talking about a board book? Absolutely not. The revolution begins with education and moves to action. What could be better than a resource that teaches how we can work together and imagine the possibilities of a brighter and more just future?
Get thee to a bookshop tomorrow and stick it onto every bookshelf you come across!
This book was kindly sent by Triangle Square and is a contender for the #Bookstagang_BestOf2021
Mona Damluji
Mona Damluji is Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her teaching, research and creative work engages underrepresented media histories and cultural studies of oil, urban space and infrastructure with a focus on the Middle East and its diasporas.
Supported by an NEH faculty fellowship, Mona’s current book project, Pipeline Cinema, is a history of how multinational petroleum companies have shaped local cultural norms and global popular imaginaries of oil and the Middle East through film and media sponsorship in the twentieth century. Her publications appear in Urban History, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, International Journal of Islamic Architecture, Subterranean Estates: the Life Worlds of Oil and Gas, Ars Orientalis, MEI Insights and Jadaliyya.
Mona is a Peabody and Emmy Award-nominated producer of the short documentary series The Secret Life of Muslims. She is a co-curator of the traveling exhibition Arab Comics: 90 Years of Popular Visual Culture and Multitudes: An Art Exhibit after #muslimban. She is the author of the children’s book Together (7 Stories Press).
Mona is a co-convener of the IHC Research Focus Group on Re-centering Energy Justice and was co-PI of the UCSB Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Energy Justice in Global Perspective for AY 2018/2019.
Innosanto Nagara
Innosanto Nagara has written and illustrated six children’s books for progressive families. A is for Activist was his first book—written originally just for his own child but became a surprise bestseller. It has now been issued also in picture book format, as well as adapted to Spanish by Martha Gonzalez as A de Activista. Where A is for Activist is about the issues, his followup board book Counting on Community is about how we live. My Night in the Planetarium was his first picture book, talking about colonialism, art, and resistance. Next he wrote The Wedding Portrait which discusses why sometimes, in the face of injustice, we break the rules. His next book was a a “highly illustrated chapter book” titled M is for Movement (aka. Humans Can’t Eat Golf Balls). His latest book is Oh, the Things We’re For!.