SuitabookWe Can!
Alexandra Strick
- Reading
- Read it together, pausing to examine the children’s plans and illustration details. Choose one idea to explore as a family, while distinguishing the book’s hopeful proposals from promises about what will happen.
- Themes
- Children’s agency and collective action: Children’s answers shape the book, and 15 children plan a We Can festival containing ideas for improving the world. Children’s participation is presented as meaningful and capable of contributing to kinder, greener and safer communities.
- Inclusion and disability representation: Disabled children contributed to the project, and the illustrations include details requested by children, including a wheelchair-user on a swing. The book presents inclusion as part of the world children want and gives disabled children a stated role in shaping representation.
- Worth knowing
- Some families may want to discuss whether the proposed changes feel achievable, who gets heard when communities plan together, and how inclusion is shown rather than assumed. The book’s full range of suggestions is not detailed.