INNOSANTO NAGARA's new-wave board books encourage children to grow up with confidence in themselves, and to be proactive citizens who are passionate about causes from environmental issues to LGBTQ rights and civil rights. Nagara was born and raised in Indonesia, and moved to the US in 1988. After studying zoology and philosophy at UC Davis, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he worked as a graphic designer for a range of social change organizations, before founding the Design Action Collective, a worker-owned cooperative design studio in Oakland, California.
"In this powerful concept book follow-up to A Is for Activist,
Nagara tackles counting. Typical urban neighborhood pastimes are
depicted with verve and vibrant colors, including working in
community gardens and drawing with sidewalk chalk. Young readers
will have fun trying to locate an ever-present duck on each spread.
Racial and ethnic diversity is celebrated on every page, and the
lyrical text will inspire budding and longtime activists alike."
—School Library Journal
"Innosanto Nagara is writing a new kind of children's book. Besides
being a fun, rhythmic, and lively text to read, the book's
illustrations present a world of diversity and complex, inclusive
beauty. We should shower our children, schools, libraries, and our
communities with books like this one." —Julia Alvarez, author
A Wedding in Haiti: the Story of a Friendship and How the Garcia
Girls Lost Their Accents
"Meaningful change begins with doing small things at the local
level, like picking up trash on the street, helping a neighbor,
planting a community garden. Counting on Community encourages our
children to embrace the power within each of us to create the world
anew, to become SOLUTIONARIES." —Grace Lee Boggs, social
activist and author of The Next American Revolution: Sustainable
Activism for the Twenty-First Century
"At last, a counting book that will speak to all kinds of different
people, living in diverse environments! Counting on Community has
real-world content that breaks up stereotypes while
teaching." —Novella Carpenter,
author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
"Counting on Community is a meaningful introduction to early
readers about our innate power to contribute to our home,
neighborhood and the world." —Ozomatli
"Few children’s books present a world in which kids and their
families are so diverse, engaged, and vibrant. Not only is Counting
on Community an endearing and beautifully illustrated book, it
represents the best hopes and dreams for our
communities." —Bryant Terry, host of the PBS series "The
Endless Feast," and author of Afro-Vegan
"The decision to publish it as a board book could, in itself, be
considered an act of taking a stand and giving voice. This is not a
book adapted into a board book, but an intentional decision to
create a space that values our youngest readers as those who should
be invited into the conversation ... [W]hat I think Innosanto
captures so poignantly ... are the little ways of showing up:
shared meals, celebrations, making art and music, working and
playing together. Because of this, and the the style of
illustration that you describe, I am able to find my community
(which is currently the middle of a rainforest in Panama) between
these pages. These illustrations allow us to see ourselves and to
consider the ways we contribute to and are nourished by our
communities–or perhaps, the things we wish we paid more attention
to." —Dorea Kleker and Lauren Pangle, Worlds of Words
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