Free To Be Me

Free To Be Me is an excellent new publication from Children’s Books Ireland. Subtitled ‘The Diversity, Inclusion and Representation Reading Guide’ it importantly fills in a gap in advice available to parents, teachers and children in Ireland.

The booklet is attractively produced. It features 140 pages of recommendations from the very youngest ages up to young adults. Among the categories you can look up in the index are Disability, Gender, Irish Language, Membership of the Travelling Community, Mental Health, Neurodiversity, Race and Ethnicity, Religion and Sexual Orientation.

Naturally there are plenty of Irish books (marked with a shamrock), but it's also an international selection. I'm about to start Patience Agbabi's The Infinite with my daughter (my review of Agbabi's very 'adult' version of The Canterbury Tales, Telling Tales, is here). In the 12-14 category (actually, for anyone) I recommend Oein de Bhairduin's When the Moon Travels, a collection of folk stories from the Traveller community and Skein Press’s first book, Melatu Uche Okorie’s This Hostel Life, which in our school we’ve used successfully for Transition Year pupils.

There are teaching resources associated with the booklet here, including the guide itself which can be downloaded. Ideally before too long a separate ‘diversity’ guide will not be needed, but for the moment this is a welcome and helpful publication.