Canadian Children's Book Week Author Visit

Join Leonarda for a fun and interactive session on anger and social and emotional learning. Leonarda will read her picturebook, Fighting Words, and prompt children to notice the consequences and impact of unfiltered explosive anger and how we can repair and learn to be accountable.

Together we will examine some misconceptions about anger, challenging the idea that anger is a negative emotion that it is wrong or bad. We will build an awareness of anger as a normal part of our human emotions/feelings, explore the intrinsic value of anger and how to share anger in ways that are respectful. What happens to our bodies when we get angry? Participants will follow along in a prompt-based activity. They will be asked to think about a time when they were angry. Did they do something that they regretted? Participants will be asked to talk, write and draw their own story about anger and strategies to manage it with care. How do we turn fighting words into community building words? By the end of the session, students will come away with the beginnings of their story, and strategies for how to manage and share their anger in respectful ways.

This workshop is great for homeschoolers and students in grades 3 and 4 (caregivers and teachers welcome)!

About Leonarda Carranza

Leonarda Carranza is the author of the award-winning picture book Abuelita & Me/Abuelita y yo (illustrated by Rafael Mayani). Abuelita & Me is the winner of a 2022 International Latino Book Award and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year. Her most recent picturebook, Fighting Words is illustrated by Erika Medina. Leonarda was born in San Salvador, El Salvador and currently resides in Brampton, Ontario, Treaty 19 part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat Nations. She holds a PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto. She is the winner of Briarpatch Magazine’s Writing in the Margins contest and Room’s 2018 short forms contest.