One holiday tradition my mom always wanted to do with us but never did is celebrate Kwanzaa. She did educate me on what it is and what everything means, but we never got around to ever doing it. But now that I’m starting my own family, I wanted to do celebrate this year (even if Toddler won’t remember it lol) That way we’ll be ready to celebrate it the way we should when Toddler is bigger.
So, for 2024/2025 I decided to celebrate Kwanzaa through literature again. I’ll be listing the principles for each day along with a book that matches the principles. If you can think of other titles that match the principles, tell me, I’d love to discuss.
Day 7 is Imani. It means Faith. The process is much of the same, light the previous candles, and then light the last remaining green one until they’re all lit. The person who lights it then makes a statement about Faith. I read that it means to believe in our people and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. For this year I’m going to believe in ME. I have such a hard time doing this, but this year I’ve applied for an ALA position, and I’m going to keep saying I have it in my head until I get the results. When I know, y’all will be the first ones to know too!
The book I thought about first when thinking of having complete trust and confidence in your family and community was:
The reason I thought of this was basically everything it entailed. This book has the family of the main character passing as white to keep their family safe. This was extremely dangerous for that period of time, so I thought this was a good one for faith. They needed to trust and believe in each other and hope they could keep each other safe. And let’s be real…. This is no easy secret to keep. Definitely something that shouldn’t be looked over. I also like the way they tried to take care of their community by finding out all the information they could in that little office. They took what they found and told people and they were just teens.
What about you? What books do you think of when you think of Imani or Faith? Do you think of this one as well? Let me know in the comments!