New book helps kids understand the disabled
TORONTO, ON—When Christian author Tim Huff asks adults how they view the marginalized, they usually give him a negative or jaded response. But when he puts the same questions to young schoolchildren, he says they invariably "have beautiful sweet answers that the adults would never give."
It is this natural compassion that Huff, director of community engagement at Toronto's StreetLevel outreach ministry, hopes to nurture in these kids through his books and in-class presentations before they get exposed to the "hard facts" of the world around them.
"The next generation coming up is just not seeing life through a compassionate lens," he says. "So if we can change the next generation who's going to make all the decisions, things would look a lot different."
Huff's latest children's book, which he also illustrated, is It's Hard Not to Stare: Helping Children Understand Disabilities. An earlier book, The Cardboard Shack Beneath the Bridge, addressed homelessness from a child's perspective. Both topics reflect Huff's own principal areas of ministry in the Greater Toronto Area over the past two decades.
"Ultimately the books are about belonging," he says. "How do we make everyone feel like they belong? The only way people ever really feel like they belong is when they're welcomed, when they're cared for, when they're cherished, all those types of things."
This book's title "acknowledges right up front what the kids are feeling. It's hard not to look at a person with disabilities," says Huff. "The conversation is, how can we look compassionately and kindly as opposed to fearfully, making assumptions of that person?"
The text is geared to children ages six to 14.
The book also has a discussion guide for adults written by Jan Fukumoto, the central coordinator of autism services for the Toronto District School Board. It explains the nature of disabilities such as cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, and autism.
"We have to have the adults understand," says Huff, "so the adult leading the discussion can know how to talk to students based on what the kids can absorb. We call it the 'trickle-up effect' where the parents are being educated through either their discussion with children or the book itself."
Huff ran his illustrations by the parents of disabled kids, people with disabilities, and teachers for their feedback before publishing them.
It's Hard Not to Stare is the second volume in StreetLevel's Compassion Series. Huff has already begun work on the next in the series, a children's book on First Nations peoples.
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