Ditto Kids Magazine: An Anti-Racist Curriculum Guide

Navigating an anti-racist worldview with kids is at the top of the list for many parents/teachers/caregivers who are here in our Biracial Bookworms community. Those of you dedicated to including social justice with teaching kindness and empathy, you have come to the right place. Today, I want to introduce you to teacher and parent of multiracial children, Alexandria Scott. She has created an amazing curriculum resource called Ditto Kids Magazine and I can’t wait for you to learn more about how this will help you create meaningful change in your home and classroom.

Introduce yourself to our Biracial Bookworms community.

My name is Alexandria! My husband and I have three kids 5 and under. Teaching my children about the value of a wide range of stories has always been something that was important to us as parents, but through an experience that I had with my oldest daughter and a playmate, I quickly realized that I had some serious research and planning to do to teach my kids to be actively anti-racist.

I started writing out a long curriculum for my own personal use, and then thought other families might benefit from this as well and so I turned it into a magazine. 

Tell us about your mission/ goals for DITTO Kids Magazine.

The first goal is to inspire you as the caregiver, to create meaningful change in ourselves as adults and caregivers by challenging and developing the way we view ourselves and others.

Then, to develop the way we see ourselves as a people who can create and sustain an ability to change for the better throughout our lives. When we develop that in ourselves, our ability to teach and share these values and habits with the children in our lives will be tenfold.

The second goal is to with love and intention, pass this gift on to the children in our lives on their journey to becoming actively anti-racist. We firmly believe that these kiddos are the generation to make and sustain change- we just need to give them the tools!

What can we expect to see featured in the magazine? 

Ditto Kids is an 8.5 x11 matte, non-scuff, soft touch, perfect bound magazine. It is 64 pages in length and printed on certified Forest Stewardship Council paper with vegetable-based inks. 

Each issue of Ditto Kids magazine includes:

-A short section to help parents and caregivers as well. 
-A kids art section and featured “Ditto Kiddo” bio. 
-Meaningful stories, decolonized history and information shared in a beautiful way. 
-Scaffolded content to ensure that these conversations that are sometimes hard to work through are done in a specific order and pacing.
– Printable PDFs of the activities to make Ditto Kids easier to use for families of multiple kids and teachers. 
-And much more in the future! As our business grows, we have plans to expand Ditto Kids as a tool of education and restorative justice that is able to be used even more fully in our communities, schools, after-school, programs, and libraries. SO excited to share. 

How can people support Ditto Kids Magazine? 

• Head to our website, dittokidsmagazine.com, and sign up for the newsletter!

• Find us on Kickstarter HERE. You can support us there by purchasing an issue or subscription. And please, share with your network!

• Tag friends or family members that you think might be interested in bringing the magazine into their home or classroom. 

What are your top 3 must-have children’s picture books for a home library? 

Oh! I love this question!

Representation matters so very much and while I am obviously an advocate for the importance of having resources that can help children to understand racism, I believe the majority of books should feature BIPOC kids and families living their lives!

In our home, though this changes, our top favorites are “FIRST LAUGH-WELCOME BABY!” by Bo Flood and Rose Ann Tahe, “This is How we Do it: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World,” by Matt LaMothe, and since we have an early reader in our family, my kids are just in love with the Ling and Ting early readers from Grace Lin. They are such a delight.

If I could choose a fourth, I’d say, “A Whistle for Willie,” by Ezra Jack Keats. 

If you could give parents one piece of advice about reading with children. what would it be?

I’d say to get started on subject-appropriate chapter books without pictures early. We start at age 4 in our family. We live in a world that is so saturated with images. This means that children are more subject than ever to latent bias through these images.

Beautiful picture books with representation are so important and we have many! But taking the time to give your child the gift of a chance to let their imagination wander about through a story without being prompted is a gift.

And then talking about it with them is I think an important step in helping you as a parent or educator get a better sense of how your child sees the world and themselves and that includes their understanding of race, gender and ability. 

How can people get in touch with you?

Our website is dittokidsmagazine.com and you can also follow us on Instagram | Facebook. You are also welcome to email us at hello@dittokidsmagazine.com. 

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