Grandma's Farm

The book's content describes the child Cathy who lives with her grandmother and follows her to get to the cassava farm to dig cassava. It gives snippets of another culture's signature food, a dialect spoken there, and animals from that area. It shows an overall bond and relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter.

As part of language development and appreciation, books, and stories introduced in a child's environment can encourage children to develop a love for language and reading. This idea was a learned concept via the author's Montessori educational training to be an AMI certified lead guide. The trainers encourage the guides to have books of different cultures and genres, which can be alternated for children to use as needed. The books should expose children to the stories, both the ones we tell and read. For reading choices, the images of the book should stimulate conversation and generate ideas. Grandma's Farm does this and more. The book is a culturally specific one that highlights aspects of the Liberian culture through the author's lens.  Post-training, the author discovered limited, culturally specific texts that make it to the shelves of the environments we serve. Hence the idea of creating a series of writing from childhood experiences from her country of birth prompted this vision. 

Catherine B. Kennedy is a Liberian born who is a current resident of Minnesota. She moved to the USA in 2002 to reunite with her family post the war in Liberia, West Africa. In 2016 she was a recipient of the Women United Scholarship through the Montessori Training Center of Minnesota, which aimed to get women of color integrated into the Montessori Educational systems in Minnesota. Through this transformational opportunity, she reawakens to her creative energies and a renewed purpose for existing in life. She uses her creativity to support the environment she serves. In her current role as an assistant guide working with children ages 3-6, she has identified the need to have more culturally specific books that reflect stories from other cultures and the children represented in various Minnesota Montessori organizations. Starting this initiative, she has begun a series of storybooks from childhood experiences living with her grandmother and other family members in Liberia, West Africa. Like Grandma’s Farm, these books are culturally specific stories that share positive aspects of the Liberian culture, the food, animals, and more to create more diversity and inclusion in the books and information shared in the classroom. The book is primarily a stepping stone to raise funds to push the idea of bringing Montessori Education to Liberia, West Africa. Funds generated will also support opportunities to help individuals pursue an AMI diploma through the Montessori Center of Minnesota. The funds will also support outreach programs through the Montessori Center of Minnesota to serve all children and cultures through a collaboration to bring genuine and authentic education to their communities. The funds will create scholarship opportunities for children here in the USA and Africa. Finally, the funds will go towards creating more books in this series. Montessori Education needs to expand to all parts of the world because it is a vital hands-on approach to learning that supports both the intellectual and functional capacities of a child in their developmental stages. It is a method that supports children's individual choices in learning as they discover impressions of the world by exploring the materials beautifully designed and prepared for them.