'The Realities of their World': Engaging Pre-service School Librarians with International Literature

As the idea of global citizenship grows stronger in a world with blurring borders, issues of social justice and international human rights should be available in the school library collection and alive in the curriculum. This paper reports findings on a study exploring the perceptions of preservice educators in using international literature to teach youth about international human rights. The 2013 Batchelder Honor title Son of a Gun (de Graaf, 2012), translated from the Dutch into English, tells the story of a young brother and sister forced to become child soldiers during the Liberian civil war of the 1990s. Study participants enrolled in a masters level course in the United States read the title and the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) and then participated in group literature circles to apply the DRC to Son of a Gun and discuss teaching international human rights to youth.