Elizabeth Galicia, her 2-year-old daughter Ivy'ona and a class of preschoolers hang out in the shade near the preschool’s temporary outdoor reading experience on a recent Thursday.
"Remember how I told you about families?" Elizabeth asked Ivy'ona.
"Yes," the preschooler replied.
"Yes, and how someone like you, and someone like me, matter?" Elizabeth said.
"Matter," Ivy'ona repeated.
"Yes," Elizabeth said.
Pages from the book Every Child Matters are taped to yard signs lining a trail near Daybreak Star Preschool in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood. It's part of Seattle Public Library's StoryWalks, which highlight Indigenous history and culture.
The book at the preschool's location is about Indigenous people who were forced into residential boarding schools. It follows one person's feelings and emotions, and its main message is where the book got its title, "Every child matters."
Elizabeth works at Daybreak Star preschool. She said there's a change in kids when they have story time outside.
"You can see that they're so excited they want to run out," she said. "And then they get so surprised about: what is this? Can you tell me more? They ask those questions, they want to look at these pictures and know about why it was brought out here."
This is the fourth year Seattle Public Library has partnered with Daybreak Star preschool, a program of the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, to pick the four books. Each book will spend a week at one of four locations in Magnolia: the preschool, the Discovery Park Visitor Center, the library’s Magnolia Branch and the Magnolia Farmers Market. The other books are Drum from the Heart, Otter Doesn't Know, and Mashkiki Road.
This year the library is handing out booklets, or passports, for families to check off when they visit each location and read each book.
Lori Walsh is the preschool director at Daybreak Star. She said the passport is designed to help spark conversation about the books.
"As you're going through StoryWalk, look at your passport," Walsh said. "There are suggested questions that you can talk with your family members about to kind of enrich the story experience."
She said the books picked for the StoryWalks feature characters that reflect the preschool’s students and their families.
"We want the people to look like the people they see in their families, so they make that connection," Walsh said. "So that they can see from their prior experience that, you know, they can be represented in books and stories."
And that sentiment rang true for 2-year-old Ivy'ona. When asked what her favorite part of the StoryWalk at Daybreak Star is, she pointed to the book cover of Every Child Matters. It’s an illustration of a mother and her child.
"That's my mom. That's me," she said.
The StoryWalks will be up until August 30.
