Books by Polly Greenberg
Please use the links below to find information about the following titles and how to order them:
- The Devil Has Slippery Shoes:
A Biased Biography of the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM), a Story of Maximum Feasible Poor Parent Participation - Oh Lord, I Wish I Was a Buzzard
- Character Development: Encouraging Self-Esteem & Discipline
- What Do I Do When My Child Won't Do As I Say?
- What Do I Do When My Children Don't Get Along?
- What Should I Do When My Child Loses Control?
Also available in conjunction with Polly's work with the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) is a 2-CD set from Smithsonian Folkways:
The Devil Has Slippery Shoes:
A Biased Biography of the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM), A Story of Maximum Feasible Poor Parent Participation (Paperback)
By Polly
Greenberg. Introduction by Sheldon H. White. Washington, DC: Youth
Policy Institute, 1990. First published in 1969 by Macmillan Publishing
Co, New York.
To order, please send $20 (includes shipping) to:
Polly Greenberg
4914 Ashby St NW
Washington, DC 20007
Synopsis: A dramatic, suspenseful documentation of a gigantic and remarkable headstart project widely believed to be one of the War on Poverty’s greatest triumphs, and a major chapter in Mississippi history.
Praise for The Devil Has Slippery Shoes:
“The Devil Has Slippery Shoes may well stand as spomething
of an ultimate epitaph not only for the War on Poverty itself,
but for the entire dream of participatory democracy as many young
people have conceived it. Although the Scene is Mississippi, the
same thing has happened in almost every area of the country. The
poor, the black, the young together build up a pogram charged
with fire and energy. In Washington, bureaucrats panic, phones
begin ringing, and the money is cut off. The poor are “exposed”
(“bad bookkeeping procedures” is the standard charge)
and then are mericifully excluded from their own program. Establishment
figures move in to redirect the program in more conventional directions:
the poor, the young, the black retirte to dreams of hate and vengeance.
I hope the book is widely read. It will trouble a lot of people
and ought to upset some men in Washington.”
—Jonathan Kozol
See more about the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM).
Oh Lord, I Wish I Was a Buzzard
By Polly
Greenberg. Illustrations by Aliki. New York: Sea Star Books, 2002.
First published in 1968 by Macmillan Publishing Co, New York.
To order, please send $6 paperback or $10 hardcover (includes shipping) to:
Gwendolyn Bradley
4309 Chesapeake St
Washington, DC 20016
Synopsis: A little girl picks cotton during the sweltering crop season. Imagining her way through the endless day, she wishes to be anyone else or anywhere else . . . a snake curved up and cool, a butterfly bouncing from blossom to blossom, a buzzard going round and round in the sky. Then at last, sunset approaches and a special treat awaits.
Based on a sharecropper’s childhood memory, this timeless story reflects everyone’s wish to escape ... and to be as free as a bird.
Praise for Oh Lord, I Wish I Was a Buzzard:
“. . . will awaken a child’s joy and delight with
reading and with books!”
—Dr. Alice Hoenig, Professor Emerita of Child Development, Syracuse University
“We urgently need stories about the lives of children in all socioeconomic and cultural groups that combine captivating language and art—as this book so delightfully does!”
—Jonah Edelman, Executive Director, Stand for Children
From the Children of the Mississippi Delta to Children
Everywhere:
In the project widely known as CDGM (Child Development Group of
Mississippi), parents, sharecroppers, and other concerned residents
of this vast rural area organized committees to act as school
boards, found and fixed buildings, and hired people (most of them
mothers of Head Start children) to teach and run 120 Head Start
centers for 12,000 children. The project provided paychecks and
learning opportunities for 1,100 extremely low-income people.
It was from this group that the goals of CDGM emerged. Since the literature available for children at the time was extremely foreign to the boys and girls in this group, the few early childhood educators and consultants involved encouraged those working in the centers to recall their own real-life everyday occurrences from childhood and tell them as stories that would delight children and bring their culture into the classroom. Some of these anecdotes were written down word-for-word—as were many of the children’s experiences. They were duplicated, made into homemade books, and given to each child as learning-to-read material. They were books of their very own to take home.
The story in Oh Lord, I Wish I Was a Buzzard is based on a childhood recollection told by Gladys Henton of Greenville, Mississippi, now deceased. In the 1960s, when this book was first published, she was amazed and excited that a simple oral narrative could e transformed into a real book, so that children of all regions—north, south, east, and west—could share in her experience.
Note to Families and Teachers:
There are still a great many children in the worls who work very
hard to help their families. Before the U.S. child labor law was
passed in 1935, large numbers of children of all races in the
United States worked as many as fourteen hours a day in factories
and other places of employment. Young readers should understand
that this story took place before their grandmothers were born.
Have a discussion withthem about what they do to help their families
today. Ask them to describe what they might want to do when they
grow up, and to share ideas about what Gladys Henton, the girl
in the book, may have done when she became an adult. Through conversations
like these, children begin thinking about the inevitability of
change and about the need for choice.
Gladys Henton grew up during a time when the mjority of African-Americans had very few choices. While adults today realize that Caucasians are rarely as wealthy as they appear in television shows and that most African-Americans do not work in cotton fields, children gather knowledge through what they experience, directly or through books and other media. In order to avoid instilling stereotypes, we need to share as many books as possible about all peoples of color in all walks of life. Fortunately, there are many good ones available; a children’s librarian or the Children’s Book Council (www.cbcbooks.org) can help you find them.
—Polly Greenberg
Character Development: Encouraging Self-Esteem & Discipline in Infants, Toddlers, & Two-Year-Olds
By Polly
Greenberg. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education
of Young Children, 1991.
Synopsis: Twelve thoughtful essays covering all aspects of curriculum, with practical problem-solving points of view, for reflective teachers, directors, and students who care about developing good people while working with our very youngest.
Praise for Character Development:
“First and foremost, this is a very important book. I have
worked extensively with family child care providers and infant-toddler
teachers, and this book addresses exactly what they need to know.
What impresses me most is how simple the author makes it. Through
the examples, based on Grandma Polly’s keen observations,
she succeeds in making her points in ways that any reader can
understand and recognize. I don’t know if anybody has ever
captured so truthfully and sympathetically what children of this
age are really like. Toddler oddities indeed! I feel that nearly
everything a teacher/caregiver of this age group needs to know
is in this book. I wouldn’t have guessed that it would be
possible. Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that many early
childhood professionals do not know how to work with children
of this age, so the book will give them a wealth of ideas. Congratulations,
NAEYC!”
—Kathy Modigliani, Wheelock Collge, coauthor of NAEYC’s Opening Your Door to Children: How to Start a Family Day Care Program
“I have read this amazing book and feel that the author has done a masterful job in pulling so many difficult concepts into a readable and understandable document. It captures the attention and seldom flags. The section on the id, the ego, and superego is great; a fine job of sketching out clearly important and often very abstract concepts. The examples are always pertinent and sometimes poignant, which makes these essays even more readable. And of course the vivid language with rich metaphors makes all this information and advice come alive.
—Nancy E. Curry, University of Pittsburgh, coauthor of NAEYC’s research monograph Beyond Self-Esteem: Developing a Genuine Sense of Human Value
What Do I Do When My Child
Won't Do As I Say?
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By Polly Greenberg. Scholastic Paperbacks: 1996. Synopsis: In this practical little book, Polly talks about how to • establish your authority; |
What Do I Do When My Children
Don't Get Along?
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By Polly Greenberg. Scholastic Paperbacks: 1996. Synopsis: Like the others in the trio, this is a short, easy to read, and very helpful book! Polly, who raised five children, mostly as a single parent beginning when the kids were seven, six, four, two, and younger than that, discusses • why siblings squabble; |
What Should I Do When My Child Loses Control?
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By Polly Greenberg. Scholastic Paperbacks: 1997. Synopsis: Nowadays, Polly is the grateful, happily participating grandmother of nearly eighteen, ranging in age from eighteen years to eighteen months. Here, Polly addresses how to • deal with tantrums and other out-of-control behaviors; |
Head Start with the Child Development Group of Mississippi, Disc 1 and Disc 2
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FA 2690CD, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Custom Compact Disc Series, 1967. The two-CD set can be ordered for $12 (includes shipping) from:
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Head Start children, their (parent) teachers, and friends of
several CDGM Head Start centers who lived in these tiny, crossroads,
Mississippi delta hamlets enthusiastically sing an array of songs.
Very homemade, rough and high spirited!
The songs on these two CDs were collected in 1965 by Polly Greenberg,
one of three founders of the Child Development Group of Mississippi
(widely known as CDGM) and its Director of Teacher Development
and Program for Children. CDGM was a network of dozens of tiny
Head Start centers, usually located in rickety frame churches
scattered across a large number of Mississippi counties. In an
effort to inspire the parents—who themselves had created
and were running these children’s centers and were serving
as teachers during the first summer that the national Head Start
program existed—to create homemade curriculum, Polly’s
visits to each center included conversations about the importance
of singing with the children. The adults always responded that
they didn’t know any children’s songs.
“Didn’t your mama used to sing to you?” Polly
would inquire.
“Oh, sure,” people would reply.
“Well those are terrific songs, you can sing those with
your kids. And don’t you sing freedom songs and church songs?”
“Oh, sure,” everyone agreed.
“And jump rope jingles and clapping games?”
“Them too?”
“Yes, yes! You can have a wonderful singing program! And
be sure to share all this with people at the other centers when
you see them.”
To facilitate this each-one-teach-one singing project, Polly took
her reel-to-reel tape recorder and recorded the teachers singing
and playing singing games with the three-to-six-year-old children
in the centers that took to the idea, and played the tapes at
centers that didn’t in order to provide models and motivation
for hundreds of other parent-teachers. Greenberg later took the
tapes to Mo Asch in New York, founder of Folkways and Asch Recordings.
He produced a boxed set of LPs called Head Start With the Child
Development Group of Mississippi. He asked Polly to write down
all the words to all the songs, which she did. They are included
here. Greenberg and her many little daughters lived in Mississippi
for two years. By the end of that time, most CDGM centers had
wonderful singing every day.
