Exploring Critical Literacy In Daddy's Roommate

Hello, I am Clare Wing, your student’s 2nd grade teacher. In recent days it has been brought to my attention that a book we’ve read as a class, Daddy’s Roommate by: Michael Willhoite, has raised questions and even provoked anger and outrage.
Daddy’s Roommate is a text about diversity, family, and inclusiveness. As an educator, I believe it’s my job to ensure students are exposed to complex and even unknown family makeups they may see and experience in the world someday. However, I completely understand how the topics covered in this text would make a parent or guardian uncomfortable. I want to reassure you, that as we read through this award-winning novel, I continue to tread lightly in the topics covered and engage in meaningful conversation.
Moving forward, I invite you to read the book with me and talk through some of the personal issues you might have with the book. I also invite you to read some of the research I’ve used when coming to the decision on including texts like Daddy’s Roommate in my classroom. I want to be in partnership with you and I think talking about the hard issues is important to keeping a strong partnership.
This text identifies criteria a book needs to meet in order to be considered critical literature. I believe Daddy’s Roommate meets at least two points of criteria that would make it a critical literacy text. Critical literature is important to include in my classroom because students need exposure to diversity in order to work towards complete inclusive and