At Rex Rennert Elementary School in Robeson County, 54% of the student body is of Hispanic origin. However, when Carlos Naranjo, the school's English as a Second Language (ESL/ML) teacher, reviewed the school library catalog, he discovered a revealing statistic: only 10% of the books reflected the culture or experiences of the Latino community.
To close that representation gap, Naranjo promoted the creation of a series of multilingual children's books that turn the real experiences of migrant children into reading tools.
“The goal is for children to have their voices heard and to see their voices and stories recognized […] their voice is important, their story is important, and they should feel proud of the path they have traveled,” Naranjo told Enlace Latino NC.
With this, the project also seeks to build bridges of empathy between the diverse school community.
There are five books in total, each of which explores a different story: “Maribel and David’s Incredible School Trip”, “Victor’s Three Languages”, “Daniela’s Lemon Tree Classroom”, “Ingrid’s Long Journey to Her Mom” and “The Empty Rooms”.
According to Naranjo, the book series was first used at the migrant summer school in June 2026 with about 70 children, and was officially launched on September 30, 2026, at the Rex Rennert School library. However, the project had been in development for some time.
It all started as a classroom project
The project, which began in late 2025 as a classroom initiative led by Naranjo and María Parra, another teacher at Rex Rennert Elementary School, aimed to help their English as a Second Language (ESL) students develop their writing skills. To this end, the students wrote stories about their arrival in the United States, the traditions of their hometowns, and various aspects of their new lives.
According to Naranjo, they worked with 31 "newly arrived" students, that is, those who had been in the United States for less than 3 years and were in grades one through five.
The first result was the book “Small Memories, Big Hearts”, published through the platform Studentreasures, an educational publisher that offers kits to create classroom books written by the students themselves, and illustrated by the school's art teacher.
The book was not sold in libraries, but some teachers obtained copies to understand children's migration experiences.
“From that point on, I had the idea of not just leaving this project there, because I saw that I had a great impact, and I decided to adapt three of the stories that were there with the children,” Naranjo explained.
This is how her book series was born, in which she adapted three stories from her students, changing their names to protect their identity, and included two real stories of children from her native country, Colombia.
“Listening to the children’s stories and many things they went through was an interesting process for them, but also for me, to discover everything they experience, and I didn’t want that to just stay as in that [classroom] project,” Naranjo said.
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From personal experiences to tools for learning English
To ensure that the stories worked as true learning tools, Naranjo adapted the text with students in mind who were just beginning their English literacy.
“While the content of the books tells their story, it has been adapted to be friendly for children learning a second language and beginning readers. Therefore, these books contain basic words and vocabulary that allow them to approach reading,” Naranjo said.
Instead of using complex structures, he wrote the stories with accessible, simple, and easy-to-decode vocabulary, incorporating fundamental linguistic patterns such as CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words, as well as sight words and high-frequency words.
This linguistic adaptation, according to the professor, allows both novice readers and second language learners to approach the texts without frustration, practicing active reading while identifying with the characters.
Beyond reading: books to build bridges of empathy between cultures
The project, however, goes beyond teaching reading in the classroom. According to Naranjo, the books offer Native American children and children of other backgrounds the opportunity to understand the experiences of their migrant peers.
“It can give them feedback and open their minds about the realities of other children sitting right next to them, and that those children […] bring a life story with them, they bring a culture, they bring a language, and that they are no different from them,” Naranjo explained.
The professor also clarified that the stories avoid discussions about immigration laws or partisan political stances. Rather, they focus on human effort, family strength, and the courage of children to overcome the challenges of the immigration process.
“The books don’t focus on immigration laws at any point. They don’t contain any political criticism of any political party or anyone in power. Rather, they aim to share the stories of Hispanic children,” he added.
By highlighting the culture, language, and roots of newcomers, Naranjo's initiative aims to demonstrate that diverse families share more in common than differences.
A little bit about the main stories
Stories from Colombia:
- Maribel and David, characters from “The Incredible School Trip of Maribel and David”: The book tells the story of two children from a rural area of Colombia who cross a canyon daily on a zip line to go to school and avoid a two-hour walk.
- Daniela, a character from “Daniela’s Lemon Tree Classroom”: The story takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a father discovers an internet signal in the top of a tree, allowing his daughter to study during lockdown, and builds her a desk at the top of the tree.
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Stories of Hispanic migrant students:
- Victor, a character in “Victor’s Three Languages”: The book tells the story of a fifth-grade student originally from Guerrero, Mexico. His native language is Nahuatl; in Mexico he learned Spanish, and upon emigrating to the United States, he had to begin learning English.
- Lucía, a character in “The Empty Rooms”: She narrates the emotional losses during the migration process, her mother’s journey to the United States and the time she spent detained in a border detention center after being separated from her grandmother.
- Ingrid, a character from "Ingrid's Long Journey to Her Mother": She recounts her experiences crossing the border and staying in shelters before her family reunion in the United States.
In addition to already being present in the classrooms of his elementary school, Naranjo said that the Robeson school district is in the process of acquiring the series for its ESL (English as a Second Language) and migrant education programs.
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