Lubna and Pebble

I have used “Lubna and Pebble” for many years as a read aloud in Grades 1 to 3. It has always been a text I returned to for its quiet tenderness. It was through Sarah Cordova’s new book, “The Power of Picture Books in Student Identity”, that I began to teach with this story more intentionally, particularly through the lens of refugee and immigrant identity.

During book club on Friday, my Grade 3 students used this book as a mentor text to write about their own challenges. What emerged were gripping stories of coping and compassion, rooted in lived experience.

We slowed down the writing process. Students generated ideas they felt safe to explore, built characters with care, and used simple, purposeful sentences to develop their plots. A T chart helped them balance internal thinking with external actions, showing how emotion and action work together in a story. Temporal phrases supported flow and coherence.

What stayed with me was how these structures did not limit creativity. They strengthened it. With the right scaffolds in place, students wrote with honesty, courage, and empathy.

Picture books do more than teach writing. They create space for children’s stories to be heard.