surely have been the resegregation of a lot of public schools, among socioeconomic lines. do you think we should be working in light of historical data, working towards reversing the trend of desegregation or even more than addressing? >> sure, there is a great of literature that demonstrates the concentration of poverty, undermine educational achievement. the literature strikes me as very persuasive and bus for that reason i take it is important to try to break up those concentration of poverty.

now, having said that and i will also add that i think it's important. i value racial diversity. i think it's important for a number of reasons. plus, i would endorse as a general matter both race-based integration and ncs-based integration in school. now having said that, i do think we've learned better and worse ways to try to engage in those kind of reform and it strikes me that one of the lessons that this history is back, you know, there are many different communities in those communities should have the ability to

choose their approaches to education. that, for some students and integrated education may be valuable and they might not mind some of the social inconvenience discomfort that comes along with that as they are integrating into an overwhelmingly white environment. for other students that's going to be harmful and harmful to their education and us i think and this is my bottom line, i would hope that increasingly we could consider some kind of approach to breaking out those concentrations of poverty and integrating schools that focuses

on choice. i made choices than publix will system, which is different from that of shares and other kinds of programs, although i am not saying that i am opposed to that. but what that looks like in practice, i'm not exactly sure. other questions? [inaudible] [inaudible] >> right, that is a good question. one thing i will say is that

there have been cases in the state courts where change has been made along the line that you suggest. so federal constitutional law. states may constitutional law as well. and you know, i can only answer your question that it depends again on how programs are implemented and designed. it really does. this may not be a satisfactory answer, but i do think that's the answer. any other questions? very good. well, thank you so much for coming. this is in a thrill for me.

thank you. >> this is where it really gets interesting. one of the individuals who was a slave to washington with a minimum a damone judge. when he was a young woman, probably early to mid 20s who must be enslaved to washington. she helped address her, did, household and work. then she found out somewhere in 1795, 1796 was played to give her away as a gift for the

wedding of one of her relatives. now with this fact was that whatever problems the washington said they they you'd be free when i die, which was going to be out the door. and so she began to make our plans to get out the door. and so one night in the living room watching dinner went out the door. can see them calling her. where's the food bikes where shia? she was with the black community there. other personal possessions and then she vanished. now as it turned out, accidentally she discovered new hampshire. washington found out through the complete accident.

and so they decided to go after him because even though as president of the united states and someone who declared himself anti-slavery, you would've thought he would have said she's gone. i'm representing the country. let it go. they wouldn't let it go. and so they went after it. initially they were embarrassed that they try to do it is a envoy to with her and said that i'd say if you come back, then bulwark it out and eventually were let you free. they said i'm free now. and so, i don't really see the point of this discussion. i'm not going back. so that program failed. then washington decided, well, last name if you go and figure out a way to bring her back. she was born in the tables to

get away and washington's matter what back in slavery. in fact she lives she became active in her community and even though she never went back and is lavery, on the rest of our lives give the last at the time. inc. about it. this is a young woman who basically challenges the most powerful person in the country. this is not just some small farmer. but she's so driven by her own desire for her id., not to mention she writes about and we'll talk about the inspiration from the haitian revolution and whether you illiterate every

single slave in the country knew about the haitian revolution was also the haitian revolution. so think about it, the people who risk needs to jefferson as the president, they were there at every moment in the discussion and debate about american democracy, principles of the country were having it. they have more of an ear and more than access to those discussion, scholars, people writing about government at the time. so how could they not be influenced? how could they not understand this kind of victory is much more profoundly than anybody else out there? now, most of them didn't have the opportunity. take it away, but she did. she said i will risk it all. washington really wanted to punish her, send her down somewhere.

that could've been really, really horrible. she said i've got to go. >> you can watch this and other programs online at otd.org. up next on booktv, president obama sister research children spoke to a group of kids in washington d.c. her book latter to the moon was inspired by her wish that her late mother had lived to meet her grandchild. >> remains one and all. on behalf of our chief labor income and jenny cooper, welcome to the d.c. public library. my name is wendy lou carter. i buy the children and teens books for the library system. i am thrilled to have a special children's author with us tonight. let me tell you how thrilled. not only is my site tarot and

amazing person who has written a book you're sure to love, but this moment is often sweeter due to the look of an district administrative obstacles that threaten to derail peace efforts during the last eight months of planning. we nearly had to concede defeat and cancel the program when told last thursday was a felony to work or even volunteer our time the government said town. happily this settlement was averted. if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. [applause] before introduce our guest, the two highlights and individuals and share a few details to help the evening goes legally. a huge thanks to branch manager nicholas correll tack and his tireless staff for all their energy in preparing for this i peered i am grateful to my

colleagues in the communication department, particularly to a mix of homes, mark festa coutu seems to know just who to call for any problem. the cool collector george williamson are talented expert, eric white and mary smith. we couldn't have posted this about her wonderful security folks, officer mickens and sergeant wallace and all the light earnings research on countless details. a shout out to the branch for preparing their milk and customize cookies and to politics & prose for handling book sales. i'd like to extend deep thanks to candlewood christ for hosting a reception and a warm welcome to president and publisher karen lutz and director of publicity, jennifer roberts. that brings me to the order of events tonight. after maya shares are both, she will proceed upstairs to the attila referenced as in the building, where she will sign your book. while she is having a tear, we

will grapple a signed print from her book, curtis he can do what price. during and after the rasul, we're asking you to stay where you are until maya is settled upstairs and we will release you by section. winter section is called coming to have three options. you can head to the back of this corner to purchase a book if you have a cat where you can take the steps are the elevator up to the signing archer refreshments in the program room. your cooperation with being released by sections is greatly appreciated so everyone is safe and secure. now a few words of introduction. maia is the author of a brand-new book called the sub one. the luminous illustrations are by a word ridiculous traitor comes using our allies. you children are in for a treat because you are among the very first children in the whole

country to hear this book. like you, my used to be a student. she grew up and went to school in three different islands, java, hawaii and manhattan. so i think she must know some thing about water, volcanoes and making new friends. perhaps it's not surprising she earned an m.a. in secondary language studies at nyu and a phd in international comparative education at the university of hawaii. my went on to become a teacher, instructing high school and college students in hawaii and working on alternative middle-school in new york. our guest is also a sister. she has several siblings, but there's one in particular you may have heard of. do you know who her brother as clerics >> barack obama!

>> that's right. okay. that was exciting. maya is also a wife and mother. she and condit had two girls in the payload and 50 to hear it although i'm sure she is a werewolf, i will end with her very first one, that of daughter. her book is one way they she shares her daughter's emotions with their children and now with you. these join me in welcoming, maya sottora. [applause] the mac thank you. good, good.

he said barack obama by the way? that was very powerful. powerful voice. you have a big voice and you know how to use it. so i'm going to read the book a little bit tu for some of it and then we can open up for some conversation and questions. so you guys be thinking of questions that you have, okay? one cool new evening, sue hille asked her mama, while his while his grandma and the like? she was like the moon her mother replied, full soft and curious. your grandma would wrap her arms around the whole world if she could mama gave you a hug. you have green danny's hand she

said. what did you guys get from your parents or your cream. anything quite [inaudible] your eyelashes are very lovely. eyelashes are big. young man. what a great answer. there's two kinds of presidents. that's why such a gradient there. there is a presence that she did, the things that you get an unfair presence as an attitude and point of view and i can tell you have those. later, she may in her pajamas, and the light coming through her open window and she looked at

her hands, front, side and back and wondered what else had she gotten from her grandma? as the night deepened and crickets grew loud, she wondered and waited for it seems some team is about to happen. penicillin answer to her wondering, a golden ladder. at the edge of the sale ending adventure begins. bear right on the lowest rung study her grandmother. sue hille has dimples. she says you want an adventure by temple child? she nods and tosses herself that it had like a tumbleweed and up fake out. the golden ladder to the man. grandma annie jumped first because she wants to get bigger

and bigger, bigger than the biggest moon crater so she will have a soft place to land. and then they cuddle and talk and smile at one another and they get to know each other. and grandma and he takes the sugar. they look back on earth and see that there are people in need of help. a 50-foot wave was sleeping in the ocean to the land into swirling waters of towards the surface. picard she encouraged them, slim, tilting her head towards her granddaughter she asked, shall invite them to join us,

little one? may we clerics she responded, we have lots of room. annie nodded and let her boy stripped down. come in the and get warm, tvs and he urged. when the next giant reef crest at all the children left high like flying fish, caught them by their fingertips and pulled them up to the moon, drinking scarves around their shoulders is one of the children of round and round in how they could all laugh again, loud and long. the moon becomes the plays are those who are sad, those who are confused and those who have lost things and gathered feel good again. they rest, but they also realize they are not alone in a time to one another.

in the tape dated in the rain and the refreshments of and scrub themselves claim. there is still so much to do. there are fires to be tended, gardens to be weeded entries to be seated back on her. will work together and he promised. we will throw in her heart and mind and work with their hands to make the world a little more kind and for sure they would. together they would build rages in buildings and bonds between old. looking back at our time at grandma and me spoke again saying he feels they've moving the air down there. they are praying. for white? for one another and he told her and for us.

setting down her teacup she stood and felt it and knew more than she had known before, looking past the golden ladder, she spotted people whose hands pointed out words from the synagogue, temple, mosque and steeple church. one by one, every person was finding his or her own path to the moon, each path connecting with the others in one massive, hopeful stream. around the moon, many languages become understood in the barriers that come from speaking different tongs are no more. and on the move, world could have been lost and great grandmothers who were stewed are

found again. and their value is to. the value of the past to help us figure out what to do tomorrow. maybe learned from the paths are great grandmothers have so much to teach us. and then you know for the first time and all by herself the one who has to reach down into pull-up because the payload just realized this powerful. do you realize you are powerful cleric yes. are you strong? can you show me a muscle? nice. very nice. you are strong. so you remember that. all the boys and girls on the moon, all the men and women were

now part of the moon hans and their silhouette could be seen from far below in case feeling the plenty to those have little. i want you to look on this page when you get your book. see around the new? looks like little rays of moonlight. look closely. there is something else there. check it out. what do you see? yes. little tiny people. they are selected people. hands connect to it on the moon. eventually, she turned to her mother and begin nodded twice. grandma annie's nose twitched in her lip trembled with love and suppose it's time for you to go back. yes said sue hille appeared mama misses me unsure. will you be okay?

yes, little pumpkin and he replied. i am so happy we had this time. so she slides down moonbeams street back into bed. bed is soft and comfy and she feels proud for all that she has learned and done and have been held others to heal and she notices there is a light outside her door. her mom has been waiting for her. mama, i'm home she called into the hallway. mama, i met her. i mean here, baby, come tell me everything. and that's the end. [applause] so i ended that way because i think the children's stories

come to your stories so valuable and i want to hear them. i want to listen to you into what you need because that will make me a better person. you are powerful because when you're pairing and the people who love you too could be, guess who they do it for? you. that makes a very powerful. you inspire us, to greater heights make us be better and wiser. so the book is about a couple of things. one is that we have to remember that we are due to one another in this country, in this community, in this world we are connected to one another and would have inspire when matters to you or it should.

and we should be able to feel love and to understand people who are different from us and who are very far away even. and another thing i want you to remember is that you are what? powerful. yes. that few cancer. you can begin thinking about how to make others feel better, how to make the words matter, your words matter. be careful with your words. how to make the world a little more kind, if little more gentle, be sweet in your interaction and then also it is about thinking about those who came before us, people who have perhaps passed on.

please know you are loved by then, the air love comes see how and that the things that they give are lost, that they are herewith is still. anyway, i want to make room now for your questions and i have, by the way, some of her friends here they see. nice to see you. thank you also much for coming. does anyone have any questions? yes. >> why did you want to read the book quite >> that's a very good question. i wanted to rate the book

because i'd love to my mommy when i was 25 and although i was a grown-up, i still needed her and i missed her. so i wanted when i became a mommy myself to share with my daughters and the president's daughters, my nieces, some thoughts about who she was and what she was like in a new she would've loved to meet them and to know what that meant she would have given them so much it made them feel so strong. and so, that is one of the reasons i wrote the book. thank you. and i also wrote the book because i am a teacher.

i am an educator and one of the things that i want to happen is for us to think about the world for more than one point of view. so you see in the beginning, the illustrations are very clever. so here, tell me, kid, this is the moon from the earth's point of view, right? now look at the back. has it changed? what is it now? that's right. the earth from the man's point of view. said the idea is sometimes we need to flip it. we need to make sure that we seek games for more than one point of view because we can't understand things in the world if we are only looking for one point of view. as a teacher, you know what i get my students to do sometimes? you guys know about the current events, things happening in the world?

t. read the newspaper yet? well, you will. one of the things i have my high school kids do because i'm a high school i get them to go look at english-language newspapers from all over the world and you can see how in each case the stories are written a little differently and in order to really know the stronger, deeper truth, you have to see those differences in tank about how things look from other people's point of view. do you have friends in the senate tends get into disagreements? to ever disagree with your friends? so it's hard, but what you should do is try to imagine to yourself, what is going on from their point of view? and i think the world would a more peaceful and our communities to be more peaceful

if we learned how to do that. instead of having to be, this is for teachers out there, it do structured academic controversy. you know, what you do is you have people debate -- students debate a subject 1% to an flip it around, have them debate the other side and then write a position paper that involves multiple point of view. that such a valuable thing for young alike think. sometimes i don't tell them what site they are arguing until 15 minutes before so they have to learn outside of an issue. and then they can't get stuck in one point of view. you've got to keep things big. throw open the windows. >> my mom is a teacher, to.

>> that's terrific. i love teachers. and what has she taught you this week? >> she didn't teach me any end this week. [inaudible] >> did you guys hear that? this means she teaches you things every day and there's a lot of love there. that's wonderful. yes. >> my mother teaches the boys.

[laughter] >> his music teacher is a man. and you will be a man some day, to. and so, the teachers in our lives teach us a little bit, each of them about how to be young men and women in that happens all the time. and it's a beautiful thing. do you take lessons from them that have nothing to do with music but >> music. >> he teaches you about music. do you like music? t. like to sing? >> a little bit. >> well, songs, just like storytelling can make us feel things like happy or make us

feel comforted or make us feel calm, so use that music and share it with others. and tell your stories, too. there are very interesting. [inaudible] >> yes, my daughter has seen the book. she's very proud of the fact that her name is in it and she reminds her first grade class all the time. my name is in the book. she likes -- her favorite page to page where she was drinking mood to permit a silver tea chai. do you guys like that page, to?

now she puts on tea parties that are very elaborate, with her 2-year-old little sister and this makes her feel very grown up and she hopes the party unless that part of it. she thinks about some of the other things in the book, some of the challenging, difficult things a nice feeling this is a book to be shared with their children and we don't need to talk about all of those things at once. parents and children decide when they're ready, but she does really does feel a sense of responsibility for others. she works to help and serve as she contributed to askers to raise money for survivors of the tsunami in japan and she's definitely has a big heart.

she plants trees, reforestation and i am proud of her for that. [inaudible] >> yeah, well it's true. sometimes reading can make people sad. i read this book once called where the red fern grows. i just cried and cried. i cried like that at charlotte's web, to. in the way it was good because even though i felt sad, i felt like i'd found a family in those books, like i'd found -- i really was sad because i cared so much about the people in the boat and that's really beautiful, too even though it is

sad. >> teach you do the illustrations? >> i wish i illustrated it. the illustrator is a woman named judy morales who is originally from mexico and she now lives in california. and interestingly, mexico, see, they're. her picture -- she is a curlyhaired weatherman who looks a little bit like ace and your version of me. that's what i think. and when i saw her illustrations, i felt so amazed and so grateful. i felt so connected to her because they're exactly what they've seen in my mind. i did not have the ability to take what was in my head in to put it down on paper.

so i was grateful that an artist like her was willing to bring pictures to my story. and she is facing pretty pretty magical. but she took stuff from her own childhood, too. like a little doll when there is a boy born in the stock of corn in the great grandmother helps them to block and then she goes up to the moon, the dog stays to protect him. well, that is an aztec god that comes from her own childhood stories. i think her pictures are beautiful and i felt very proud of the book. i [inaudible] >> my favorite page -- what is your favorite page? i think i like the one where the

children are leaping high like flying fish. [inaudible] >> you see the earth from a news perspective. yes, can you imagine yourself there on the new? i think it would be a very beautiful place to be. i don't think i'll ever get there, but maybe you will. what is your favorite page? >> my favorite page is that different languages. >> the different languages, rights, when they all sat around the fireplace and share stories and start understanding each other better. give me a question. >> did she read the book to your

2-year-old? >> i did. she is to, which means she jumped around a lot. so i jumped through the book with her. i didn't read every word because you are a young man and you have the ability to set and focus, right? most of the time. well, my 2-year-old, you know, she starts climbing on the furniture and put some issues. [laughter] so we shared little bits of the stories, but she thinks it's her pictures. she goes, that's me. and i say yes, whatever you want, honey.

>> the two sisters. yeah, so the two sisters underneath the trembling towers, yeah. well, i like them, too. do you ever stick your tongue out when it rains? doesn't it feel fresh? there is a lot of cash and so they cleaned themselves and work together and build that spiral to the moon. as a bad idea of the two sisters who the very different. do you notice that their heads, you can see if you look closely, with d.c. in their in their faces? [inaudible] >> yes, their shadows.

and it's sort of like the ash may be. but what else if you look at their heads like the globe? it looks like they are the whole world. what could those white parts be? could be land, right? continents. it is like the whole world is in their faces. that's what i did when i look at it. i like that one, too. is that because i'm supposed to stop? it is a good place to start. thank you so much for having me and thank you for -- [applause] thank you for your very good questions and i'm looking forward to meeting all of you pumpkins. >> president obama sister, maya soetoro-ng on her book "ladder

to the moon." if you'd like to learn more, look at the website candlewick.com and search "ladder to the moon." ..