"Our pick for the social justice curriculum"
Best Children's Fiction Picture Book
Read the Rebeldita the Fearless series
Christopher the Ogre Cologre,
It's Over!
GIGANTIC LIES meet EMPOWERING TRUTHS in this masterfully written, fun, family friendly book finally bringing children, parents, and educators the real history of Christopher Columbus and the Americas...
From the Rebeldita the Fearless Dr. Siu children's book series
By scholar and educator Dr. Siu
Translation: Matthew Byrne | Illustrations: Víctor Zúñiga
FREE and full of resources, activities and discussion questions to accompany teachers using Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over! in classrooms. Adaptable for all age groups.
By Ethnic Studies and Education scholar-educators:
Dr. Oriel María Siu
Dr. Bárbara I. Abadía Rexach
Dr. Kate E. Kedley
Verónica X. Valadez, MA
In-Person Teacher workshops also available. Contact author directly at orielmariasiu@gmail.com
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Rebeldita is off to more classrooms, libraries and homes thanks to all the teachers, librarians and parents diversifying the bookshelves and supporting social justice curricula! Rebeldita loves to hear from you! Thank you for all the pictures! @rebelditabooks
#WeNeedDiverseBooks #TeachTruth
Praise for Christopher the Ogre Colgre, It's Over!
This book shifts the paradigm in elementary school curricula regarding Columbus and white settler colonialism.
It's wonderful!
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Author of An Indigenous People's History of the United States
Every school library should carry Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It’s Over!
South Seattle Emerald
Dr. Kate E. Kedley
Professor of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Education
Children and adults need to have the opportunity to address and critique the ways our histories are told, and too frequently schools and teachers don’t offer these chances, or don’t know how. Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over! is a must have addition for all classrooms from the elementary grades, to high school, and university history classes. As a parent and professor of critical literacy and education, I am excited to have a children’s book with a Central American author, and a multiracial and multinational feminist protagonist, who stands up for the truth against the dangerous myths about the Americas and Columbus that have been propagated for years.
Renee Simms
Novelist, Lawyer, Educator
Author of Meet Behind Mars
Here is a book, beautifully illustrated and written, that accurately describes how we’ve resisted and continue to resist the violence of settler colonialism. I’m so grateful that generations of young readers will have a hero like Rebeldita the Fearless to read and admire.
Professor Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie
Curator, Photographer and Professor of Native American Studies, UC Davis
There are many roads to travel when introducing Indigenous children to the brutalities of colonization. One must take into consideration the spirit of the child, and the strength of the ancestors.
Dr. Siu has written a book that recalls truths of past machinations, and cleverly dismantles colonial lies with rhyme. Rebeldita brilliantly carries the dreams of the ancestors with respect and continuous resilience, without doubt, nourishment for the soul.
Verónica Xochitl Valadez, MA
Chicana/o Studies & Ethnic Studies Professor, Ethnic Studies Consultant, and Co-founder of Ehecatl Wind Philosophies
Dr. Siu's Christopher the Ogre Cologre it's Over! challenges the colonialist & dehumanizing "dominant" narrative written about Christopher Columbus that has caused so much harm to the original peoples of AbyaYala. The book helps children and adults unpack, discover, and protect TRUTH in a manner that is empowering and healing. It opens opportunities for young readers to see themselves as AGENTS of change, protectors of TRUTH, and practitioners of RESISTANCE. A must-have for any Ethnic Studies classroom!
Dr. Theresa Montaño
Chicana/o Studies Professor and Co-Founder Liberated Ehtnic Studies Model Curriculum Coalition
It's over for the evil settler colonialist, Christopher the Ogre Cologre! - A beautiful children's tale of love and revolutionary spirit. Dr. Siu's beautiful story of intergenerational warriors has us on a quest to protect truth, cultural knowledge, and teach us that history cannot be denied!
Bárbara I. Abadía-Rexach, PhD
Afropuertorican Anthropologist
San Francisco State University
Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over! should be read by people of all ages, as it helps to unlearn and question the "official" stories that have turned our lives upside down. This latest children's book by Dr. Siu challenges and transgresses Eurocentrism and the colonial discourses of the Americas while celebrating AbyaYala, Africa the Beautiful, and all the Rebelditas of yesterday, today and tomorrow. It's a must!
Dr. Christine Sleeter
Expert on anti-racist Multicultural education, Ethnic Studies, and Teacher Education. Author of over 150 articles in books and journals, and 23 books.
I love Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It’s Over! by Rebeldita the Fearless and Dr. Oriel María Siu. What an amazing way to empower children and youth to resist decades of colonialism and speak their truths! This clever, insightful, and beautifully illustrated book offers a profound message in a wonderfully inviting way.
Dr. Michael Hale
Professor of English Umoja Learning Community Co-Coordinator Santa Rosa Junior College
Because of the cadence and rhyme scheme, readers might compare Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over! to Dr. Seuss. But Dr. Seuss never listened to the voices of abolitionists and anti-colonialists. Dr. Siu has. Her urgently important book invites us to listen to the voices of truth-seekers and freedom-fighters so that we may imagine a world beyond Ogres and the oppressive systems that create them, and more than just imagine, learn how to organize in inter-generational, multi-racial communities with joy, humor, and a ferrous determination for freedom.
Dr. Sean Arce
Ethnic Studies Professor and Teacher
Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It’s Over! is a must read for elementary Ethnic Studies students and teachers! Dr. Siu’s work is a consciousness-raising literary wonder to be used to break down concepts such as “colonization” and “resistance” to both younger students and teachers alike. Moreover, the righteous Rebeldita serves as an honorable model for students to counter all systems of oppression, informing and inspiring our youth to act and live as agents of change to not only imagine, but in fact, to create a more just and humanizing world for those who have been racialized and dehumanized in our society.
Dr. Enrique Ochoa
Public Historian and Latin American Studies Professor, CAL State LA
Christopher the Ogre Cologre, Its Over! is a revolutionary book for kids of all ages. In it, Dr. Siu breaks down colonialism and exposes it for what it is —a system in which Ogres go “to faraway lands” and “steal other people’s things,” labor, lives, destroy the environment, and write their own history for all to memorialize. The fearless Rebeldita reminds us, however, that power lies in our histories and otros saberes that have fueled over 500 years of resistance.
History textbooks, teachers and school curricula insist on negating and brushing off the realities of a continent for over 500 years occupied. This history is taught as a fairytale to children - one that is comprised of gigantic foundational lies. These lies permeate the core of what children grow up to believe about themselves, others, and the land they live on.
So, I write children's books to undo these foundational fairytales because the consequences of whitewashing history -and books- are atrocious. And because children are fully capable of engaging, contesting, and becoming empowered by the truth -when we allow for it.
In the news
"Every school library should carry Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It’s Over! to encourage students to learn about Indigenous people’s true power of strength and spirit." South Seattle Emerald
The Author
Oriel María Siu (1981) is a Náhutal/Pipil/Chinese writer and educator from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Daughter to a strong & mighty NáhuatlPipil-Salvadoran-Guatemalan mother, and a dedicated Chinese Nicaraguan father, Oriel had to leave her homeland for Los Angeles, California, in 1997.
She has since dedicated herself to the creation of cultural and academic spaces for the growing Central American, Indigenous, Black and Brown communities in the U.S., helping to establish the first Central American Studies Program at California State University, Northridge in 1999, and founding the Latina/o Studies program at the University of Puget Sound in 2012. Throughout her journey as an educator, Dr. Siu has remained a strong proponent of Ethnic Studies, contributing her research, writing and teaching to sustaining and expanding this transformative and much needed academic field.
Dr. Siu holds a Masters in Latin American Literatures from UC Berkeley, and a Doctoral Degree in Cultural Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has taught courses on race, immigration, Central American, Chicana/o and Latinx literatures, while publishing multiple articles, chapters, and academic works on these topics in numerous national and international journals and books. Among the universities where Dr. Siu has taught are UCLA, the University of Puget Sound, Chapman University, and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles.
After becoming a mother in 2013, Dr. Siu encountered the problem all socially-conscious parents face: the lack of inspiring, empowering, historically on-point, and culturally sensitive books for children of color in the U.S. So she decided to write her own. She is now writing the children’s book series, Rebeldita the Fearless / Rebeldita la Alegre. In this series, Dr. Siu centralizes the power of children vis-a-vis destructive ogre-forces living in society.
In 2020, Dr. Siu was selected "Top Ten New Latino Latinx Authors" by Latino Stories for her contributions to children's literature in the United States.
