Centre for Literacy Training names inaugural Alexandria Award winner | Information | Notre Dame News
The Middle for Literacy Education at the College of Notre Dame has offered its inaugural Alexandria Award to “When Stars are Scattered,” a graphic novel by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed.
The Alexandria Award acknowledges a center quality or youthful grownup book that advances Gospel values by way of the optimistic steps and portrayals of tenacious adolescents. It is named for St. Catherine of Alexandria, an adolescent Christian of the fourth century who was an eager college student and a famed orator.
“When Stars are Scattered,” published and illustrated by Jamieson, tells the story of Omar Mohamed and his more youthful brother, Hassan, as they expand up as Somali refugees in a camp in Kenya.

“There is so significantly about this reserve that can make it the obvious preference as the inaugural receiver of the Alexandria Award,” said Michael Macaluso, the founder of the award and an assistant instructing professor in the Centre for Literacy Education and learning and the Alliance for Catholic Education’s Training Fellows program. “From the potential to have classroom conversations about immigration and the dignity of all men and women — particularly refugees — to the levels of religion, hope and like that travel the plot, ‘When Stars Are Scattered’ speaks to every person. It compels viewers to sense, act, enjoy, give thanks and have confidence in in God, and the graphic mother nature of the ebook provides a additional personal window into the everyday living and encounters of anyone who could be our neighbor.”
The Center for Literacy Training, which is housed in Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives, created the award to reply to the want for higher-quality, hugely participating up to date guides in the classroom and the desire of Catholic school instructors to educate classroom publications — classic or modern — by means of a lens of faith and Catholic social teaching.
“We are honored that ‘When Stars Are Scattered’ has been preferred as the inaugural winner of the Alexandria Award by way of the College of Notre Dame. Omar’s story is one of perseverance and hope, and we are thrilled that a lot more youthful persons will turn out to be acquainted with his story by indicates of this award,” Jamieson and Mohamed wrote. “‘When Stars Are Scattered’ places special importance on the value of schooling, and we are honored to be acknowledged by educators and librarians in this way.”
Much more than 500 copies of the guide will be presented to colleges throughout the nation, together with community educational institutions in South Bend, Indiana, and will be accompanied by a curriculum insert featuring recommended classroom mastering aims, things to do and dialogue guides for thinking about the e book as a result of a lens of religion and Catholic social educating.
Having awarded textbooks into lecture rooms and, most importantly, into the palms of college students eliminates a barrier of inequity that some colleges, educators and even mothers and fathers may perhaps encounter in supporting children’s religion development and literacy advancement, Macaluso explained.
St. Catherine is the patron of college students, librarians and educators, and the award commemorates her youth, bravery, tenacity, enthusiasm for training and her household in Alexandria — the famed site of the Great Library. St. Catherine boldly defended the faith and protested injustices of her time, together with the persecution of Christians. Her efforts led to the conversion of hundreds of individuals in advance of she was martyred at 18.
For more data about the Alexandria Award, visit iei.nd.edu/alexandria.
