ABSTRACT
We began this book with a story about a newborn named Hayden and the literacy contexts surrounding her birth. We end with the conditions that young children need and deserve for their early literacies to grow in school and out to become productive members of a democratic society. Upon birth, children are embraced by the literacy practices that constitute their families and communities as they make meaning. And then they go to school, where the rules of meaning making may be consistent with their home and community; or, the distances between home and school may be so vast as to leave them disoriented, confused, withdrawn, threatened, wounded, or scared. Looking across the body of work in this volume, we suggest a new idea about school, which we call Second School.
