Multicultural Children’s Book Day: Celebrating Diversity in Children's Literature
Welcome to my blog post celebrating multicultural children's literature. I've read many great books in this genre due to my love of geography and learning about other cultures. Unfortunately it's an area of children's literature that still lags behind other genres, which is why this celebration was created, to bring attention to the issue and encourage readers of all kinds to read more of this kind of book. Special thanks to Lee & Low for my review book! Please enjoy looking around and I hope you join us in this celebration!
The co-creators of this unique event are Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom and Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book/Audrey Press.
Valarie Budayr of Jump Into a Book is a best-selling children’s author of The Fox Diaries: The Year the Foxes Came to our Garden and The Ultimate Guide To Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. She is passionate about making kid’s books come alive and is proud to be a play and reading advocate. Valarie’s mission is to inspire children,families, and communities, to experience and create our world together while having fun.
Mission: Despite census data that shows 37% of the US
population consists of people of color, only 10% of children’s books published
have diversity content. Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day, Mia and
Valarie are on a mission to change all of that. Their mission is to not only
raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more
of these types of books into classrooms and libraries. Another goal of this
exciting event is create a compilation of books and favorite reads that will provide
not only a new reading list for the winter, but also a way to expose brilliant
books to families, teachers, and libraries.
For more information about this event, check out the webpage here.
Here are some ways you can help us celebrate Multicultural Children’s Book Day
- Have children bring in their favorite multicultural book to school on this day and share it with the class.
- Have a special Multicultural Children’s Book Day book read aloud time.
- Create a Multicultural Children’s Book Day display around the classroom or library.
- Read Around the Continents and Countries. Great resources list a JumpIntoaBook.com andPragmaticMom.com
- Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day page at Jump Into a Book.
- Visit our Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board for more reading ideas.
- Do a craft or activity presented on Jump Into a Book or Pragmatic Mom which relates to the many cultures in our world. Here are a few of our favorites:
Read Around the Continents: South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe.
REVIEW
THE MONSTER IN THE MUDBALL by S.P. Gates
Lee & Low, 2013
Provided by publisher for review
All opinions expressed are solely my own.
Jin, a young boy who suffers from dyspraxia (clumsy child syndrome) must face a truly terrifying monster after his baby brother inadvertently sets it loose after a 20-year imprisonment. But what can he do against a creature with increasingly dangerous abilities that continue to develop. With the help of Mizz Z, a chief inspector of ancient artifacts of power, and his sister, Frankie, Jin must find a way to get the monster back in her ball of mud or face losing their little brother forever.
The Monster in the Mudball provides quite an entertaining read for middle graders or anyone who enjoys a good monster story. Zilombo, the monster, is a creepy and dangerous antagonist, but Jin, Frankie, and Mizz Z are pretty awesome protagonists and Smiler (the baby) provides plenty of exasperating humor. What I especially liked though were the cultural elements sprinkled through the story that play a rather critical role in what happens. Jin's Chinese grandparents make Chinese dragons for a living which I found fascinating as well as the idea of dragon dancing. I never really thought before about the fact that operating one of those big dragons is much more of an art than a science. Overall, a great multicultural fantasy that I truly enjoyed and can recommend.
Lee & Low, 2013
Provided by publisher for review
All opinions expressed are solely my own.
Jin, a young boy who suffers from dyspraxia (clumsy child syndrome) must face a truly terrifying monster after his baby brother inadvertently sets it loose after a 20-year imprisonment. But what can he do against a creature with increasingly dangerous abilities that continue to develop. With the help of Mizz Z, a chief inspector of ancient artifacts of power, and his sister, Frankie, Jin must find a way to get the monster back in her ball of mud or face losing their little brother forever.
The Monster in the Mudball provides quite an entertaining read for middle graders or anyone who enjoys a good monster story. Zilombo, the monster, is a creepy and dangerous antagonist, but Jin, Frankie, and Mizz Z are pretty awesome protagonists and Smiler (the baby) provides plenty of exasperating humor. What I especially liked though were the cultural elements sprinkled through the story that play a rather critical role in what happens. Jin's Chinese grandparents make Chinese dragons for a living which I found fascinating as well as the idea of dragon dancing. I never really thought before about the fact that operating one of those big dragons is much more of an art than a science. Overall, a great multicultural fantasy that I truly enjoyed and can recommend.
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