#RaisingReaders Monday: Multicultural Children’s Book Day

I’m happy to be part of the team bringing you posts, links, and contests for Multicultural Children’s Book Day.

The Multicultural Children’s Book Day team hopes to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along via book reviews, author visits, and multicultural book lists and to visit the huge multicultural book review link-up that will occur on the MCCBD website 1/27/15.

I asked my kids to look through our shelves and bring me their favorite books that explored other cultures or featured characters from other cultures/backgrounds.  Once I weeded out the books about witch school, monsters, and fairies (“Yes, kids, those are different cultures. I meant different REAL cultures.”) here’s what they chose:

It was a really fun and simple activity that you can easily do with your kids, too!

Here are more ways you can help us celebrate Multicultural Children’s Book Day

• Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day website and view our book lists, reading resources and other useful multicultural information.
• Visit our Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board for more reading ideas.
• Have children bring in their favorite multicultural book to school on this day and share it with the class.
• Watch for the #ReadYourWorld hashtag on social media and share.
• Visit our Diversity Book Lists and Resources for Educators and Parents on our website.
• Create a Multicultural Children’s Book Day display around the classroom or library.
• Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day website on January 27^th to view and participate in our huge blogger link-up, multicultural book reviews, giveaways and more!

MCCBD couldn’t happen without the generous support from our sponsors. Please let them know how much you appreciate their generosity!

Platinum Sponsors: Wisdom Tales Press, Daybreak Press Global Bookshop, Gold Sponsors:  Satya House,  MulticulturalKids.com,   Author Stephen Hodges and the Magic Poof, Silver Sponsors: Junior Library Guild,  Capstone Publishing, Lee and Low Books,  The Omnibus Publishing. Bronze Sponsors:Double Dutch Dolls, Bliss Group Books, Snuggle with Picture Books Publishing,  Rainbow Books,   Author FeliciaCapers,   Chronicle Books   Muslim Writers Publishing ,East West Discovery Press.

Our CoHosts: We have NINE amazing Co-Hosts. You can view them here.

But wait – there’s more!

As a book reviewer for MCCBD:

I received a copy of The Rainbow Files #1: The Day I Was the Only Kid in School  written and illustrated by Maria T. and April E. Kelly. and published by their own imprint, Rainbow Books.

Daughter April and mom Maria dreamed up this book as a reflection of April’s feelings that she was alone, even when she was surrounded by others, while her mother was going through cancer treatment. Despite that serious beginning, the finished product is a wacky, cheerful story.

In it, Shai Keshet (Hebrew for Rainbow Gift) arrives at school to find that she is the only student there. In addition to that – she gets to teach her teachers for the day! Elementary school students will find this twist on a normal school day very silly.

I’m interested to see if future books in the series tell us more about Shai’s culture and background and help us explore diversity further. I would have liked to see more about this in book 1.

To find out more about Bronze Sponsor Rainbow Books, just click on the book cover!

I always love to hear from my readers! Please leave a comment and let me know your favorite book(s) for Multicultural Children’s Book Day. Be sure to tweet about it, using the hashtags #ReadYourWorld or #MCCBD .Thanks, everyone.