10th Year Monthly Celebration Giveaway and MCBD Updates
10th Year Monthly Celebration Giveaway
I remember when Multicultural Children’s Book Day started 9 years ago. There was so much excitement because the vision of two amazing book-loving moms Valarie Budayr from Audrey Press Books and Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom was coming to fruition. It was really happening on January 27th, 2012. A day to not only raise awareness around kid’s books that celebrate diversity but also get more of these types of books into classrooms and libraries.
Here we are, nine years later looking forward to Multicultural Children’s Book Day 10th year! Yes, you read that correctly! It’s the 10th year of making an impact in the kidlit world, not only nationally but globally as well. To celebrate our 10th year, every month we will be giving away book bundles to one lucky winner. The giveaway will be hosted on our Instagram page: @readyourworldmcbd starting today, and then every 10th of the month. <- See what we did there? 10th of the month for our 10th year? How exciting! Make sure you’re following our Instagram page so you won’t miss an opportunity to win a book bundle.
Welcome to Our New Board Members
Multicultural Children’s Book Day announces the appointment of four new board members: Jadyn Newman, Jimmie Quick, Barbara B. Richardson, Ph.D., and Nancy Tupper Ling.
Jadyn Newman
Jadyn is a student at American University in Washington, D.C. majoring in Justice/Law and Film. With previous experience working in a public library for many years, Jadyn sees how accessibility to representative content can impact a community.
One of Jadyn’s most memorable moments is speaking (and fist-bumping) with Michelle Obama at one of her favorite bookstores in D.C. She hopes that serving on the advisory board will provide MCBD with a young, passionate perspective on the importance of BIPOC voices in all forms of media, especially children’s books!
She is also on the board of Little Black Library where she serves as Library Outreach.
Jimmie Quick
Jimmie Quick is an unlikely homeschool advocate, and yet her entire livelihood now revolves around this school choice option. As a public school teacher with National Teacher Certification in Early Adolescent Language Arts, she had every intention of sending her daughter to school. But when kindergarten rolled around, they were expats in China. Instead of being a worst-case scenario, homeschooling was the ideal environment for her creative child to thrive, and Jimmie loved it!
Using a literature-rich curriculum with lots of exploration in the fine arts and hands-on science, she homeschooled Emma all the way through high school. Living in China provided invaluable opportunities for travel and a bilingual childhood. Emma is currently in a gap year between college and graduate school.
Jimmie works as a self-employed marketing consultant, helping companies in the homeschool niche. In her hometown of Memphis, TN she volunteers as a head coach for tutoring second graders via Arise2Read. To learn more, follow her on Twitter.
Barbara B. Richardson, Ph.D.
Barbara is an African American mother of two and grandmother of five. She grew up in a racially segregated town in Virginia. Her community consisted of only two groups of people — African Americans, blacks, and whites, Anglo-Americans. In her 18th year, she entered an all-white women’s college in New England where there were only two other African American girls.
Barbara finished college and worked as a social worker in the Department of Social Service (DSS) in Boston. Being unable to help clients realize the goals of the DSS – which was to get them off welfare and financially independent – Barbara decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Social Work.
Along the way, she met more and more white, black, and other culturally diverse people. In New York City, in her studies of and work with America’s racially and culturally diverse families and children and immigrants from around the world, she learned that race was not the source of differences. It was and is culture.
She married and had two children, and wanted to ensure they had access to learn about culturally diverse peoples and the differences between race and culture! Barbara and her family settled in Altadena, California. She soon found Pacific Oaks College (PO) and Children’s School, a Quaker founded Graduate college and children’s pre-school. Her two children attended the preschool at the college from ages three until six and Barbara joined the college faculty at Pacific Oaks College.
While her children progressed through schools, Barbara directed and taught courses in the college’s Marriage, Family and Child Counseling (MFCC) degree program and, attended until earning her Ph.D. in Education at Claremont College and Graduate School) in Pomona, CA.
Even at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California, (which prided itself on its valuation of diversity) where Barbara got back into education— of adults — teaching socio/political contexts courses, etc., she had to try to help the college librarian see the value of getting feedback from the parents of our children and the graduate students regarding the diversity of the book collections and the differences between culture and race! She asked that a slip of paper be inserted in a non-damaging way into books for the reader to share her/his comments but, that was viewed as defacement— and did not happen.
At Pacific Oaks College, Barbara directed and taught courses in the college’s Marriage Family and Child Counseling (MFCC) degree program and, attended until earning her Ph.D. in education at The Claremont Graduate University (Claremont Graduate School) in Pomona, California.
Barbara added a Ph.D. in education from Claremont Graduate School to the MSW as professor and Director of the Marriage, Family, Child Counseling Master’s Degree program (MFCC) at Pacific Oaks. Her teaching in MFCC courses focused on supporting diverse families through anti-racism education and celebrations of multicultural diversity.
As both a mother and a social worker, Barbara saw the need for children to see themselves reflected in the books that they read. She authored a parenting book, Parenting Black Children in a Racist Society. Barbara enjoys diverse picture books, raising orchids, and traveling.
Nancy Tupper Ling
Nancy Tupper Ling is a children’s author, poet, bookseller, and librarian. Basically, she surrounds herself with books! Occasionally, she creates a few books of her own, including:
My Sister, Alicia May; The Story I’ll Tell; Double Happiness; The Yin-Yang Sisters and her latest, For Every Little Thing, with co-author, June Cotner. To learn more, check out her website and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitte
They will be joining our current board members Deedee Cummings, Maritza Martinez Mejia, Karin Fisher-Golton, Jodi Murphy, and Dr. Valerie Williams-Sanchez.
What’s next? April is Autism Awareness Month
We have joined forces with some amazing folks who will shine a light on April Autism Awareness Month by sharing their own voices, resources, interviews, and books! This is what we have in store for you next month:
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- Week 1: #OwnVoices Autism book by Adriana White, an autistic librarian
- Week 2: Jodi Murphy with resources on Autism from Geek Club Books
- Week 3: Our IG Live line up of #OwnVoices author interviews moderated by Leanna + Special Guest
- Week 4: Sivan Hong’s latest picture book in her Super Fun Day series, inspirational social stories focused on neurodiverse (autism, ADHD, dyslexia, etc.)
Geek Club Books
Please click on each title below to download a PDF file for each one:
Autism Reflections by Lydia Wayman
What Your Autistic Student Wants You to Know