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It’s hard to believe our 6th Multicultural Children’s Book Day online and offline celebration is less than two months away.

Things are going at full speed here at MCBD headquarters and we want to make sure two critical deadlines don’t sneak up on our supporters, reviewers, and potential sponsors.

MCBD Sponsorship Deadline is 12/15/18

Sponsorship for Multicultural Children’s Book Day is not only a great way to support this event; it is an excellent way to get your name (and your books) in front of thousands of readers. All of our Sponsors get a name mention within the hundreds of reviews that get posted from December to January 25th and also on the sites of our 24+ CoHosts sites. The deadline for ALL Sponsor sign-ups is 12/15/18.

Six years!

Can you believe MCBD is in its SIXTH YEAR?! The Multicultural Children’s Book Day team couldn’t be proud of the success we’ve achieved and the people we’ve touched along the way.

Multicultural Children's Book Day 2019 Poster

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2019 Poster

Our mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.

Guest post by Wiley Barnes from Chickasaw Press

Children innately love books. They have certain stories that become favorites, and they want to look at them or read them time and again. Books from our childhood have a way of staying with us and becoming a part of who we are.

I kept this concept in mind all through the process of writing the children’s book, “C is for Chickasaw.” I wanted every element of each page to continue to draw young readers back and make it their own much-loved book.

After the book’s release through White Dog Press in 2014, I began to develop a vision for realizing the full potential of the book as a creative educational tool. Dreaming beyond the paper page, I imagined what it would be like to bring the characters and words to life, packing as much action as possible into a simple, but exciting digital book-app format for young readers.

Great things are happening at Multicultural Children’s Book Day headquarters and our Sponsor lineup is growing by the DAY. You can view current Medallion Level Sponsors and Author Sponsors on the website here and here.

THEN…we are excited to announce a new Added bonus for Platinum and Super Platinum Sponsorship levels!

Along with all the other perks that go along with our two highest levels of Sponsorship, the MCBD Team has “sweetened the deal” with this impressive bonus.

Those who sign up for Platinum or Super Platinum level for MCBD2019 will be enjoying the opportunity of providing up to 12 guest posts (written by the sponsor) that can be used on the MCBD blog over the course of 12 months!

This is a big deal! On any given day the MCBD blog gets around 600-800 hits and during the month before and after our online holiday that number triples. Guest posts are also “evergreen” which means they live on the MCBD blog forever. This benefit is perfect for book launches, company news, special sales or announcements of new books!

P.S. The deadline for ALL Sponsor sign-ups for is 12/15/18

So, what is an engineer-turned dancer-turned-author doing on YouTube?

Because kids need to grow up multicultural!

OK Ajanta, this isn’t making any sense,” you say. But you see, this is exactly why I co-founded Culture Groove.

I grew up in India but my son was born in the US. I read books to him about India – it was easily available since we write them ourselves. I coaxed him with Indian folktales as I tried to make him eat one more bite of food. I invented games on rainy days that reminded me of my childhood days.

But you know what I couldn’t find? A way for him to continue the learning as he inevitably did the one thing that none of us want to admit our kids do – watch videos on a tablet.

Guest post from author Erin Dealey

You might know a child like me: one you’d NEVER expect to write children’s books. One who thinks of writing as very serious business–definitely not fun.

I loved school. I loved recess with my friends, playing outside. Huge thanks to my teachers who encouraged every spark of creativity. Oh how I loved reading to the kindergartners, or opening that box of brand new books from the Book Club. (I can still smell them! Can You?) Thank you, Mr. Markey, who assigned 6th-grade autobiographies, and did not grumble when I turned in a biography of me–written by my shadow…

Endless gratitude to growing up in Oakland CA, on a hill where you learned how to stop your bike or jump off your skateboard before the stop sign at the bottom; in a neighborhood where kindness was the norm, and we played together, looked after each other.

My favorite place to do homework was on top of our garage, where a sawed-off footstool (Thanks, Dad!) made the perfect desk, surrounded by the neighbor’s treetops. I liked Math because there was a process to follow to get the right answer and, if my answer was wrong, there was a formula to fix it. With writing, not so much. To me, it felt like you had to be psychic to figure out what the teacher wanted. So, nope, writing wasn’t my thing.

There are so many wonderful ways to celebrate the arrival of St. Nicholas!

Shoes or stockings? Horse or sleigh?

Does St. Nicholas visit on December 6 or on Christmas Eve?

The beliefs and traditions are as diverse as the people who celebrate them.

The Birth of a Children’s Book Career

Author and long-time Multicultural Children’s Book Day supporter and Sponsor Charlotte Riggle spent twenty years pulling together the delightful book, Catherine’s Pascha.  The diverse picture book for ages 4-8 was released in 2015 to rave reviews.

Catherine's Pascha

“I had written it when my children were small,” Riggle shared. “But I didn’t find a publisher until they were all grown up. And I had so much fun working with my publisher and editor, Becky Hughes. She took the manuscript I’d created and brought it to life. There were times when she’d send me a draft of an illustration, and it made me cry. It was such an amazing process.”

Guest post by Dr.Stephanie Oguchi

As I sit here thinking about how I want to share my childhood memories to the public, I can’t help but to daydream about how I got this far, as a Nigerian American Doctor of Occupational Therapy from the big city of Houston Texas, who was bullied because of my differences as a child. As an adult, I should’ve been scared of the world, not open to change and redirect any attention off of myself due to fear of rejection. However, I actually thank the boy who made fun of my differences because it triggered emotions that allowed me to tap into my inner strengths and learn to control my fears, ambition and leadership qualities.

When I was a kid in the 80’s I really didn’t know about any other culture, except mine, which was the Nigerian culture. I knew my family ate a lot of fish, rice and moi moi (an authentic Nigerian dish derived from beans). My parents would dress in their traditional Nigerian clothes, my mom would thread my hair during the summertime, and Nigerian parties lasted till 4 am; which was all normal.

One day, my culture was suddenly seen as “abnormal.” My threaded hairstyle was no longer a normal hairstyle, according to the American kids on the bus. It was the butt of jokes and ridicule which really bothered me as a kid. I told my mom to take out the thread in my hair, which was an easy decision to make as a kid. I was vulnerable and didn’t want to be harassed. I conformed to a “ normal” hairstyle of braids with barrettes to appease the other kids and to eliminate the negative and unwanted attention that was given to me.

Now as I think about it as an adult, I kick myself for conforming to everyone else’s “norm” rather than they conform to my “norm”.

As a publisher of beautiful children’s books, Crickhollow Books is committed to quality over quantity.

Crickhollow Books and Crispin Books are intertwined imprints of their indie book publishing house that is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They are also known for their amazing catalog of picture books that shine the spotlight on topics with social or environmental impact. With titles like Doyli to the Rescue, Tony and His Elephants, and Tortuga Squadthey have much to be proud of!

author Cathleen Burnham

Crickhollow also offers a lot of middle-grade fiction focused on good values and a variety of books for adults, including books for writers on how to write well and get published.

“We love all our books just like parents love their kids,” shared Crickhollow Editor, Philip Martin. “Our homepage is a great showcase of what we do. As an indie press, we are like a parent that helps to bring something new and fresh into the world and then works for years to help it find its place, to grow to be part of a literary community of caring readers. Although we are microscopic in comparison to the big mega-houses, we work hard and take risks to produce quality books that can make a difference.”