Multicultural Children’s Book Day Spotlight: Jason Reynolds
March 9, 2015
Please welcome Jason Reynolds today who will be answering a few questions on his latest book, A Boy in the Black Suit.
Please welcome Jason Reynolds today who will be answering a few questions on his latest book, A Boy in the Black Suit.
This is a really great presentation by Ms. YingLing titled #WeNeedDiverseBooks: Hashtag activism and the importance of diversity in children’s literature.
Ms. YingLing says, ‘I should have credited Mitali Perkins for the phrase “Are books windows or mirrors?”‘ in reference to Mitali Perkins’ post.
MCCBD may officially be over until 2016, but the guest posts and author visits will continue! This week we are welcoming Eric Dean Seaton. Eric Dean is a TV Director (NBC, TBS, Disney & Nickelodeon, BET, etc.) and Creator of the The Legend of the Mantamaji series; A three-book graphic novel series whose sweeping tale of magic and mystery, heroes and villains, has a fresh look, a modern setting-and an ancient beat.
Our second Multicultural Children’s Book Day: #ReadYourWorld {January 27th} was a HUGE success! Over 150+ bloggers , 17 major sponsors, a boatload of generous book donators and many, many authors, teachers, parents, readers and librarians showed up to read, visit and enjoy the multicultural book titles, discussions and book-related activities!
Guest Post from Katia Senff-Director of Publishing, FarFaria
Recently, the lack of diverse books in children’s publishing has been making headlines. A dismal 10% of books published in 2012 contained multicultural content. Yet, 37% of the US population is made up of people of color.[1] A change in children’s publishing is long overdue and publishers like FarFaria are striving to challenge the status quo.
At FarFaria, we take deliberate steps to ensure that our books are as diverse as the children who read them. Because of our own multicultural backgrounds, many of our books explore traditions from around the world, as well as the diversity within our own country. As a result, our books contain a great range of characters.
My earliest memories are of traveling. We’re in our two-toned white and chocolate brown Ford station wagon headed from Kansas to Florida. Family friends have joined us for the 4,000-mile trip—four adults and five kids aged three to six are packed into a car that seems as big as a boat. As a bonus we take a quick flight to Havana. My only memories of that side trip are of tall, dark haired women with skin the color of roasted peanuts striding past us in stiletto heels and pencil skirts. My mother and her friend wore neither. At the impressionable age of three I already knew people had different ways of living.
While in many ways this may seem to be just a random memory, it’s not. It’s a precursor to what will come decades later as my business partner, Lisa Travis, and I launch Pack-n-Go Girls. Our mission is this: We want to shrink the world. We want little girls to dream of going to far away places and not just to the mall. If they dream about it, they’re a lot more likely to pack their bags and go some day. And when they get out there, they’ll discover that even though we may have colorful differences across the globe, they’ll also discover that people are the same all over the world.
Thank you to everyone who celebrated Multicultural Children’s Book Day with us! The giving of books continues with International Book Giving Day, February 14th! Valarie and Mia are thrilled to be part of the team helping to promote a day of giving books to kids.
There are many ways to celebrate by giving books to kids but our favorite is to donate a multicultural book through First Book to a needy child. We are also celebrating by giving away 4 packages of books!
A Visit from “Comanch-Inspired Author” Max Oliver
Author, writer and long-time Texan, Max Oliver grew up in a North Texas area the Comanche called “Eagle Flats.” Being influenced by the life and beliefs of the early Comanche tribes, Max felt compelled to research the daily habits of the Numuu (the People) and use that knowledge to create his signature line of Comanche-Inspired Books and Poetry.
We were thrilled to have 25+ inclusive authors and illustrators to kick off our spotlight series in collaboration with Children's Book Council and but what now? Who else should we interview? We asked Native American Children's Book expert Debbie Reese for more authors and she helped us out with this list: Cynthis Leitich Smith Nicola Campbell Julie Flett Eric Gansworth Carol Lindstrom Cheryl Minnema Virginia...
Wow! What a week! The second annual Multicultural Children’s Book Day was a wild success and we will be sharing details and a recap in the coming days. But today we want to focus on our first-ever Twitter Party.
Not only was this one-hour twitter party well attended, it was a ton of fun! Great connections, conversations, questions discussions and PRIZES! Eleven lucky winners won multicultural book bundles for their families to enjoy.
Here’s a Storified recap created by the brilliant Kim V at Educators’ Spin on It.