Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Dim Sum for Everyone!

Dim Sum for Everyone! by Grace Lin (Dragonfly Books, 2001).

With the Chinese Lunar New Year coming up on February 8, I thought it would be appropriate to share this book.  A young girl goes to a dim sum restaurant with her family and teaches us about all the different types of small dishes.  Dim sum means "little hearts" or "touches the heart" in Cantonese.   This is a great educational book for kids and adults alike. I also like that the restaurant patrons are diverse.

For more information about dim sum, see Buzzfeed's Essential Guide to Dim Sum.  








Monday, January 18, 2016

Blizzard

Blizzard by Carole Gerber, illustrated by Marty Husted (Charlesbridge, 2001). 

I found this book on display at the local library.  I love how it evokes both the coldness and warmness of winter.  The boy contrasts the cold winter weather outside with the warm coziness inside his home.  He goes out and plays in the snow at night and then comes back inside where it's nice and warm to go to bed.  The watercolor and colored pencil illustrations are soft and lovely.






Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Multicultural Children's Book Day: DLee's Bad Day



I'm so excited to be participating in Multicultural Children's Book Day again this year. 

Here is the mission statement: 
The MCCBD team’s mission 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 the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media.


Multicultural Children’s Book Day has 12 amazing Co-Host and you can view them here.


Now let's get to the book! 

DLee's Bad Day by Diana Lee Santamaria, illustrated by Aubrey Fajaro (DLee's World, 2015). 

This is from a series of picture books by Diana Lee Santamaria who created DLee's World when, as an early childhood educator, she noticed a need for diverse children's books.  She bases the stories on her own childhood experiences, as well as from her teaching experiences.  You can view her website here.

In this book, DLee is having a bad day.  Everything is going wrong and it makes her sad and mad.  But her teacher lets her know it's okay and normal to feel sad and bad.. and gives her ideas of how to feel better, like hopping or singing a favorite song.  Soon DLee's day isn't so bad anymore.  The illustrations are cute and playful, which go along well with the rhyming text.

In the book, the teacher asks DLee what are things she loves doing.  This could be a good activity to do with kids.  Have them come up with ideas of how to make a bad day better so they can have a go-to list when they're having a bad day, like we all do from time to time. 





Teachers, please read this message from MCCBD:
Help spread the word on our  Classroom Reading Challenge . This very special offering from MCCBD offers teachers and classrooms the chance to (very easily) earn a free hardcover multicultural children's book for their classroom library. These books are not only donated by the Junior Library Guild, but they are pre-screened and approved by them as well.
What we could really use some help with is spreading the word to your teacher/librarian/classroom connections so we can get them involved in this program. There is no cost to teachers and classrooms and we've made the whole process as simple as possible. You can help by tweeting the below info:
​ Teachers! Earn a FREE #Multicultural Kids Book for Your Classroom! #teachers, #books #teacherlife
http://ow.ly/UUy96

The Classroom Reading Challenge has begun! Teachers can earn a free diversity book! #teachers, #books
 http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/?p=1796
-Our Diversity Book Lists and Resources for Educators and Parents are now available. Spread the word! http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/multicultural-reading-resources/diversity-book-lists-for-kids/
-Connect with us on Twitter https://twitter.com/MCChildsBookDay