The King Cake Baby -- Multicultural Children's Book Day Review

Disclosure: Keila Dwawon sent me a copy of this book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

It is here!! Today is Multicultural Children's Book Day (MCCBD)!! Have you checked out the link party yet to see all the amazing multicultural children's books out there? I saved one review for today!!

In case you do not know yet, 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 2016 Medallion Level Sponsors! #ReadYourWorld

Platinum: Wisdom Tales Press * StoryQuest Books*Lil Libros

Gold: Author Tori Nighthawk*Candlewick Press,* Bharat Babies

Silver: Lee and Low Books*Chronicle Books*Capstone Young Readers T

Tuttle Publishing ,NY Media Works, LLC/KidLit TV* China Institute.org

Bronze: Pomelo Books* Author Jacqueline Woodson*Papa Lemon Books* Goosebottom Books*Author Gleeson Rebello*ShoutMouse Press*Author Mahvash Shahegh*Live Oak Media

 The MCCBD team is also offering a great chance for teachers to get a free diversity book for the classroom!! Be sure to check out the MCCBD 2016 Classroom Reading Challenge for more information. The have over 70 hardcover books to give away and have taken away the challenge. All teachers and librarians have to do is register (that's it!) and we will take care of the rest. Registration is here.

Please join us later today as we celebrate multicultural, diverse and inclusive books for kids for Multicultural Children’s Book Day. To help us with our mission to get diversity books into the hands of children, we are giving away a TON of books. Get more information about the MCCBD Twitter Party here. 

Multicultural Children’s Book Day has amazing Co-Host and you can us the links below or view them here.

All Done Monkey, Crafty Moms Share, Educators Spin on it, Growing Book by Book, Imagination Soup, I’m Not the Nanny, InCultural Parent, Kid World Citizen, Mama Smiles, Multicultural Kid Blogs, Spanish Playground

In the three years of the Multicultural Children's Day, I have reviewed:  Rainbow Stew, The Dragon New Year, Endeavour's Long Journey, The Mystic Princesses and the Whirlpool (which has a sale on the ebook through 1/27), Hathshepsut of Egypt, Doyli to the Rescue, and today's fun multicultural book is The King Cake Baby by Keila V. Dawson and illustrated by Vernon Smith. Now in my opening picture I posted that this is a Fairy Tales in Different Cultures post. This book is based on the story of The Gingerbread Man, however it takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. Keila Dawson provides many activities and lessons to go with this book including a study guide that helps kids compare The King Cake Baby to The Gingerbread Man. For me the most interesting part of the story is the culture and lesson on Mardi Gras traditions. A king cake in some countries is associated with the Epiphany (January 6) and in other places like New Orleans, it is associated with the pre-Lenten celebrations known often as carnival or mardi gras.(Source) 

A Plain King Cake from Haydel's Bakery By Infrogmation of New Orleans 
(Photo by Infrogmation) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

A king cake often has a small plastic baby (said to be Baby Jesus) placed inside or under the cake. 

King Cake Baby By Hlane13 (Own work)
 [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This book provides a recipe to make your own king cake. We unfortunately did not have time to do this yet but since Mardi Gras is not until February 9th this year we still have time!! First we need to get a king cake baby. Maybe we can catch the one in the book!
 

In this fun book the king cake baby jumps out of the drawer as soon as the old Creole woman opens the draw to get him. He runs away from the old Creole woman and man as well as a praline lady in Jackson Square, waiter at Cafe du Monde, and meets a baker on the way to the Creole Queen riverboat. As you can see in the details there are many cultural references as well as geographical references and many extensions to this book. It is a wonderful tale that introduces New Orleans, Mardi Gras and the Creole culture. 

We really enjoyed this book and hope you will check it out!! Enjoy this year's Multicultural Children's Book Day and be sure to check out all the books shared as well as the Twitter Party later (with all the giveaways)!! Be sure to RSVP to the Twitter Party!!