Today I get to share with you three books from one of the Platinum Sponsors of Multicultural Children's Book Day. We have had so much fun with these books. We will start with The Granddaughter Necklace by Sharon Dennis Wyeth and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline.
This story tells a family tale about how the women share their ancestry stories with one another. The tradition is passed on with a necklace. The ancestor stories begin with a woman coming to America wearing a sparkling necklace her mother gave her. From there it is passed on from there from mother to daughter with information about each of the women beginning with Frances who have been given this beautiful necklace and the day they received it. The story itself is based on the oral tradition of Sharon Dennis Wyeth's family. This story shares the importance of knowing one's own family history as well as the closeness of a family. The family in this story is African American with some Irish roots. It is a wonderful tale. Hazel now wants a granddaughter necklace.
Our next book is Under the Same Sun by Sharon Robinson and illustrated by AG Ford. This story takes place in Tanzania. It is about the excitement of a family getting together when Grandmother Bibi and Auntie Sharon come from America for a visit in time for Grandmother Bibi's eighty-fifth birthday. The seven grandchildren and their parents plan a wonderful surprise to celebrate--a safari in the Serengeti National Park. On their way home from the park they stop in Bagamoyo, which was once a slave trading post. The father teaches the kids about slavery and what happened in the past. They learn that their great-great grandparents were captured and taken to America as slaves. Their father chose to return to Tanzania to make his home. The kids wanted to go to America with their grandmother since they miss her so much when they are apart and their grandmother reminds them that no matter how far apart they are they are still under the same sun. At the end of this book there is a bit of history about the author. Perhaps you have heard of her father, Jackie Robinson. Her brother, David, moved to Tanzania in 1984 where he is married and has seven kids. There are pictures in the back of the family visits, a map to show the travels and some Swahili words and pronunciations. This is a wonderful tale for anyone but also for families looking for their roots.
Our final book for today is Emma Is On the Air: Big News! by Ida Siegel. This is the first book in the series: Emma Is On the Air. This is a beginning reader chapter book with a few illustrations along the way. Emma Perez dreams of being famous and decides to ask her newspaper reporter father for help becoming a news reporter. He helps her by telling her to find a story that people need to know and report on it. After her first report he teaches her how to be an investigative reporter. He also helps her record her reports and upload them to her school website. She finds a big story and gets the health inspector to investigate it as well. Emma is worried and knows she needs to solve the mystery of the wormburger before anyone gets fired. This book inspired Hazel. She wants to read the others in the series and she wanted to make her own news report. We started one for this post.
We have really enjoyed all three of these books and recommend them to anyone. We loved learning about the various cultures of the diverse families in these stories.
Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2017 (1/27/17) is its fourth year and was
founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness on the
ongoing need to include kid’s books that celebrate diversity in home and school
bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books
into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.
Despite census data that shows 37% of the US
population consists of people of color, only 10% of children’s books published
have diversity content. Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day holiday,
the MCBD Team are on a mission to change all of that.
Current Sponsors: MCBD 2017 is honored to have some amazing Sponsors on board. Platinum Sponsors include Scholastic, Barefoot Books and Broccoli. Other Medallion Level Sponsors include heavy-hitters like Author Carole P. Roman, Audrey Press, Candlewick Press, Fathers Incorporated, KidLitTV, Capstone Young Readers, ChildsPlayUsa, Author Gayle Swift, Wisdom Tales Press, Lee& Low Books, The Pack-n-Go Girls, Live Oak Media, Author Charlotte Riggle, Chronicle Books and Pomelo Books
Author Sponsor include: Karen
Leggett Abouraya, Veronica
Appleton, Susan
Bernardo, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Maria
Dismondy, D.G. Driver, Geoff
Griffin, Savannah Hendricks, Stephen Hodges, Carmen Bernier-Grand,Vahid Imani, Gwen
Jackson, Hena,
Kahn, David Kelly, Mariana
Llanos, Natasha
Moulton-Levy, Teddy
O'Malley, Stacy
McAnulty, Cerece Murphy, Miranda Paul, Annette
Pimentel, Greg
Ransom, Sandra
Richards, Elsa
Takaoka, Graciela
Tiscareño-Sato, Sarah
Stevenson, Monica Mathis-Stowe SmartChoiceNation, Andrea Y. Wang
We’d like to also give
a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review
link-up on celebration day, but who also work tirelessly to spread the word of
this event. View our CoHosts HERE.
MCBD
Links to remember:
MCBD site: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/
Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta
Free Kindness Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers,
Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teachers-classroom-kindness-kit/
Free Diversity Book Lists and Activities for
Teachers and Parents: http://bit.ly/1sZ5s8i
