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Today, contributor Valarie is going to tell you about an initiative she is a co-founder of. This wonderful project is called Multicultural Children’s Book Day. After you read the post, help us spread the word by sharing it!
Why Multicultural Children’s Book Day
Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom and I, Valarie Budayr from Jump into a Book, are excited! We’re celebrating Multicultural Children’s Book Day along with 63 parenting and children’s book bloggers who’ve been matched up with books from national publishers.
Last summer Mia and I became aware of a shocking statistic. 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.
We decided to create Multicultural Children’s Book Day to raise awareness for children’s books which celebrate diversity, and to get more of these types of books into classrooms and libraries. Another goal of ours for this exciting event is to compile lists of books and favorite reads which will expose multicultural books to families, teacher, and libraries.
Multicultural Children’s Book Day Sponsors
Our wonderful sponsors include:
Platinum Sponsor: Wisdom Tales Press
Wisdom Tales publishes both children’s and teen titles and was created for the purpose of sharing the wisdom, beauty, and values of traditional cultures and peoples from around the world with young readers and their families.
World Wisdom has been publishing children’s books by Caldecott medal winner, Paul Goble, since 2005. Since 2002 it has produced many acclaimed books that are well-suited for teens, especially those about the American Indians.
Gold Sponsor: Susan Daniel Fayad author of “My Grandfather’s Masbaha”
Silver Sponsor: Lee & Low Books
Jason Lee started off this conversation when he wrote on how the children’s book industry published the same number of multicultural books despite the rise of children of color.
Bronze Sponsor: Chronicle Books
We also want to thank publishers The Jewish Library, Eliassen Creative LLC, Walden Pond Press and Barefoot Books and authors including Margi Preus and Natasha Yim for providing review copies of their books!
For more ideas on how you can participate in Multicultural Children’s Book Day, please go to our special page on Jump into a Book.
Now head over to Jump Into a Book and see all the GREAT books to add to your library!
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