I just wanted to congratulate you on another successful Multicultural Book Day event–so many books! So many reviews! It’s wonderful how there is more attention being placed on diverse books these days than just a short time ago. I am impressed that you started MCBD in 2012 and it’s still going strong and better than ever. I saw how you retweeted my posts on the books I reviewed–how in the world did you keep up with it all? Amazing! Again, congratulations on a great event~Carol Kim, Children’s Book Author
Welcome to the Multicultural Children’s Book Day!
Our mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity but to get more of these books into classrooms and libraries.
Multicultural Children’s Book Day is a non-profit whose mission is to raise awareness about children’s books that celebrate diversity and to get more of these books into classrooms and libraries. To date, Multicultural Children’s Book Day, along with literacy partners, authors, and publishers, has donated over 10,800 books to parents, teachers, and librarians. Multicultural Children’s Book Day strives to shine the spotlight on the diverse books and authors that often get overlooked by mainstream publishing and media.
We are so glad you are here.
How Multicultural Children’s Book Day (MCBD) Came to Be
After being frustrated by a lack of diverse and multicultural children’s books available to their own families, reading and play advocates Valarie Budayr from Audrey Press Books and Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom decided to take matters into their own hands. The book-loving moms then teamed up to create a much-needed national event and on January 27th, 2012 the first-ever Multicultural Children’s Book Day was celebrated.
Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day platform, the mission from Day One has been to not only raise awareness around kid’s books that celebrate diversity but also get more of these types of books into classrooms and libraries.
“Kids need to see themselves in the pages of the books they read,” noted Budayr. “We are determined to not only shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books available but also offer visibility for the amazing authors and publishers who create them.”
The MCBD online celebration attracts thousands of supporters, over 800 book reviewers, and dozens of quality authors and publishers. The non-profit has also shifted from an “every January 27th” model to “the last Friday in January” to avoid conflicting with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The upcoming next MCBD celebration will occur on and offline on January 26, 2023.
The results and support were overwhelming as authors, publishers, parents, teachers, bloggers, and librarians joined forces to offer up an online event designed to shine the spotlight on diversity in children’s literature.
As we enter our 10th year, we feel that Multicultural Children’s Book Day has achieved its goal of shining the spotlight on all of the amazing multicultural children’s books available to our young readers, teachers, librarians, and parents worldwide.
With each passing year, not only has the event itself grown exponentially, this non-profit initiative has expanded to offline classroom programs, and celebrations, and we now have a global reach.
To date, this non-profit has donated over 8,000 books to kids and that number continues to climb.
Meet the co-founders of Multicultural Children’s Book Day:
Valarie Budayr is the CEO of Audrey Press and is an award-winning children’s author of The Fox Diaries: The Year the Foxes Came to our Garden, A Year in The Secret Garden, The Ultimate Guide To Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, and Dragons Are Real. She is passionate about making kids’ books come alive and is proud to be a play and reading advocate. Valarie’s mission is to inspire children, families, and communities to experience our world together while having fun.
Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom is a Harvard grad with a love of children’s books, and sneaking in teachable moments in art, science, math, foreign language, and language arts. Mia is passionate about getting kids excited about reading, and helping parents ensure that their child is successful at school.
**Multicultural Children’s Book Day is proud to announce that it is a 5013C non-profit!
The next MCBD celebration is Thursday, January 26, 2023!
(Friday, January 27, 2023, is Holocaust Remembrance Day so we switch to Thursday on those years.)
Learn more about the Multicultural Children’s Book Day initiative HERE
Learn how we classified what is a “diverse book” HERE.
Follow Us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest!
Multicultural Children’s Book Day: Social Media Numbers
Pinterest: 150K followers
Twitter: 15.9K followers
Instagram: 19.9K followers
Facebook: 5,900 followers
Facebook Group: 2,300 Members
YouTube: 8 subscribers
TikTok: 49 followers
If you would like updates and notifications of future events, activities, and the next Multicultural Children’s Book Day, please sign up to receive our newsletters and email updates. Thank you!
