Multicultural Children's Book Day

#ReadYourWorld

Supporting our LGBTQIA Kids

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Guest post by Afsaneh Moradian

 

Our story 

About two years ago, my child informed us that they are nonbinary. That they don’t identify as either boy or girl and that their pronouns are now they/them.  Of course, this was fine with me. But, it did take a lot of work to stop using she/her in reference to my child. I’d been doing that for so many years, I was on autopilot. I tried and made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. Then I saw my child’s face when someone called them she. My child cringed and felt so uncomfortable. 

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Five No Brainer Tips to Nurture Cultural Identity and Awareness in Early Childhood – and Why it’s a Must-Do! 

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It’s Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month all month long, and we are delighted to share with you this guest post from indigrow, MCBD’s May Sponsor of the Month.

“My kid is too young, I don’t need to think we need to talk about cultural identity so soon, right?”

Wrong!
Parents of young kids often feel conversations involving seemingly heavy topics like how we look, what we wear, what we eat, what we sound like, and how we are named, are conversations that don’t need to be addressed until much later.  But science tells us that kids notice differences as early as 6 months of age. More importantly, the reality is that kids get called out for these obvious differences as early as their preschool and kindergarten years.

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Language Lizard Supports Ukrainian Refugees with Proceeds From Bilingual Book Purchases

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During the month of May, independent publisher Language Lizard will donate a portion of the proceeds from the sales of their Living in Harmony book sets (available in Ukrainian and 30 additional languages) to support refugee families affected by recent global conflicts. 

The Living in Harmony books: Be Kind, We Can All Be Friends, and Who Are We? use colorful, multicultural illustrations to explore the concepts of diversity, kindness, and friendship. The books come with free teaching resources including lesson plans and extension activities. 

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Tennessee State Bill to Ban Books and Criminalize Librarians

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Guest post by Andrew Maraniss

Last week, Tennessee school librarians held their annual breakfast reception at the state legislature, setting up tables piled with cinnamon rolls, scones, and coffee.

Only a few legislators dropped by. Instead, they sent over assistants to load up paper plates to bring back to their offices.

That wasn’t surprising. If I were a member of Tennessee’s Republican supermajority, I’d be embarrassed to show my face around school librarians, too.

Drunk on power and buzzed on culture-war adrenaline in a mid-term election year, Tennessee Republicans have introduced bills to ban books in K-12 schools that “address” or “normalize” LGBTQ people or issues, to criminalize school librarians for carrying supposedly “obscene” books, and to ban the discussion of “divisive” concepts such as race even at state universities.

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Picture books featuring diverse moms, dads, and families.  

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Picture books featuring diverse moms, dads, and families.  

Guest post by Carol Gordon Ekster

The story behind Some Daddies is that on 12/17/17 my husband and I were Facetiming with my grandson.  He noticed my husband had shaved, said his daddy shaved but has a beard so he’s going to have a beard when he gets older because he’s going to be a daddy. I said…”Some daddies have beards..” I paused, my writing brain ignited, to write down that title and started working on a draft soon after that.   Exactly one year to the day, I saw on the submittable that Beaming Books was interested. I had put a pitch on Twitter for #pbpitch on 10/25/18 “SOME DADDIES-a concept PB with heart…” Naomi Krueger from Beaming Books hearted my pitch and the rest is history! It is dedicated to my grandson who planted the idea and to my amazing dad, who passed away before he got to see the final book. With a “windows-to-the-world cover” this rollicking showcase of daddies celebrates the incredible diversity of modern fathers. Every daddy is different–and that makes them even more special!  [Read more…]