We are happy to announce our line up for our #ReadYourWorld Book Jam 2019 with Children’s Book Council!
Yuyi Morales*
Neal Porter Books/Holiday House
Book list on Multicultural Stories
*She had to drop out due to heavy workload.
by Mia Wenjen
We are happy to announce our line up for our #ReadYourWorld Book Jam 2019 with Children’s Book Council!
Yuyi Morales*
Neal Porter Books/Holiday House
Book list on Multicultural Stories
*She had to drop out due to heavy workload.
by Mia Wenjen
Please welcome JaNay Brown-Wood with her list of Family and Food Picture Books.
We are giving away 3 copies of her book, Grandma’s Counting House. Please fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom to enter.
This list features eight titles where family and culture come together around delicious food. While all titles can be shared with children Preschool through third grade, I indicated the specific age range I thought the titles would fit best with.
1. Grandma’s Tiny House: A Counting Story by JaNay Brown-Wood
This is a cozy counting picture book about the relatives visiting Grandma and eating until they are all stuffed. It’s a sweet, rhyming counting book introduces young readers to numbers one through fifteen. [picture book, for ages 2 and up]
2. Bee-Bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park
This story is written in rhyme, showing the preparation of a popular Korean dish and the excitement of a hungry, young child. All the family members come together at the end to eat. The lines are rhythmic and the illustrations are fun. [picture book, ages 2 and up]
by Mia Wenjen
Please welcome Sandy Tharp-Thee, Cherokee author of The Apple Tree — A Modern-Day Cherokee Story. She has a list of some of her favorite Native American books and stories for children and the child that lives in all of us.
We are giving away 25 copies of The Apple Tree. Please fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom to enter.
1. Buffalo Song by Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth
The story of how the buffalo nearly became extinct, but because people cared enough and worked together we can still enjoy the American buffalo today. It offers insight to the meaning and importance of the buffalo to Native people from yesteryear to today. Based on true events, it reveals the consequences of one small buffalo being rescued by a boy and his father.
I believe the author said he spent sixteen years researching this true story. When I read it, I like to have the children sing with me. As a tribal librarian, this story allowed me to share the past, present, and future of buffalo. Today, the buffalo are no longer in danger, and we can enjoy them in the wild but also purchase the healthier bison meat. It is because of people coming together that this is possible.
Before reading this story with the children, I would share: Imagine if I could give you a gift and that gift gave you the shoes that you are wearing. Now imagine if that same gift provided your clothes, food, and even your shelter or home. What might you say to the creator that gave you such a gift? How would you care for such a gift? [picture book, ages 7 and up]
by Mia Wenjen
Please welcome Jo Meserve Mach, Vera Lynne Stroup-Rentier and Mary Birdsell with their list of Books Making the World Better Through Inclusion.
1. Emanuel’s Dream by Lauri Ann Thompson, illustrated by Sean Qualls
I love true stories and this true story of Emmanual Ofos Yeboah is so inspiring! Because his mother believes he can teach himself how to gain the skills he does just that. The fact he is missing part of one leg doesn’t limit him. Emmanuels quote at the end of the book says it all: “In this world, we are not perfect. We can only do our best.” [picture book, ages 4 and up]
2. My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay by Cari Best, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton
This is a fun story that takes place at school. It portrays inclusion in a wonderful way. Zulay becomes just another child participating in Field Day. At first she seems different because she is blind but then she is like every other child competing at school. [picture book, ages 4 and up]
by Mia Wenjen
Mike Mullin is the author of the Ashfall trilogy.
We are giving away 5 copies of his latest book, Surface Tension. Please fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom to enter.
Surface Tension by Mike Mullin
After witnessing an act of domestic terrorism while training on his bike, Jake is found near death, with a serious head injury and unable to remember the plane crash or the aftermath that landed him in the hospital. A terrorist leader’s teenage daughter, Betsy, is sent to kill Jake and eliminate him as a possible witness. When Jake’s mother blames his head injury for his tales of attempted murder, he has to rely on his girlfriend, Laurissa, to help him escape the killers and the law enforcement agents convinced that Jake himself had a role in the crash.
Mike Mullin, author of the Ashfall series, delivers a gripping story with memorable characters and all-too-real scenario. [young adult, ages 14 and up]
Okay, I’ll start with a confession. The title of this post isn’t exactly accurate. I’m an author, not a librarian, and certainly not qualified to write any kind of exhaustive list of the rich YA literature featuring Black protagonists.
Instead, I’m offering a more personal reading history. These are the books that I remember and still think about, sometimes years after I read them, the books that most influenced my development as a reader and writer. That also means this list includes some books that are arguably middle grade and one that was marketed as adult.
Although some of the books are classics, I’m including a few more recent titles this list because of the impact they had on my forthcoming novel, SURFACE TENSION. One of the most important characters in that novel is Laurissa Davis, a 17-year-old Black teenager from a wealthy family. Some books on this list she may have read, and others helped me define her character and her understanding of the world.
To the book list! (Read that sentence in Batman’s voice, please.)
1. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
I first read this novel the same year I first saw Star Wars, when I was ten or eleven. Both experiences linger in my memory nearly 40 years later. It wasn’t the first time I’d read books with Black protagonists (that would be Ezra Jack Keats’ brilliant picture books), but it was the first time I’d read about the brutality of racism. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is set in 1930’s Mississippi—Taylor sets the scene so well that by the time you’re done reading you’ll be able to taste the rust-colored dust of the dirt roads.
Cassie is an indomitable heroine. Every time I read her story, I alternate between feeling terror and elation as she confronts everything from racist insults to horrific threats against her person. But the true brilliance of the novel is the theme of fire running throughout it, beginning with the horribly burnt body of Mr. Berry and ending with a forest fire—it serves as a stark metaphor for the all-consuming nature of racism. [chapter book, ages 11 and up]
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