It's time to celebrate Multicultural Children's Book Day. This is a celebration of diversity in literature for young people launched by children’s reading and play advocates Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book and Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom. You can find tons of links to many multicultural blog posts at their blogs too. At Pomelo Books, Janet (Wong) and I are so pleased to be sponsors of this great celebration. In fact, we're so pleased that diversity has been a hallmark of each of our Poetry Friday anthologies. We've featured diverse poets, diverse themes and topics, and even bilingual poetry in Spanish/English.
This week, Janet is presenting along with poets Julie Larios, Charles Waters, and Carmen T. Bernier-Grand at Dearborn Park Elementary School in Seattle, a Title I school that educates children who are Asian American, African American, and Latino. Children even learn Mandarin or Spanish starting in kindergarten!
I'm featuring poems by each of these lovely peeps today to celebrate Multicultural Children's Book Day (officially January 27). Join the Twitter Party on Jan. 27 at 8pm with #ReadYourWorld. There will be great conversation and lots of giveaways too!
Meanwhile, here are lovely gems by Charles Waters, Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, Julie Larios and Janet Wong. Enjoy!
Julie Larios is the lovely lady behind the poetry of Yellow Elephant and Imaginary Menagerie, among others. Plus her blog, The Drift Record, is not-to-be-missed. Her lyrical poem, "Names" (below) from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School makes my mouth water!
Finally, you know how much I love Janet (Wong), her poetry, and her endless advocacy for diversity AND poetry. Her poem below, "Grandfather's Chopsticks" is from our first book together, The Poetry Friday Anthology K-5.
3 comments:
Thank you, Sylvia, for posting about the exciting events that Carmen Bernier-Grand, Julie Larios, Charles Waters, and I were able to do in an early celebration of Multicultural Children's Book Day in Seattle. In our assemblies we shared a wide variety of poems in a wide variety of performance styles to a wide variety of children--something for everyone and 100% FUN!
WHat a wonderful way to celbrate MCBD - by sharing this eclectic set of poems. I love them all, but I think my favourite is the last, with the image of the clever chopsticks, showing a beautiful connection between generations.
Sylvia, thank you, Janet, and Pomelo Books for highlighting children's poetry, diversity, and having a good poetic time all day, everyday! I had a blast in Seattle and Bellevue, and can't wait to come back again!
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