Earth Day has come and gone, but during this last week I have discovered a plethora of amazing earth/nature related activities that could be utilized and enjoyed all year-round. Some are are resources, some are suggested booklists and some are earth-friendly fun for families. But they are all important tools and ideas that will help your family love and honor our Earth 365 days a year. Enjoy!
10 Simple Ways Kids Can Celebrate Earth Day-via Multicultural Kids
With Earth Day (April 22) around the corner, award-winning children’s authors and illustrators from around the globe are fostering literacy and environmental awareness through Authors for Earth Day. Launched in 2008 by children’s author and illustrator Brooke Bessesen, the grassroots organization now operates year-round, bringing children’s book creators to libraries and classrooms. Read more HERE.
Reading for the Earth-Ultimate Earth Day Resource Roundup from Lee and Low Books!
Love this graphic from Whole Foods!
I created a booklist in honor of Earth Day and…well…I went a little crazy! I found so many amazing and unique books in our own personal library, I just had to share:
An Earth Day BookList: Great Reads for High Schoolers
An Earth Day Booklist- Great Chapter & Non-Fiction Books for Kids
An Earth Day Booklist for the Whole Family
How will your family honor the earth this year?
**Some of these links are affiliate links
SPRING MEANS FOXES! The Fox Diaries: The Year The Foxes Came to Our Garden
From the forest to the front yard, experience the magical story of a family of foxes that took up residence right in the front yard of the author and publisher (that’s me!).
Great to share with your children or students, The Fox Diaries speaks to the importance of growing and learning both individually and as a family unit. It is a perfect book for story-time or family sharing. Not only can you read about the daily rituals of this marvelous fox family, there is an information packed resource section at the end of the book which includes lots of facts and even a few “fox movies” that you can enjoy with your family.
Purchase your copy of The Fox Diaries Today!!
The post Weekend Links: Resources and Activities for Loving Our Earth appeared first on Jump Into A Book.
This week has been jam-packed full of amazing book news and awesome conversations. Here are some of my top picks:
Multicultural Children’s Book Day and Wisdom Tales Press are joining forces to get multicultural books into the hands of MOMS!
Sharing a passion for diversity & multiculturalism in children’s literature, award-winning children’s book publisher, Wisdom Tales Press & non-profit Multicultural Children’s Book Day have joined forces to help young readers “see themselves within the pages of a book.” The duo will be offering many multicultural children’s book titles for purchase at Moms Rock! Expo! an event May 2-3rd at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Get the full scoop HERE and don’t miss the chance to hang out with us in the Wisdom Tales/MCCBD booth!
Penguin Random House. I’m writing to share news about Brightly (www.readbrightly.com), a new resource to help parents raise lifelong readers. The site, a Penguin Random House initiative, relaunched last week with a new look and feel and expanded content offering. I hope you can share news of this resource in your Weekend Links section. I also wanted to see if you might be interested in contributing to Brightly. We really enjoy your posts on Jump Into A Book and feel you would bring a wonderful perspective to the site.
“Brightly is like your fun, friendly, and well-informed kid-lit pal. Our focus is on celebrating and embracing different kinds of readers, kids, and interests. Brightly gives parents insights into which books and authors their children might get excited about and what activities might enhance a family’s experience of reading,” said Kotin.
Brightly shares book recommendations from across the children’s publishing world for every age and stage, as well as reading tips and insights, special author and illustrator content, seasonal activities, and more. Below is a press release with additional details. Thanks for exploring the site and do let us know what you think. If you are interested in being a guest contributor, I can put you in touch Liz Kotin, our content director who is copied on this email. We look forward to hearing from you! Thanks for your consideration.
Earlier this week The Children’s Book Council announced the wonderful news that a Half a Million New Children’s Books Will Be Distributed through Pediatric Clinics to Help Close the Word Gap
A few weeks back I encountered a disturbing story about an Alemeda County Library who had thrown our thousands of children’s books. The aftermath was filled with great discussions and thoughts. Check out the conversation here:
Homeschooling can be complicated and frustrating, especially if you are overloaded with information. The good news is that you don’t have to figure it out alone. Donna Ashton’s The Waldorf Home School Handbook is a simple and step-by-step guide to creating and understanding a Waldorf-inspired homeschool plan. Within the pages of this all-in-one homeschooling guide parents will find information, samples of lesson plans and curriculum, helpful hints and the secrets behind the three Areas for Optimum Learning. Join Donna as she guides you through the Waldorf method and reveals how to educate your children in a nurturing and creative environment. Visit the Waldorf Homeschool Handbook info page HERE.
The post Weekend Links: Reading Brightly appeared first on Jump Into A Book.
As everyone may already know, plans are in full swing for our second Multicultural Children’s Book Day on January 27th! Created by myself and the amazing Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom and myself, event has a goal of not only shing the spotlight on all of the amazing diverse and multicultural children books, authors and illustrators, but also to get these very books into the hands of the children who need them.
We are so excited to announce our line up of 25 diversity authors and illustrations starting January 1st and running through Janaury 25th at the Multicultural Children’s Book Day blog!
As we mentioned, we are collaboring with the Children’s Book Council who reached out to its members to highlight the authors and illustrators of multicultural children’s books!
Please welcome (in alphabetical order):
Tracey Baptiste was born in Trinidad, where she grew up on jumbie stories and fairy tales. Her debut, a young adult novel titled Angel’s Grace, was named one of the 100 best books for reading and sharing by New York City librarians. Tracey is a former teacher, textbook editor, ballerina, and amateur librarian who once started up a library in her house in the hope that everyone would bring their books back late and she would be rich! You know, like other librarians. She is now a wife and mom and lives in New Jersey, where she writes and edits books for kids from a very cozy office in her house that is filled with more toys than she can count. The Jumbies is her second novel.
Kathleen Benson is the coauthor of many picture books, including John Lewis in the Lead, which was illustrated by Benny Andrews. She lives in New York, New York.
Tonya Bolden’s work has garnered many accolades, including the Coretta Scott King Honor Award, James Madison Book Award, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, YALSA Best Book of the Year, and CCBC Best Book of the Year. She lives in New York City.
Tricia Brown is an author, editor, and book developer. She travels often and is a popular speaker in schools, libraries, and events in Alaska as well as the Lower 48. Her multimedia presentations, which include lessons on Alaska natural history and culture, regularly receive high praise from educators and parents. She loves to get kids excited about reading, writing, and art.
Andrea Cheng is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. She writes picture books and middle grade and young adult novels, and also teaches English as a Second Language and children’s literature. She walks daily near her Ohio home. She writes the Anna Wang series (The Year of the Three Sisters).
Kris Dinnison has spent nearly two decades as a teacher and librarian. Nowadays, she helps run the retail and café businesses she owns with her husband, hikes, and spins classic vinyl. This is her debut YA novel. She lives in Spokane, Washington.
Sharon M. Draper is a New York Times bestselling author who has received the Coretta Scott King Award for both Copper Sun and Forged by Fire. Her Out of My Mind has won multiple awards and has been a New York Times bestseller for more than a year. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she taught high school English for twenty-five years and was named National Teacher of the Year.
Matt de la Peña is the author of five critically-acclaimed young adult novels: Ball Don’t Lie, Mexican WhiteBoy, We Were Here, I Will Save You and The Living. He’s also the author of the award-winning picture book A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Matt received his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and his BA from the University of the Pacific where he attended school on a full basketball scholarship. de la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn NY. He teaches creative writing and visits high schools and colleges throughout the country.
Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome are a husband-wife team who have collaborated on many award-winning picture books for children. These include Satchel Paige, which was an ALA Best Book for Children and a Booklist Top Ten Sports Book for Youth, and Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass, which received starred reviews in Booklist and School Library Journal. The Quilt Alphabet was praised as “a blue-ribbon ABC book that combines bright, folksy oil paintings and lilting riddle-poems” in a starred review in Publishers Weekly and called “a feast for the eyes” in School Library Journal.
JaNay Brown-Wood dreams big. Ever since she was a little girl, she’s wanted to become a published author. Her determination has paid off. Imani’s Moon is her first book for children. JaNay is also a professor of early childhood education. She lives in California.
Karen English is a Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning author who lives in Los Angeles, California. Her books have been praised for their accessible writing, authentic characters, and satisfying story lines. Karen is a retired elementary school teacher, and she wrote these stories with her students in mind.
Desirae Foston is a designer and artist based in Brooklyn, NY.
Rachel Isadora received a Caldecott Honor for Ben’s Trumpet, and has written and illustrated numerous other books for children, including Bea at Ballet, Jake at Gymnastics, Say Hello!, Peekaboo Bedtime, the Lili at Ballet series, and several classic tales set in Africa (including Old Mikamba Had a Farm, There was a Tree, The Night Before Christmas, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and The Princess and the Pea). She lives in New York City.
Kekla Magoon is an award-winning author of many young adult novels, including The Rock and the River, for which she received the 2010 Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Kekla Magoon lives in New York City.
Meg Medina is the author of The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind and the picture book Tía Isa Wants a Car, illustrated by Claudio Muñoz, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. Her most recent young adult novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, is the winner of the 2014 Pura Belpré Author Award. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Jason Reynolds is crazy. About stories. After earning a BA in English from The University of Maryland, College Park, he moved to Brooklyn, New York, where you can often find him walking the four blocks from the train to his apartment talking to himself. Well, not really talking to himself, but just repeating character names and plot lines he thought of on the train, over and over again, because he’s afraid he’ll forget it all before he gets home. He is the author of the critically acclaimed When I Was the Greatest and The Boy in the Black Suit.
Kashmira Sheth was four years old at the first Indian wedding she remembers, and she still cherishes the memory of the festivities in her grandparents’ house. Since then she has attended many weddings but, unlike Sona, has never successfully stolen a groom’s shoes. She is the author of many acclaimed books, including Tiger in My Soup, My Dadima Wears a Sari, and Monsoon Afternoon. Sheth teaches at Pine Manor College, in their Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program.
Conrad J. Storad is an award-winning author and editor of more than 50 science and nature books for children, Conrad J. Storad is committed to helping students better understand and appreciate the natural world. Conrad visits many schools to teach and entertain children and is now approaching his visit with his millionth student. In 2006, Don’t Call Me Pig! (A Javelina Story) was selected by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to promote reading, and more than 93,000 first-graders received a special edition copy. In 2012, Storad’s Arizona Way Out West & Witty, coauthored with Lynda Exley, was selected to represent Arizona as part of the “52 Great Reads” program run annually at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Eric Velasquez was born in Spanish Harlem in New York City. The awards he has won include a Pura Belpré and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award. He lives in New York State with his family.
Laura Rose Wagner has a PhD in anthropology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She lived in Port-au-Prince from 2009 to 2012, and survived the earthquake. She travels to Haiti often, and founded a creative writing group for young people there.
Brenda Woods was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, raised in southern California, and attended California State University, Northridge. She is the award-winning author of several books for young readers: Coretta Scott King Honor winner The Red Rose Box, The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond, Saint Louis Armstrong Beach, Voya Top Shelf Fiction selection Emako Blue, My Name is Sally Little Song, and A Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her numerous awards and honors include the Judy Lopez Memorial Award, FOCAL award, Pen Center USA’s Literary Award finalist, IRA Children’s Choice Young Adult Fiction Award, and ALA Quick Pick. She lives in the Los Angeles area.
Natasha Yim was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At ten, her family moved to Hong Kong, where Natasha attended a very Harry Potter-esque secondary school. This is where she was turned on to writing. She moved to the United States to attend college where she studied Psychology and English Literature. Natasha is the author of Sacajawea of the Shoshone, Cixi: “The Dragon Empress”, and Otto’s Rainy Day. She lives in Ukiah, California.
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The post Diversity Authors and Illustrations Guest Posting on the Multicultural Children’s Book Day Blog!! appeared first on Jump Into A Book.
