Are you celebrating Día this year? We have five fun ideas to fuel your celebration planning.
In its 20th year, Día de los niños, Día de los libros (Children’s Day, Book Day – or Día) is the annual celebration of bookjoy created by children’s author Pat Mora. The nationally recognized initiative emphasizes the importance of literacy for all children, from all backgrounds and creatively links them to the gift of reading.
March is the perfect time to plan the details of your Día celebration. Now is the time to pick your location, check and evaluate your book inventory and invite your guests. Try these great ideas and find more tips for organizing and planning your celebration in our downloadable Día guide.
American Indians in Children’s Literature is a blog created by native blogger Debbie Reese. Her aim is to educate others about the culture and perspective of indigenous peoples especially pertaining to children’s literature.
First Book’s Post Pick: Top Ten Books Recommended for Elementary School
Developing Young Readers is a great resource for tips and activities pertaining to reading and literacy. It provides tools for parents and educators that are specifically designed to foster good reading habits at any age.
First Book’s Post Pick: Pre-literacy and Puzzles
Bookjoy is written by author Pat Mora who believes strongly in the power of creativity to enrich people’s daily lives. Her blog is a helpful source of inspiration and support for literacy initiatives.
First Book’s Post Pick: Children as Creators
Reading Really Rocks is written by an especially enthusiastic teacher aiming to spread a love for literacy. This blog contains useful grammar resources as well as children’s book recommendations.
First Book’s Post Pick: Favorite First Grade Read Alouds!
Pat Mora, one of my favorite authors has entered the wonderful world of blogging. Her Bookjoy Blog is all about finding the joy in books. She's hoping that we all contribute and comment on ideas for El día de los niños. What gives you bookjoy? Visit Pat often at She'll be a permanent link on the sidebars of both Cuentecitos and AmoXcalli. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
From Cuentecitos and AmoXcalli, welcome to the kidlitosphere Pat!
Mo Willems is offering a free printable bookplate on his blog, featuring his pigeon character (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
). If you enjoy his books (I love most of them), you’ll want to print one of these bookplates. I think they’d make a nice gift, as well.
Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the link.
If you love books, or want to give a gift to a book lover, an attractive book plate can come in handy. Or one that has meaning to you, because of the author, illustrator, or character mentioned or shown in the bookplate. There are some nice free printable bookplates online, many of which relate to children’s illustrators or authors, or are actually created by (or for) them.
 |
| bookplate by Penny Dale |
| |
 |
| bookplate by Mick Inkpen |
My Home Library, established by children’s author Anne Fine, is a fantastic resource for free quality printable bookplates–bookplates by well-known (and lesser known) children’s illustrators and authors (mainly from the UK), including illustrators Quentin Blake; Polly Dunbar; Aliki; Shirley Hughes; David Melling; Marie Louise-Gay; Jane Hissey; Mick Inkpen; Helen Oxenbury; and children’s authors Debi Gliori; Ian Beck; Raymond Briggs; and many, many more. There are more than 200 free bookplates here. There are large bookplates (for picture books, etc), medium bookplates (for hardcover novels), and small bookplates (for paperback novels). The majority of the bookplates are in black and white, and look like ink drawings, but there are also color plates found here. Some of the more well-known illustrators are only found in the color section. Some bookplates are quite beautiful, some are instantly recognizable as the artist, all are interesting and all from children’s authors or illustrators. What a find!
My Home Library also has a few free printable bookmarks (6 black-and-white and 4 color).
You can find 6 beautiful color printable bookplates at the Bookhive.
There are some lovely bookplates here designed by New Zealand children’s illustrators.
Graham-Cameron Illustration has 10 free printable bookplates in color, created by children’s illustrators.
Children’s author/illustrator Jan Brett has 3 lovely color bookplates that you can print off. She offers them in .pdf format, which means they’re higher quality.
Children’s illustrator Bridget MacKeith has 4 color printable bookplates for you to print.
Children’s author Anne Fine has 4 free printable bookplates on her site.
PizzaByTheSlice has 4 black-and-white printable bookplates, 2 cat related, and one Christmas related.
Paul Jennings offers 4 free color printable bookplates with images from the covers of his books.
Other Book-Related Printables:
Susan Taylor Brown has a beautiful reading door hanger that you can download and print off; teaching guides; and a coloring page.
Random House UK has a lot of free book-related printables. I thought the best of them were: Teenage Advisory Total Trivia Flyers; Eric the Red - Spot the Difference; How to Speak Moo activity sheet. They also have ecards, desktop wallpaper, and some screensavers.
Phoebe Gilman’s site (The Balloon Tree
(one of my favorite picture books), Jillian Jiggs
) has an activity book where you can print off some black-and-white illustrations of Jillian Jiggs to color, a bookmark to color, and a word search.
For quality, free printable bookmarks, see my posts here and here.
If you have a favorite children’s or YA author or illustrator and you want your book autographed by them, you can often go to their site and request an autographed bookplate that you can paste inside your book. (For those of you who don’t know, a bookplate is a small label or print with an illustration and a place to write your name that you paste on the inside of a book to show that the book is yours. A bookplate can personalize a book, help ensure that it’s returned to you if you lend it to someone else, bring a good feeling if you like the author (if they’ve signed it) or the illustration.) You’re usually required to send a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) with the correct postage to receive a bookplate from an author.
Not every children’s author or illustrator offers this, but some do.
Here are some who do:
YA/Teen Fiction Authors:
Lara M. Zeises
Cynthia Leitich Smith For fans of Tantalize
, Cynthia Leitich Smith is currently offering signed bookmarks, bookplates, and sometimes she tosses in some wolf or bat stickers, too. For any of her other books, Cynthia offers signed bookplates. Cynthia doesn’t require a SASE, but asks that groups send her one address.
Barry Lyga
Meg Cabot
Linda Joy Singleton
Ursula LeGuin
Sylvia Engdahl
Children’s Authors:
Verla Kay
Linda Sue Park
Picture Book Authors and/or Illustrators:
Susan Taylor Brown has a beautiful reading door hanger that you can download and print off; teaching guides; a coloring page; and you can send away for a free autographed bookplate.
Grace Lin
John Segal
Dianne Ochiltree
Ellen Jackson (You have to send the SASE to her publisher, and she doesn’t list the publisher’s address on that page.)
Anna Grossnickle Hines
Know another children’s or YA author who offers autographed bookplates or bookmarks? Let me know.
.jpg?picon=980)
