Multicultural Children's Book Day! Spreading Gratitude and Positive Energy

Welcome to Multicultural Children's Book Day (MCBD) 2017! I am honored and excited to share with you not one, but TWO amazing books this year that promote wonder, gratitude, and confidence for children of all cultural backgrounds. 

This is my third year participating in this event.  Check out my 2016 and 2015 posts. Both of these books I have previously read still mean so much to my girls. 

This year, I have a couple of very special things to share with you. 

First, there is a FREE Kindness Classroom Kit for you, my readers, to download!  Check out the MCBD's Downloadable Kindness Classroom Kit for #Educators & #Homeschoolers (cost=ZERO!) #readyourworld http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/mcbds-downloadable-kindness-classroom-kit-for-educators-homeschoolers-costzero/

Second, there is a MCBD BOOK! An entire book dedicated to celebrating diversity in our world! The MCBD ebook is LIVE on Amazon and will be FREE to everyone January 26th-January 30th. For people who have KindleUnlimited it's free for them all of the time.

Here is the link: 

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NCWUGD

And now, onto my book reviews. Like I said earlier, I was lucky to receive two books. bok was sent to me by the authors. I always love to receive books direct from the authors because I know just how much work, love, and dedication went to get the book to its final form. So, thank you Karin and Stacy!

Now, the books:

Title: My Amazing Day: A Celebration of Wonder and Gratitude

Author: Karin Fisher-Golton

Photographer: Lori A. Cheung

Designer: Elizabeth Iwamiya

Age Range: Baby - 5 years 
Board book: 26 pages 
Publisher: Pacific Dogwood Press; First edition (November 1, 2013) 
Language: English ISBN-10: 0989614514 ISBN-13: 978-0989614511

About the Book (Summary from Amazon):

Every day is amazing!

The ordinary world is extraordinary when seen through little one's eyes. My Amazing Day is a remarkable everyday journey that ends with a happy burst of gratitude.

People have long experienced that expressing gratitude brings them happiness. Now scientific studies show that expressing gratitude leads to many health benefits as well.
Sharing My Amazing Day can be a joyful way to help establish habits of gratitude with the youngest people in your life.

My Review

This pint sized board book is the perfect way to introduce the simple wonders of the world to babies and toddlers. Simplistic wording and gorgeous photos capture the essence of life. Babies and toddlers alike will be captivated by the beautiful child featured in this board book. Her expressions of wonder, joy, and excitement will resonate with a baby, and hopefully get the parent reading the book to reflect on the innocence of childhood. For the youngest of readers, this book will allow parents to teach babies simple words and concepts. For toddlers and young children, parents will be able to introduce the concept of gratitude and discuss how to reflect on the multitude of blessings we have in our daily lives.

While reading this book with my four-year-old, even though it is a little young for her, we were able to launch into a discussion about what makes a day amazing. She loved the picture of the little girl appreciating her banana, and we were able to talk about how food makes us strong and healthy. As an activity, I asked her to share her amazing day. This is what she drew:

My little J drew a picture of her (with green skin- because why not!?!) reading books with her two best friends, which she drew having tan and brown skin. She wrote "Reading with Friends" as the thing that made her day amazing. I think this picture is an amazing representation of multicultural children's book day! (And honest to GOD I did not tell her to make her drawing about books- she just did.)



Title: Excellent Ed
Author: Stacy McAnulty
Illustrator: Julia Sarcone-Roach 
Age Range: 4 - 8 years 
Grade Level: Preschool - 3 
Hardcover: 32 pages 
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (May 17, 2016) 
Language: English 
ISBN-10: 0553510231 
ISBN-13: 978-0553510232

About the Book (From Amazon):  

Dog lovers will adore this imperfect yet endearing mutt and his quest for excellence!

Everyone in the Ellis family is excellent--except Ed.

Ed wonders if this is why he isn’t allowed to eat at the table or sit on the couch with the other children. So he’s determined to find his own thing to be excellent at--only to be (inadvertently) outdone by a family member every time.

Now Ed is really nervous--what if he’s not excellent enough to belong in this family?

This funny and endearing story offers a subtle look at sibling rivalry and self esteem, and will reassure kids that everyone is excellent at something, and that your family loves you, just as you are.

My Review

This book has become instant classic in our home! Witty writing, lots of alliteration, and this awesome, relatable family make the book enticing and fun to read. Poor Ed, the ornery dog, cannot figure out just what makes him excellent. All the kids in the family, who all happen to have names beginning with the letter E, are excellent at lots of exciting things- like soccer, dancing, and losing baby teeth. Luckily, the kids help Ed, the dog, figure out what makes him excellent. What makes this book excellent is the culturally diverse family doing what families do- spending time together, taking rides in the mini-van, celebrating family members' successes, and snuggling on the couch together. The book doesn't preach diversity- it is just diverse. And this is why we love it so much. Both of my children go to extremely diverse schools. Their normal is diversity. They don't live in homogeneous world, and so their books shouldn't represent a homogeneous population either.

In fact, Little J loved the book so much she had to read it to our ornery dog, Bretagne. Little J said that Bretagne is excellent at chewing things. 

Little J just loved "reading" Bretagne one of the books we received for Multicultural Children's Book Day (MCBD). MCBD is this Friday, January 27. Make sure to share a book that promotes tolerance, diversity, or kindness to spread love. The book Little J is reading is called Excellent Ed by @stacymcanulty and illustrated by @jsarconeroach. It is published by @aaknopf. What a perfect selection for us to receive because it is a book about an ornery dog that gets into lots of trouble trying to figure out what makes him excellent! The book features a culturally diverse family doing what families do- playing soccer, dancing, taking drives in the car, and sitting on the couch reading books. This book doesn't preach diversity, it represents diversity- which is why we love it so much. Now to go and write my full review. 😎 #readyourworld #mcbd #readabook #raisingreaders #choosekind #beexcellent #diversity

A photo posted by Jenny (@booksbabiesandbows) on Jan 25, 2017 at 5:50pm PST

I actually think that Bretagne is excellent at snuggling. I think the author of the book would appreciate these pictures of our dog because she is a dog lover too! Although, she confessed to me that her dogs are well behaved.  Check out her website to see photos of her cute pooches. www.stacymcanulty.com

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2017 (1/27/17) is its fourth year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness on the ongoing need to include kid’s books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.  

Despite census data that shows 37% of the US population consists of people of color, only 10% of children’s books published have diversity content. Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day holiday, the MCBD Team are on a mission to change all of that.

Current Sponsors:  MCBD 2017 is honored to have some amazing Sponsors on board. Platinum Sponsors include Scholastic, Barefoot Books and Broccoli. Other Medallion Level Sponsors include heavy-hitters like Author Carole P. Roman, Audrey Press, Candlewick Press,  Fathers Incorporated, KidLitTV, Capstone Young Readers, ChildsPlayUsa, Author Gayle Swift, Wisdom Tales Press, Lee& Low Books, The Pack-n-Go Girls, Live Oak Media, Author Charlotte Riggle, Chronicle Books and Pomelo Books

Author Sponsor include: Karen Leggett Abouraya, Veronica Appleton, Susan Bernardo, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Maria Dismondy, D.G. Driver, Geoff Griffin,  Savannah Hendricks, Stephen Hodges, Carmen Bernier-Grand,Vahid Imani, Gwen Jackson,  Hena, Kahn, David Kelly, Mariana Llanos, Natasha Moulton-Levy, Teddy O'Malley, Stacy McAnulty,  Cerece Murphy, Miranda Paul, Annette Pimentel, Greg Ransom, Sandra Richards, Elsa Takaoka, Graciela Tiscareño-Sato,  Sarah Stevenson, Monica Mathis-Stowe SmartChoiceNation, Andrea Y. Wang

We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also work tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.

MCBD Links to remember:

MCBD site: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/

Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta

Free Kindness Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teachers-classroom-kindness-kit/

Free Diversity Book Lists and Activities for Teachers and Parents: http://bit.ly/1sZ5s8i

FTC Required Disclosures:
 *I received a review copy from the publisher free of charge. All opinions expressed in this review represent my honest opinions about the book. **This post contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you purchase the books through these links, I receive a small portion of the payment, which I use to support this blog. Thanks for your support!