The Multicultural Children’s Book Day is an amazing initiative whose mission is to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. There is nothing better than reading a book about a kid who is just like you. I’m a big believer in the fact that every kid should be able to see themselves in a book.
As part of the Multicultural Children’s Book Day, we were able to whisk ourselves back to ancient China. It was a fun and fascinating journey.
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details. I was sent a free copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.
I’m very grateful to have been introduced to Icy Smith through the MCCBD team. We were sent a copy of the Mystery of the Giant Masks of Sanxingdui, written by Icy Smith and illustrated by Gayle Garner Roski. It was a beautiful book that we greatly enjoyed.
In 1968, construction workers found an amazing discovery. Two pits full of over a thousand artifacts, containing bronze, jade, gold, and elephant tusks. This Sanxingdui site is considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in China. Who buried these? Why? What happened to the ancient Sanxingdui culture? Icy Smith tells the story of what she thinks may have happened through the eyes of a young girl Min and her older brother Wei.
The story was fascinating and quite approachable to my 1st and 3rd grade daughters. We enjoyed this glimpse into ancient China and we were happy to see it through the eyes of a young girl. We learned a lot and are eager to read more books from Icy Smith.
Extend the fun with some activities:
- Build a replica of the Great Wall of China. Check out this amazing project from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
- Planet Smarty Pants has a list of so many great activities that she and her daughter have done together. They explored through math, crafts, food and more.
- Read a Chinese folktale. What Do We Do All Day has a fantastic list to choose from.
- Learn some words in Chinese. Miss Panda Chinese is a wonderful blog dedicated to teaching children Mandarin Chinese.
- Learn about pictograms, Terra Cotta Warriors, and more with these ancient China activities from Creekside Learning.
The Multicultural Children’s Book Day team’s mission to spread the word and raise awareness aboutthe importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to
see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures,
languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage
readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun
book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book
linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media
“Our mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.”
Thank you to all the sponsors of the Multicultural Children’s Book Day:
Children’s Book Day 2016 Medallion Level Sponsors! #ReadYourWorld
Gleeson Rebello*ShoutMouse Press*Author
Mahvash Shahegh* China
Institute.org*Live Oak Media
All Done Monkey,
Crafty Moms
Share, Educators Spin on it, Growing Book by Book, Imagination Soup, I’m Not the Nanny, InCultural Parent, Kid World Citizen, Mama
Smiles, Multicultural Kid Blogs, Spanish Playground
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KidWorldCitizen.org says
This looks like a great book! My son is adopted from China and we are always looking for ways to connect and learn about his heritage culture:).