Stanley and Katrina: Multicultural Children's Book Day 2015. Bonus Post: Beauty and the Beast #ReadYourWorld

We are excited to share with you a book that we were lucky enough to win via KidLit.TV. It is one we think is just perfect for Multicultural Children's Book Day. Since this is our second post for Multicultural Children's Book Day, we'll keep this one on the shorter side. However, we have activities to go along with this book!

Multicultural Children's Book Day
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.

Mission: 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, Mia and Valarie are on a mission to change all of that. Their mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these types of books into classrooms and libraries. Another goal of this exciting event is create a compilation of books and favorite reads that will provide not only a new reading list for the winter, but also a way to expose brilliant books to families, teachers, and libraries.

“MCCBD team hopes to spread the word and raise awareness about the 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 Review

Title: Beauty and the Beast

Author: H. Chuku Lee

Illustrator: Pat Cummings

Year Published: 2014

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 32
Age Level: 4-8 years old.

Summary (Amazon): remarkable retelling of Beauty and the Beast, award-winning illustrator Pat Cummings creates an enchanted fairy-tale world flavored by the art, architecture, and culture of West Africa, while writer H. Chuku Lee stays true to the story of this beloved classic. Read more on Amazon..

Our Thoughts

We were lucky enough to win this book in a giveaway. The illustrations are gorgeous. "Beauty and the Beast" is a story most of us know well - no huge surprises, here. Well, okay...there are small differences but nothing crazy that will make your child, familiar with the well-known Disney version, stop in their tracks.
What we love about this book is that it is set in West Africa with the architecture of the Dogon of Mali. With stunning illustrations, we are transported to another time and place. To view some of the gorgeous illustrations, be sure to watch KidLit.TV's interview (below) with the creative team of this beautiful book. We'll be donating our copy to our local library so that others may enjoy it.

Activities To Go Along with the Book

View KidLit.TV's interview with the collaborative team of this beautiful book.

Compare this book to the version of Beauty and the Beast that your family/students know with this free downloadable printable created by The Common Core Classroom

We love that this printable includes a "Things to Think About" page.

A great blog post (that contains information about the Sacred Sites of the Dogon, Mali (where the book is set).

Disclosure: We received a copy of "Beauty and the Beast" from a giveaway we entered with KidLit.TV. We received no monetary or in-kind compensation for our honest review. This post does NOT contain affiliate links. We will be donating this book to our local library.

Thank You Sponsors:

MCCBD’s 2015 Sponsors include Platinum Sponsors: Wisdom Tales Press, Daybreak Press Global Bookshop, Gold Sponsors: Satya House, MulticulturalKids.com, Author Stephen Hodges and the Magic Poof, Silver Sponsors: Junior Library Guild, Capstone Publishing, Lee and Low Books, The Omnibus Publishing. Bronze Sponsors:Double Dutch Dolls, Bliss Group Books, Snuggle with Picture Books Publishing, Rainbow Books, Author FeliciaCapers, Chronicle Books Muslim Writers Publishing ,East West Discovery Press.

CoHosts:

Africa to America, All Done Monkey, The Educators’ Spin on It, Growing Book by Book, InCultural Parent, Kid World Citizen, Mama Smiles, Multicultural Kid Blogs, Sprout’s Bookshelf

First Book

MCCBD is partnering with First Book to offer a Virtual Book Drive that will help donate multicultural children’s books through their channels during the week of the event. We want to help get diversity books into the hands of kids who most need it and now we have a way to do it! The Virtual Book Drive is LIVE and can be found HERE.