Back in 2013, I was introduced to Carole P. Roman's If You Were Me and Lived in... series. At that time, we got to review the books for Mexico, South Korea, France, and Norway.
When I saw another opportunity pop up, I jumped at the chance to add Australia to our collection, and a couple months later, we reviewed Russia and Portugal.
I signed up to be part of this year's Multicultural Children's Book Day, and the author I was paired with was... Carole P. Roman! I'm delighted to announce that she has added China to the series, since China holds such special meaning for our family.
Now that Hannah is reading on her own, she was excited to read about Russia.
She can even point it out on our globe!
"I'm ready for another one of those books, Mom!" This time, she was reading about South Korea.
When I was growing up, Disney princesses were all blonde (except Snow White) and I had a vague notion that Europe was like us, Africa was the dark, unknown continent, and Asia was all pretty similar. How little I knew! I so appreciated the opportunity to learn alongside my children as we did our Exploring Countries and Cultures year of homeschool.
I have made a huge effort to include books about China and books with multicultural characters in our personal library so that my girls grow up with pride in their heritage. But really, I think that all children should learn more about our fascinating and diverse world! Maybe we'd be a little less impressed with ourselves if we understood that the United States is a relative newcomer in terms of history, and that there are so many other countries with wildly interesting facts from their past. For this reason, I'm excited to be working with Multicultural Children's Book Day!
The MCCBD team’s mission 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.
The co-creators of this unique event are Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom and Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book/Audrey Press.
Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2016 Medallion Level Sponsors! #ReadYourWorld
Platinum: Wisdom Tales Press * StoryQuest Books * Lil Libros
Gold: Author Tori Nighthawk * Candlewick Press * Bharat Babies
Silver: Lee and Low Books * Chronicle Books * Capstone Young Readers T *
Tuttle Publishing * NY Media Works * LLC/KidLit TV
Bronze: Pomelo Books * Author Jacqueline Woodson * Papa Lemon Books * Goosebottom Books * Author Gleeson Rebello * ShoutMouse Press * Author Mahvash Shahegh * China Institute.org * Live Oak Media
Multicultural Children’s Book Day has 12 amazing Co-Hosts (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) and you can view them here.
Caution! If you go clicking through the links above, you will find books you want! I certainly did! I pinned several to add to our collection later on.
So, what about the book, If You Were Me and Lived in China? I think it might be our favorite of the whole series.
The book talks about the names you might have been given if you'd been born in China. This was the perfect chance to talk about Hannah's Chinese name and remind her of it's special meaning.
The book also lists some of the sights of China and I was able to tell her that we crossed the Yangtze River when we visited her hometown, and how someday I want to see the terracotta warriors in Xi'an.
There are now a whopping sixteen book in the If You Were Me and Lived in... series! It seems we're missing a few! I like that these books are simple and formulaic, giving children a good taste for each different nation they read about, and leaving them curious to find out more. They make an excellent introduction to a country study for homeschoolers, giving information such as the flag, monetary unit, a few words of the local language, holidays, geography, and more in a very approachable manner. They are targeted toward kids ages 3-8, but even my older children have found them interesting.
I appreciate how Carole's books bring our wide and wonderful world into our home and bookshelf for my children.
This post may be linked up at these linky parties.