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Celebration Ideas from Pat Mora for
El día de los niños/El día de los libros,
Children's Day/Book Day
Día, a family literacy initiative, began in 1996. It's a
daily commitment to linking all children
with books and culminates
in annual, national literacy celebrations on April
30th. At homes, schools, libraries, museums, churches,
parks, and book stores, etc., communities celebrate children,
books, home languages and cultures.
Although food, music, crafts, making book marks, and playing
games (book walks instead of cake walks, book bingo or book
lotería) are often part of these book fiestas, nurturing literacy
is the heart of the celebration. Include book displays, storytellers,
author readings, puppet shows, celebrity readers, children
as authors, read-a-thons and book give-aways or raffles. Always
share brief comments about bookjoy
and about the importance of daily family reading time, of
building a home library and of visiting and participating
in school and public libraries. Involve parents on your planning
team and engage local community organizations and businesses
in supporting your literacy efforts. Libraries, expand your
collections to reflect our plurality and remember to use Día
as your kick-off for Summer Reading.
Other Día Ideas:
- Plan a book parade.
- Organize a book-pajama party at a school, book store,
library or public housing project.
- Plan a giant families-and-books picnic.
- Plant poems written by children and families and or fly
poetry kites.
- Link your Día celebration to other celebrations such as
Earth Day, Arbor Day, Mother's Day, National Poetry Month,
etc.
- Create a library-school collaborative to plan a joint
book festival or reading carnival. Include after-school
programs in your planning.
- Partner with universities, middle or high schools to present
or collaborate on stories, plays, poetry jams and poem-paloozas.
- At middle schools, celebrate El día de los jovenes/El
día de los libros, Young People's Day/Book Day, and have
students plan and perform stories and original work at their
own school or at an elementary school or library.
- Plan a book signing of books written by children or families.
- Adopt a creative book raffle idea. Partner with a book
seller who agrees to provide a book spending spree at her/his
store. Families qualify for the raffle by reading books
together. Schools that promote your goals can compete for
their own spree based on your guidelines. In Oregon, a book
seller donates a $1,000 spree for the winning family and
another $1,000 to a school. That's commitment!
- Get excited about starting picture book clubs in English,
other languages, or starting bilingual or multilingual family
book clubs. They can be occasions to enjoy all kinds of picture
books together with parents and care-givers and can provide
opportunities for middle or high schoolers, and college students
to read with families. In addition to sharing stories, the
clubs create an opportunity to model literacy skills, teach
support strategies, and to promote oral story telling, family
reading time, library visits, and home libraries. Members
of the clubs could then be leaders in planning your annual
April Día celebration.
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