Día Celebration Ideas from Pat
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.
- Books + PJs = Bookjoy,
right? An easy way to promote the daily habit of family
reading is to encourage a concrete cue: getting ready
for bed = time to read before going to sleep. Start
this campaign at your home, school or library.
Pat's Bookjoy! blog - visit Pat's blog and read the posts relating to Día. Find the heading 'Labels' on the right side and then look for Día on the list; click Día and you'll be taken to all the blog posts relating to Día.
A Song for Día
Día Celebration Ideas from Libraries
Visit ALSC's Día Celebrations page.
Dí,/aa celebration tips for libraries from Bruce Jensen at Críticas.
The Texas Library Association has an online Día toolkit.
2008 Mora Award winner Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County has a website with info about their 2009 Día celebration.
The El Paso Public Library was a Día Super Site in 2007 and hosts a celebration every year that attracts 35,000 people! See how they do it.
Riverside County Library System's Día website includes a toolkit and resource links.
Community Collaborates for a Día celebration, an article from the Oregon Library Associations's quarterly newsletter, Winter 2009.
Associations, organizations and projects offering Día resources
Association of Library Service to Children (ALSC) - Día page
Association of Library Service to Children (ALSC) - Día Wiki
Beginning in February, libraries can list their 2009 Día events in a national registry.
Association of American Publishers (AAP) - to support the festivities that will be held nationwide on April 30 in celebration of El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day 2009), the Publishing for Latino Voices Task Force of the Association of American Publishers and the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), have partnered to create a recommended reading list of children's books in both English and Spanish for ages infancy -14 years for parents and others who choose books for children.
California State Library - Día California is a website with many Día resources, including a toolkit.
Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) - has resources on building diverse book collections.
¡Colorín
Colorado! - has resources and activities for Día, including a video of Pat talking about Día: in English in Spanish
Paper Tigers - a website about books for young readers with a special focus on the Pacific Rim and South Asia.
Random House has a brochure for Día.
Reading Rockets - website with Dia activities and video interviews.
REFORMA: the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, is the exclusive Founding Partner of Día.
Texas Library Association (TLA) - website and online toolkit (2005).
United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) serves as the U.S. national section of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), which was founded to promote international understanding and good will through books for children and teenagers.
La Casa Azul Bookstore - the newsletter is a great way to keep up with new books.
Educational Resources for Día
Several excellent programs about Día have been presented at ALA, REFORMA and other national conferences over the past few years. The ALSC mini-site for Día has links to many of these PowerPoint presentations.
El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros (Children's Day/Book Day): Programming and Outreach Ideas (Spanish Outreach Webinar #4, 2007) - In depth Webinar with special guests, Ruth Rose Hennessey (Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, OR) and Melanie Tucker (Hunter Library, West Valley City, UT). Both Utah and Oregon have won awards for their very successful programs celebrating Día. Link to the book and web resources for this presentation.
