15 Día Nuggets: #1 A Día Checklist

Pat Mora

If you visit this blog or my web site, you know that April 2011, we’re celebrating Día’s 15th Anniversary. My web team and I were so pleased at comments about our first Díapalooza last April that we’re having a second Díapalooza in 2011. To assist those of you planning Día celebrations at your schools, libraries, etc., we’ve created a Planning Checklist that we hope will be useful whether this is your first or tenth celebration. This list is the first Día Nugget, 15 lists of 15 ideas. We’ll post the Nuggets on this blog periodically and archive them on my site as we do the Día Dynamos. During Díapalooza, we’ll showcase the 15 Día Dynamos, 15 Mora Award winners and the 15 Día Nuggets, etc. Send us your I-días!

PLANNING CHECKLIST FOR DÍA CELEBRATION
Thanks for joining Día’s National Community & sharing bookjoy!
¨      1. September-November  Form diverse partnerships.  Create a Día committee that includes librarians, teachers, parents, local literacy programs, non-profits, and funders.  Also, consider faith communities, university students, media contacts, summer reading club coordinators, bookstores, etc. 
¨      2. Clarify goals and plan your Día event(s) with your committee.  Select dates(s) and form sub-committees such as fundraising, activities/speakers/programs, media & publicity, volunteers, etc.  Design many creative literacy-related activities.
¨      3. Establish your budget, contact possible funders and partners and begin to plan your fundraising events.   Research available grants and file applications.
¨      4. Review your book collections and evaluate for diversity.  Compile a wish list and order what you can.  Explore options for book donations.
¨      5. Finalize locations and reserve rooms.
¨      6. January-March  Finalize program, speakers, performers, class performances, and special guests such as local officials and celebrities.  Prepare speaker/author contracts and make travel arrangements.
¨      7.Outline the publicity and media campaign including available social media outlets, PSAs, etc.   Remember to post your Día events at www.ala.org/dia.
¨      8. Order promotional items, books for giveaways, and craft supplies.   Also, order food and refreshments.
¨      9. Confirm attendance by leaders of the site for the celebration—building directors, principals, etc.  Since a Día goal is to connect with new and familiar families, it’s important for leaders to show their commitment by greeting attendees.  Include a Summer Reading Coordinator to explain when, how and why to sign up. Remind all speakers to multi-generational audiences to be brief.
¨      10. Recruit and train volunteers.  Design evaluations if desired.
¨      11. April 1. Decorate library and other venues for April celebrations. Construct signage, multi-language if appropriate. Design and create book displays.
¨      12. Enjoy your program(s) and document the event(s).
¨      13. Remind attendees that Día is a yearlong family literacy initiative (día por día/day by day) with annual, culminating family celebrations in April.
¨      14. Thank your partners and hold a de-briefing session.
¨      15. Volunteer to present Día programs and share successful ideas locally, regionally, and nationally.

Before beginning your Día planning, familiarize yourself with the many planning materials and resource information on the following websites:

Pat Mora’s site — https://www.patmora.com/dia.htm
ALSC/Día site — http://www.ala.org/dia
Texas Día site — http://www.texasdia.org/toolkit.html
California Día site — http://www.diacalifornia.org/tool_kit.html
You can also attend regional Día training if provided or organize a training session with the state library youth services coordinator.

GOOD LUCK! Pat Mora
Click here to download a pdf of the Día checklist.

National Book Festival

Pat Mora

The 10th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Pat is one of over seventy featured authors at this celebration of  the joy of reading for all ages. Listen to a podcast Matt Raymond from the Library of Congress talking with Pat about her childhood reading, writing process and a new book she’s writing with her daughter.

This Month’s Día Dynamo!

Pat Mora

I have good memories of visiting NC schools in 2004 thanks to the Novello Book Festival sponsored by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. When I returned to Novello in 2007, I had the pleasure of meeting gracious Meryle Leonard. Meryle quickly took an interest in Día and has been a champion ready to strengthen the celebration in Charlotte and also ready to share her ideas and commitment locally and in her region. Thanks, Meryle!

Meryle Leonard, Outreach Manager
I. When and how did you become interested in sharing bookjoy?

My interest in bookjoy began when I received an invitation to view the site from Pat Mora. I found it a wonderful resource to get information, resources and activities to celebrate Dia all year long.

2. How did you first learn about Día and what has been your experience with Día? When I returned to work at Charlotte Mecklenburg Library almost four years ago, I learned about the wonderful Dia celebration the library had been hosting for the past six years. I was lucky enough to be in the department that hosted the Dia activities. My goal was to bring in an author for the event to connect the literacy aspect of Dia with the celebration. Lulu Delacre, Yuyi Morales, Arthur Dorres and Keizo Kasza enhanced our celebration with school visits and parent/teacher workshops.

3. What are your hopes for Día 2011, Día’s 15th Anniversary? Like most library systems, we are facing financial challenges. With that said, I hope that we can continue our Dia celebration, with limited resources and continue to expand our celebration to all children and all cultures. Dia for our library system means, “Diversity in Action!”

Día 2010

Día 2010

4. What helpful tip(s) do you have for those organizing a Día event for the first time? Start planning for your April Dia celebration in September and collaborate with other community agencies to expand resources and reach all populations in your community.

5. What is your favorite example of Bookjoy as either a child or an adult?
As a child, I enjoyed listening to my mother read fairytales to my older brother and me. She read the classic versions, Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm. I enjoyed the suspense and I enjoyed being frightened. Most of all, I loved the happily ever after endings. My mother died when I was six, but I still have the fairytale book she read from and I share this “bookjoy” with my children. I still cannot read The Little Match Girl, without crying.

6. What are you reading now? I just finished reading, “More Church Folk” by Michele Andrea Bowen. The author is visiting our library next week and I cannot wait to participate in the book discussion.

Landscape Inspires Color and More

Pat Mora

What an amazing sight this week: the full moon. Like gazing at the wide Southwest desert landscape, the full moon reminds me how small we humans and our endless squabbles are on this earth.

My web team and I have been making some changes to the look of this blog lately. I chose some colors that say Santa Fe to me: clay shade of adobe, the word meaning brick in Arabic, turquoise often mined in New Mexico, popular in jewelry here, and hints of green, seldom the dominant color in the desert.

Each month, under the cover of ZING!, my new book on creativity, I’ll post a quote from the book. I certainly had some wonderful teachers in my home city of El Paso. Did you also have some memorable educators? I went to Catholic schools from kindergarten until I graduated from high school. In those days, the Sisters of Loretto still wore long, black habits. I remember my kindergarten teacher, Sister Margaret Ann who loved licorice as do I. To discourage her from eating it, Sister’s mother told her that it was made by cooking all kinds of candies together into a black goo. Licorice: yum! Sweet memories: yum.

Pat Talks about Bilingual and Multicultural Publishing

Pat Mora

In 2009, Pat was interviewed for a planned update of the Texas Library Association (TLA) Día site. As part of the interview, Pat was asked the question: What is your hope for the growth of bilingual and multicultural books for children and teens?

“I’m a bit uncomfortable with the word “multicultural” which is usually used to mean work by non-Anglo authors. All books are cultural in that they are written by a particular person who is part of a culture, a way of seeing the world. I’ve been having the same problem with the word “mainstream.” What does that really mean? Given our national plurality, the true mainstream is diverse. So what are most of the books published and reviewed and honored? A protected stream? To change metaphors, America’s authentic chorus is diverse. Why all those voices are not fairly represented in the award system and published is a fascinating question.

I can feel mighty discouraged when I read the statistics that document the growth of diversity in the student population and the lack of growth in the diversity of the authors who are published for children and young adults. I’ve written about this topic for years and stressed the importance of diversifying the editorial and marketing staffs, particularly at major publishing houses, and the need for teachers and librarians to be vocal and effective advocates for the books their students deserve, books that reflect the students’ lives and stories. Though educators say they like and need bilingual books, publishers often say that the books don’t really sell. I begin with two assumptions. Publishing is a business. If an editor publishes books that don’t sell, that editor is in trouble. Since most people are people of good will, I’ve often suggested that conference panels with editors and librarians/teachers exploring this challenge could be helpful.

In the last year, I’ve become more aware that bilingual books can be intimidating to monolingual librarians and teachers. An interesting challenge for TLA, given its commitment to Día and family literacy, is how to assist librarians to develop strategies for using bilingual books with all students.”

Read the full interview about Día, programming for teens, and reading here.