Page 151 – Pat Mora

International Children’s Book Day

Since 1967, on or around Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday, 2 April, International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is celebrated to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s books.
Each year a different National Section of IBBY has the opportunity to be the international sponsor of ICBD. It decides upon a theme and invites a prominent author from the host country to write a message to the children of the world and a well-known illustrator to design a poster. This year the theme from Spain is A book is waiting for you, find it! The author message is from Eliacer Cansino and the poster illustration is by Noemí Villamuza. These materials are used in different ways to promote books and reading. Many IBBY Sections promote ICBD through the media and organize activities in schools and public libraries. Often ICBD is linked to celebrations around children’s books and other special events that may include encounters with authors and illustrators, writing competitions or announcements of book awards.

Celebrate International Children’s Book Day with a trip to the library. Select books from USBBY’s Outstanding International Books list found on their website.

Thanks to our guest blogger, Doris Gebel with USBBY.

Díapalooza is Here!

Welcome to our first Díapalooza! We hope you enjoy a month of Día posts–ideas, visuals, inspiration and contests. Today, we’re introducing my visual history of our first 15 years of growing reading families and of daily working together across the country to link all children to books, languages and cultures.

Click here to see all the illustrations of the Día Visual History.

Thank you for joining our virtual Día community. We hope you’ll visit often and add your thoughts and ideas to the commments section.

Kudos

From a recent press release: “REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, an affiliate of the American Library Association, announces Oralia Garza de Cortés and Susana Hinojosa as the 2010 Arnulfo D. Trejo Librarians of the Year (LOTY). The award is named in honor of Dr. Arnulfo D. Trejo, the founder and first president of REFORMA and is made possible by the generous financial support of the Trejo Foster Foundation for Hispanic Library Education.” Both Garza de Cortés and Hinojosa have long and distinguished careers in service to libraries. For more information please see the REFORMA website.

We also have news from REFORMA’s Southeast chapter that we want to share. The winners of the first Sara Howrey El día de los niños/El día de los libros Mini-Grant are the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library of Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Thomas B. Norton Public Library of Gulf Shores, Alabama. Charlotte Mecklenburg’s theme for this year is Día as “Diversity in Action” and the Norton Library will be holding it’s first Día celebration.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Women’s History Month

March, National Women’s History Month, is a grand time to think of the brave and bold women nationally, internationally, and in our own lives. I think of the women who now lead countries and who serve in national and state government positions in the U.S. In a celebrity culture, I think of the usually unknown female musicians, scientists, dancers, painters, women working at non-profits and all the educators investing in the next generation. I think of the unsung women who prepare meals at hospitals and schools, who care for children, the elderly, the dying. I also think of you and me working to make this a better world, each in our own way, and how we draw strength from the determination of a Frida Kahlo, an Eleanor Roosevelt and the poet Lucille Clifton who died recently. How they lift our spirits!

I wrote A LIBRARY FOR JUANA: THE WORLD OF SOR JUANA INÉS to bring attention to Mexico’s most famous woman poet, a prodigy I didn’t hear about until I was an adult. I wrote MARIA PAINTS THE HILL to bring attention to Maria Hesch, a self-taught Santa Fe artist inspired by Grandma Moses, and I wrote DOÑA FLOR: A TALL TALE ABOUT A GIANT WOMAN WITH A GREAT BIG HEART to create a tall tale about an immense yet gentle bilingual woman who spoke all animal languages, “even rattler.”

Together, may we help young women to believe in their potential and to invest in themselves.

Announcements

There’s still time to register for the National Celebration of Latino Children’s Literature Conference, Connecting Cultures and Celebrating Cuentos, at the University of Alabama April 23 and 24. Nationally-recognized Latino children’s literature expert Oralia Garza de Cortés, award-winning Latina author Monica Brown, and award-winning illustrator Rafael López are all keynote speakers. There’ll be breakout sessions, research posters, talks by authors and illustrators, and book signings.

The Reading Tub and others in the >Kidlitosphere are winding down the annual blog tour for literacy, Share a Story – Shape a Future. The encouraging and enthusiastic posts offer a huge collection of ideas and thoughts about engaging children and teens as readers and building a community of literacy advocates.

Logo created by Elizabeth Dulemba