Día 2009 North Carolina Surprises

Pat Mora


On April 30th this year, I visited Forest View Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina. Second graders had prepared a surprise for me and their school mates. From memory, those cute students recited Book Fiesta: Celebrate Children’s Day/Book Day, Celebremos El día de los niños/El día de los libros in English and Spanish. As I sat and listened, I thought about Día’s goals of connecting children to books, languages and cultures. What a way to start the day! The audience and I clapped and clapped as we did for another class that had memorized haiku from ¡Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué rico! I told the students that they were smarter than I was since I would have needed to look at the books to recite the poems. The art teacher had worked with her classes to create wonderful murals inspired by the two books.

I also had the pleasure of watching an impressive and energetic young librarian at the Durham County Library share my book The Race of Toad and Deer. That afternoon, the library surprised me with a trio playing Latin music in the library entry way before I spoke. I particularly enjoyed watching a librarian check in books to the rhythm of the music.

In Greensboro NC, I visited three schools to read and talk about Día and gave a reading for adults that evening at the Greensboro Public Library. It was wonderful to see students at Jones Spanish Immersion Magnet Elementary School excited about learning Spanish and to visit a school for newcomers, students working hard to make sense of their new country.

Every high school in Greensboro has a poet laureate. Isn’t that a great idea? I met with this diverse and talented group of young people for a poetry workshop and then attended a city-wide Día celebration, attended by about 2,000, that was combined with an arts event called Artbeat.

At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, I was fortunate to again speak to students graduating from the Elementary Education program. Warm congratulations to all graduates particularly those planning to work with young people. You are so needed!

Día in Detroit

Pat Mora

What an exciting and gratifying time I enjoyed at Día celebrations in three cities. Thanks to my host, author and administrator Ethriam Brammer at Wayne State University, I spoke on his campus and at a school in SW Detroit. I also attended the annual Día celebration held in that part of the city. Because the attendance has grown through the years, this year the event was held in a park on a Sunday.

The idea for beginning the annual celebration came from Vicente Sánchez Ventura, the Consul of Mexico based in Detroit, a quiet, formal man with a deep commitment to education and literacy. He’d heard about Día while in Austin. He partnered with Matrix, a large human services provider, and they invited various community agencies to participate. It was moving for me to meet Consul Sánchez and to hear him describe the event in the park this year. “Just look,” he said to me in Spanish. “Unlike the noise and drinking that can be part of Cinco de Mayo celebrations, this is about families. Nothing is being sold, so everyone can attend. Thousands of books are being given away, and vendors are providing water and small snacks gratis. Families are enjoying lotería, puppet shows, face painting, listening to stories, and social service agencies are distributing information about their work.”

It remains a challenge for such annual culminating celebrations that honor children and celebrate a year of linking them to books, languages and cultures to be literacy celebrations. Focus can quickly move to the familiar: music, selling, entertainment for adults. It’s gratifying to participate in events at which committed adults (sporting great Día T-shirts) have worked together for months to create a child/family focused event that truly promotes literacy and how much fun it can be. Bravo to SW Detroit’s amazing and collaborative Día committee chaired by Debra Spring of Matrix! This group has created a fine model.

The Voces Blog

Pat Mora

This is a good blog to add to your bookmarks or RSS feed. Voces, a place for and about Latino authors and their books; Spanish language translations; and news from the Latino book industry, is the blog of Adriana Dominguez, a ten-year veteran of the publishing industry. As she points out, her experience gives her a “unique insider’s perspective” on Latino publishing and book market.

Her recent post about Día includes a roundup of recommended books.

Pat Interviewed on Las Comadres

Pat Mora

Recently Macarena Salas interviewed Pat and Dr. Ortiz, a professor at the University of Texas/Austin, about bilingual books and education, as well as Pat’s Book Fiesta! This interview is one of a series of national teleconferences produced by Las Comadres,a nationally known Latina organization empowering women to be actively engaged in the growing Latino/Hispanic communities through online and face to face networks. It’s well worth a listen.

2009 Américas Awards

Pat Mora



2009 Américas Book Awards for Children’s and Young Adult Literature have gone to Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book by Yuyi Morales (Roaring Brook/Porter) and The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle (Holt). The awards recognize U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected nonfiction (from picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. Click here to see this year’s honorable mentions and commended titles.

For more information about the award and CLASP click here.