CBC News
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Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Sharon Draper
Here’s a powerful phrase from Sharon Draper’s novel Out of My Mind (Simon & Schuster, 2012): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances Hodgson …
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Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Norton Juster
Here’s a gem from Norton Juster’s absurdist fantasy The Phantom Tollbooth (Random House, 1961): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites!Quote #1: Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little PrincessQuote …
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Discover Children's Book Week Activities and Event Ideas!
Looking for engaging event ideas for your Children’s Book Week celebration? The new Activities page on the Children’s Book Week website is your one-stop destination for fun, hand-picked event kits …
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Celebrate Free Comic Book Day, Kicking Off Children's Book Week on May 2
With over two dozen titles to choose from — including contemporary classics and new releases — there’s a free comic book to spark every young reader’s imagination! To find a …
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Children’s Book Week 2015 #storylines: Cece Bell
Here’s a superb line from Cece Bell’s graphic memoir El Deafo (Amulet Books/Abrams, 2014): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites!Quote #1: Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little …
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Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Frances Hodgson Burnett
About Children’s Book Week Established in 1919, Children’s Book Week is the annual celebration of books for young people and the joy of reading, and the longest-running nationwide literacy initiative …
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Enter the Children's Choice Book Awards Finalist Giveaway!
To enter the giveaway, follow us @CBCBook and tweet this image with #CCBA15. Meet this year’s CCBA finalists and remember to vote online for your favorites at ccbookawards.com! About the …
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Voting Is Now Open for the 8th Annual Children's Choice Book Awards!
Launched in 2008 by Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book Council, the Children’s Choice Book Awards (CCBA) is the only national book awards program where the winning titles are selected by kids …
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National Math Festival Announces Expanded Schedule of More Than 40 Free Events
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — March 12, 2015 Media Contact: Carrie Fox, carrie [at] cfoxcommunications [dot] com (301) 585-5034 National Math Festival Announces Expanded Schedule of MoreThan 40 Free Events From Antarctic …
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National Ambassador Kate DiCamillo Visits Bainbridge Island, WA
At the event, DiCamillo read from her Newbery-Honor winning book Because of Winn-Dixie and shared her passion for books with local students. She also took time to answer questions from …
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Bookstores! Enter the Children's Book Week Display Contest and Win an Author Visit!
In celebration of the 96th annual Children’s Book Week (CBW) (May 4-10, 2015), the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader are teaming up with the ABC Children’s Group …
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96th Annual Children’s Book Week Poster & Bookmark Revealed!
Share the fun with these tweets and Facebook posts: Yipee! The free @CBCBook Children’s Book Week poster by Grace Lee is up at bookweekonline.com! @disneyreads #CBW15 Check out Raúl Colón’s …
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Strong Showing For Comics In Children’s Choice Book Awards!
Young readers across the country will determine the winners in all seven categories of the Children’s Choice Book Awards by voting online at ccbookawards.com from Tuesday, March 17, 2015, through Sunday, May …
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Eighth Annual Children’s Choice Book Awards Finalists Announced
New York, NY — February 19, 2015 – Every Child a Reader (ECAR) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC) have announced the finalists in the eighth annual Children’s Choice Book …
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On Tour with National Ambassador Kate DiCamillo
DiCamillo spoke with Bainbridge Community Broadcast host Nancy Soulé about her platform as National Ambassador, and her upcoming visit. (What’s Up Bainbridge)
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Free Comic Book Day Kicks Off 96th Annual Children’s Book Week Celebration!
Comics industry leaders Diamond Comic Distributors and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) are partnering with Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book Council to bring greater focus to …
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‘Day of Diversity’ Action Points
Some of the action points include donating books to an under-resourced school; buying and reading books by diverse authors and featuring diverse characters; and partnering with local organizations to distribute books to …
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Announcing the Mathical Book Prize Launch
Nicole Deming, Interim Director of the Children’s Book Council, says of the new award program: The Children’s Book Council is excited to partner with MSRI to create a go-to source …
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Announcing the 2015 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
Reviewers look for books that emphasize human relations, represent a diverse range of cultural experiences, and present an original theme or a perspective. A preview of this year’s selected titles …
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CBC Diversity: How Will YOU Step It Up?
Contributed to CBC Diversity by Janet Wong
The biggest publishing story of last yearwas diversity: the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement, the watermelon “joke,”and the way the two overlapped when WNDB’s Indiegogo campaign topped $334,000,thanks to an apology.
Diversity is the biggest story of this yearso far, too, with the ALSC/CBC collaboration on the Day of Diversity: Dialogue & Action event, which was just held at ALA Midwinter 2015 in Chicago on January 30. I’m eager to see what comes in the next weeks, months, and year from former Executive Director of the CBC Robin Adelson’s challenge: “it’s now time to move from talk to action.” In addition to the Day of Diversity, a session called “Stepping It Up With Action!” was held on February 1 and ALSC will be hosting follow-up community forums and webinars to continue the conversation and make sure everyone is involved in action steps.
How do you plan to step it up? What kind of action would you like to see?
I’d like to see more along the lines of the #WeHaveDiverseBooks hashtag that Scholastic has made popular—with increased support for inclusive titles that were published in the last twenty years. You can find handy lists of the Notable Books for a Global Society (NBGS) winners from 1996 to the present here.
Last year, many people between 20 and 30 years old held up a #WNDB sign proclaiming “when I was a child, I never found a book with someone like me in it.” But the problem resides in finding these inclusive books, not in their existence. Kids need the opportunity to connect with authors like Alma Flor Ada, Joseph Bruchac, Virginia Hamilton, Pat Mora, Walter Dean Myers, Naomi Shihab Nye, Allen Say, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Laurence Yep. Of course, even teachers and librarians have trouble finding these authors; this is why educator Yvonne Siu-Runyan started the NBGS committee in 1995.
The committee’s mission then and now is simple: identify 25 outstanding trade books for Pre-K to Grade 12 each year that promote understanding across lines of culture, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and values. But having a list is just part of it; the NBGS committee empowers teachers to share those books with classroom-ready teaching suggestions and related materials in a hefty article published each spring in The Dragon Lode journal.
This year’s just-released NBGS list of books, linked here in a printer-friendly PDF for sharing, includes already-classic titles such as Beyond Magenta, Brown Girl Dreaming, El Deafo, and Silver People—but it also includes books that you won’t stumble on in your average browsing experience in a bookstore or online. Here is one page from the four-page PDF that lists all 25 winners.
Stay tuned for teaching suggestions and related materials for these titles in the Spring 2015 issue of The Dragon Lode.
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As Joni Mitchell sang in “Big Yellow Taxi”:
Don’t it always seem to go
You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone
I’m stepping it up this year by posting something on social media each week that links a wonderful inclusive title from the past 20 years with a new classic. This week, I’m linking two books by the same author, one from the 1996 NBGS list and the other from the 2015 list. Both titles share a Brooklyn setting and a main character who loves to write and is being raised by a single mother.
From the 1996 NBGS List:
- From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson (Scholastic/Blue Sky)
From the 2015 NBGS List:
- Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Penguin/Nancy Paulsen)
How about that pair for a look at then and now? Yes, #WNDB: let’s keep on making new classics in diversity. But #WHDB too: and let’s keep our existing gems alive.
Janet Wong (janetwong.com) is an author, anthologist, publisher, and literacy volunteer who is the immediate past chair of the NBGS Committee. Discover more about the CL/R SIG and the NBGS at clrsig.org.
