Multicultural Children's Book Day Reviews ~by Christy Mihaly

On January 26, 2023, Multicultural Children's Book Day (MCBD) celebrates its tenth anniversary of bringing culturally diverse books to children, parents, teachers, and librarians. This children's literacy project was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen, two moms who decided to shine the spotlight on multicultural books. As part of the annual celebration, bloggers receive a variety of books to review.

This year, I received two historical fiction books to review for MCBD. They're quite different from one another, and I'm excited to share them both here. 

Finding Moon Rabbit (CBH Media, 2022) is a middle grade novel by J.C. Kato (winner of the 2015 SCBWI Karen Cushman award) and J.C.²  This touching story is narrated by Koko, a young California girl sent with her mother and sister to Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming as part of the forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II. Koko's father has been sent to another camp, and her letters to him reflect her sorrow at the separation. 

Middle grade readers will empathize with Koko's plight while learning important history. Koko must navigate her loss of freedom, learn to live in cramped quarters, confront racism and injustice, make new friends, and find meaning and love in an involuntary community of people exiled within their own country. Illustrations include excerpts of historical documents and sketches by Estelle Ishigo, who also appears as a character in the story. Ishigo was a white woman who entered Heart Mountain with her Japanese American husband and recorded scenes of camp life in her sketchbooks. A note from the authors reveals that thirteen family members were held in wartime internment camps, and that their book found its beginnings in family stories. Find out more here. 

In Vicki: An Urban Legend and other short stories, author Diana Huang offers a selection of intriguing stories. The book's first half centers on Vicki, a girl from Los Angeles's Chinatown. A band of Black teens inadvertently kidnap Vicki in the process of nabbing her mother's Toyota to flee from a robbery. Good-natured and charming, they drive her to their home in South Central where Grandma treats her to some delicious and unfamiliar foods and everyone makes her comfortable before they return her to her Chinatown the next day. In this "urban legend," Vicki befriends the robbers, meets various of their family members, helps them out, escapes a riot, and learns a bit about racial and economic inequality. It's April 1992, during the trial of a group of police officers for the beating of Rodney King. Huang weaves humor into this lively L.A. tall tale of race, culture, and adventure. She is a gifted artist, and you can read more about her work here. 

The organizers of MCBD invite you to join the celebration, online and in real life. Year-round, MCBD offers free resources, teaching tools, booklists, downloads, and an initiative to distribute diverse, multicultural books -- over 10,000 to date. Details on this year's virtual celebrations are below. And check out these supporters:

MCBD 2023 is honored to be Supported by these Medallion Sponsors!

FOUNDER’S CIRCLE: Mia Wenjen (Pragmaticmom) and Valarie Budayr’s (Audreypress.com)

🏅 Super Platinum Sponsor: Author Deedee Cummings and Make A Way Media

🏅 Platinum Sponsors: Language Lizard Bilingual Books in 50+ Languages 

🏅 Gold Sponsors: Interlink Books, Publisher Spotlight 

🏅 Silver Sponsors: Cardinal Rule Press,  Lee & Low, Barefoot Books, Kimberly Gordon Biddle

🏅 Bronze Sponsors: Vivian Kirkfield, Patrice McLaurin , Quarto Group, Carole P. Roman, Star Bright Books, Redfin.com, Redfin Canada, Bay Equity Home Loans, Rent.com, Title Forward

MCBD 2023 is honored to be Supported by these Author Sponsors!

Authors: Sivan Hong, Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett, Josh Funk , Stephanie M. Wildman, Gwen Jackson, Diana Huang, Afsaneh Moradian, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Eugenia Chu, Jacqueline Jules, Alejandra Domenzain, Gaia Cornwall, Ruth Spiro, Evelyn Sanchez-Toledo, Tonya Duncan Ellis, Kiyanda and Benjamin Young/Twin Powers Books, Kimberly Lee , Tameka Fryer Brown, Talia Aikens-Nuñez, Marcia Argueta Mickelson, Kerry O’Malley Cerra, Jennie Liu, Heather Murphy Capps, Diane Wilson, Sun Yung Shin, Shannon Gibney, John Coy, Irene Latham and Charles Waters, Maritza M Mejia, Lois Petren, J.C. Kato and J.C.², CultureGroove, Lindsey Rowe Parker, Red Comet Press, Shifa Saltagi Safadi, Nancy Tupper Ling, Deborah Acio, Asha Hagood, Priya Kumari, Chris Singleton, Padma Venkatraman, Teresa Robeson, Valerie Williams-Sanchez and Valorena Publishing, Martha Seif Simpson, Rochelle Melander, Alva Sachs, Moni Ritchie Hadley, Gea Meijering, Frances Díaz Evans, Michael Genhart, Angela H. Dale, Courtney Kelly, Queenbe Monyei, Jamia Wilson, Charnaie Gordon, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Debbie Zapata, Jacquetta Nammar Feldman, Natasha Yim, Tracy T. Agnelli, Kitty Feld, Anna Maria DiDio, Ko Kim, Shachi Kaushik 

MCBD 2023 is Honored to be Supported by our CoHosts and Global CoHosts!

MCBD 2023 is Honored to be Supported by these Media Partners!

Check out MCBD's Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board!

📌 FREE RESOURCES from Multicultural Children’s Book Day

• MCBD 2023 Poster

• Mental Health Support for Stressful Times Classroom Kit

• Diversity Book Lists & Activities for Teachers and Parents

• Homeschool Diverse Kidlit Booklist & Activity Kit

• FREE Teacher Classroom Activism and Activists Kit

• FREE Teacher Classroom Empathy Kit

• FREE Teacher Classroom Kindness Kit

• FREE Teacher Classroom Physical and Developmental Challenges Kit

• FREE Teacher Classroom Poverty Kit

• Gallery of Our Free Posters

• FREE Diversity Book for Classrooms Program

📌 Register HERE for the MCBD Read Your World Virtual Party.  Thursday, January 26, 2023, at 9 pm EST for the 10th annual Multicultural Children's Book Day Read Your World Virtual Party! This year it's on Zoom (not Twitter). An epically fun and fast-paced hour will feature multicultural book discussions, addressing timely issues, diverse book recommendations, & reading ideas. MCBD will be giving away an 8-Book Bundle every 5 minutes plus Bonus Prizes as well!

*** US and Global participants welcome. ***

Follow the hashtag #ReadYourWorld to join the online conversation, and connect with like-minded parts, authors, publishers, educators, organizations, and librarians.

How to Write about Your Culture/Heritage Part 2 by Tina Cho

traditional wedding

Welcome back to part 2 of writing about your culture. See part 1 here in which I listed three tips for writing for the cultural market. Here are the rest of my tips.

4. Plant a universal theme into a cultural setting. For example, every child in the world loses a tooth. But what they do with that tooth might be different in each country. In Korea, they throw it on the roof. An example that led to a sale is the theme of seasons. As a former kindergarten teacher I always taught about how the apple tree goes through the four seasons. I have gobs of apple tree books. (Just wait til fall, and you'll see them all on the school shelves.) In Korea, I don't see apple trees, but I do see Asian pear tree orchards. Their beautiful blossoms transform into juicy pears in time for the harvest celebration. So I wrote Seasons of the Asian Pear Tree, a picture book purchased by Schoolwide.

Asian pear

5. Write a "how to" cultural craft or activity. Many children's magazines request crafts from other cultures. I used to write educational activities and crafts for Education.com, and the editor asked me to write a series of crafts for Asian American Month (May). My kids & I had fun developing these.

Skyping with a 4th grade class in Indiana

6. Be known as an expert in your culture. Since I homeschooled this year, I participated in some teacher Twitter chats. When the teachers found out I was living in Seoul, they asked if their students could do a Mystery Skype interview with me and my son (4th grade). The students had to guess what country we were from, and they asked my son questions. If your neighborhood school is studying a country that you're an expert on, be a guest speaker!

a product I revised

Along that same line, an editor at Tuttle Publishing knows I'm somewhat knowledgeable about Korean culture. She asked me to revise their "Let's Learn Korean" flashcard product and write some new educational activities to go with it. I got our whole family involved, as my daughter illustrated paper dolls to go with one of my activities (her first publishing stint), and my son helped me write a script, and my husband sang a few songs for their CD. My daughter & I received our author copies in the mail today. Very exciting! Furthermore, that editor at Tuttle passed my name along to another editor at their Singapore office, and she asked me to proofread a Korean grammar book, which I got my husband to help me do. So my advice is that if you're bilingual or knowledgeable about your culture/country, make it known!  You never know the possibilities.

a guard tower and fence~beyond is North Korea

7. Try travel writing. Check your library for travel magazines, and the next time you fly, look at the airline's magazine in the seat pocket. Usually there are articles about special places in the world. Research their writer guidelines and requests. 

traditional ice sledding

8. Write a proposal. After all these tips, if you still don't see anything helpful, research publishers that interest you. Study their list of books, and send off a query of 3-5 ideas that fit. I did, and the editor liked one of the ideas. I wrote the book, and the contract is pending.

If you have other tips, let me know in the comments! Have fun writing this summer. Since it's almost my birthday, I'll leave you with a Korean Baskin Robbins cake.

Baskin Robbins Birthday Cake

How to Write about Your Culture/Heritage Part 1 by Tina Cho

Seoul, South Korea

Getting published is hard. You already know that. But there are ways to break into the market that I've written about in this Grog blog such as the educational market and Christian market. Another way to break in is the cultural market. Publishers are hungry for cultural stories and activities. 

Little did I know that this Iowa girl would marry a guy from South Korea and that we would move there! I've been in the Seoul area for four years now. And over the years we've been married, I have been curious about Korean culture. Now you might not have lived in another country or married into a different culture, but you do have a heritage to share with this generation. What are some traditions and customs unique to your family? 

Below are my tips to break into this market with real anecdotes from my writing life. Maybe something will strike a chord with you and plod you in the right creative direction.

sightseeing on Nami Island

1. Hunt for ideas.

• Read books about your culture.
• Sightsee (my favorite) A museum, a sign on a statue, or a cultural place might hold a golden nugget.
• Interview relatives~I ask my in-laws questions about their holidays.
• Look through your cookbook~A recipe from your heritage might spark a story. Or you can publish the recipe in a magazine.
• List folk tales from your culture~ Are there any that haven't been written about?
• Check the Google Doodle~Since my computer recognizes that I'm in Korea, I see the Korean Google Doodles as well as the American ones and always check them out. They list a famous person's birthday or anniversary of some cool invention. I've listed many ideas from these. 

wearing traditional clothing for Lunar New Year

2. Find that fresh angle that hasn't been done before. For example, Lunar New Year is huge, but there are already picture books about it. I googled the second biggest holiday in Korea and found only one picture book. So I wrote my story about it using a Korean poetic form.

one of my 1st publications, my kids on the cover!

3. Look for unique markets. As you know, I'm not a grandma, but one of my first publications was in Grand, an e-zine for grandparents! I checked their needs and sent off a query. The editor emailed that she wanted an article about a family with a set of close grandparents and a set of long-distance grandparents and how they kept the balance. (At this time, we were living in California.) I emailed the editor back and told her both sets of our grandparents were long-distance, one set in Iowa, and one set in South Korea so I wouldn't be able to help her. But she came up with the idea of my writing an article on how my kids kept a relationship with their overseas grandparents. This led to a contract, and my children were on the cover of the e-zine. She sent a photographer to my house to do a photo shoot with my kids! In the article I not only shared my ideas, but it also has a Korean cultural flair, and the editor asked for a recipe. I share this with you so that you'll look in unique places for getting published.

I hope this post has your brain thinking of some great story ideas. Stay tune for part 2!