How We Say I Love You by Nicole Chen and Illustrated by Lenny Wen

Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers on December, 13, 2022. 

Hana’s family says “I love you” not in words, but in all of their everyday actions, both big and small. In Nicole Chen’s sweet book, each member of her family, her parents, grandparents and including herself, as well as her family as a whole, show their love to one another every day. Hana shares how her mom, “ . . . stirs her love into a pot of steaming xi fan,” for her breakfast to begin the day. At dinnertime, her Ah Ma and Ah Gong are shown love as they get to fill their bowls first with the best pieces that help keep them strong (even though those pieces often end up in Hana’s bowl!). Hana rubs Ah Ma’s feet and pours Ah Gong tea at night before bed. 

Each special action is shared using language which readers of all ages will understand and be able to relate. The illustrations support the text and clearly show the love that this family shares. This is a book that belongs on your library, classroom and home shelves! I would recommend this book for ages 3-8. It would be a perfect book to read when talking about love, family, and things you are grateful for.  I think it will be a wonderful book to read for Valentine's Day too! 

I was gifted a copy of How We Say I Love You by Nicole Chen and Lenny Wen to read, review and celebrate for Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2023. #ReadYourWorld

For more information, visit storiesbynicolechen.com and follow her on Twitter @nychen and Instagram @ncheny. Visit Lenny Wen at lennywen.com and follow him on Twitter @lunartcy19 and Instagram @lunartcy. 

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2023 (1/26/22) is in its 10th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those books into the hands of young readers and educators.
Ten years in, MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves continues. Read about our Mission & History HERE.

​

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


Poster Artist:  Lisa Wee
  

Classroom Kit Poster: Led Bradshaw


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 for the MCBD Read Your World Virtual Party
Join us on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at 9 pm EST for the 10th annual Multicultural Children's Book Day Read Your World Virtual Party!

This epically fun and fast-paced hour includes multicultural book discussions, addressing timely issues, diverse book recommendations, & reading ideas.

We will be giving away a 10-Book Bundle during the virtual party plus Bonus Prizes as well! *** US and Global participants welcome. **

Follow the hashtag #ReadYourWorld to join the conversation, and connect with like-minded parts, authors, publishers, educators, organizations, and librarians. We look forward to seeing you all on January 26, 2023, at our virtual party!

Matt Tavares was a delight on a snowy Sunday in December! After visiting Byrd's Books in Bethel the day before, Tavares came to Turning the Page bookshop in Monroe to share his latest book - 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Tavares has also created favorites Lulu and Red as well as Dasher. Tavares read Dasher aloud and then showed the audience how he draws those amazing cardinals and the details that surround them. Following the presentation, books were signed. If you haven't seen his books before, please go and get them. They are spectacular!

I purchased 2 books - a copy of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas for the Brewster Library and a copy of Dasher to raffle off to a lucky Brewster student. All week, students could fill out raffle tickets if they wished. One was a chance to be the first person to check out 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. The second ticket was a chance to win the copy of Dasher. We announced the winners at assembly at the end of the day on Friday and boy were there some big smiles! I love giving books to kids!

We love celebrating computer science, computational thinking and the art of not giving up at Brewster School! Computer Science Education Week was celebrated December 5-9, 2022 all over the world. In the library, learners viewed a message from NASA astronauts on the International Space Station about how important computer science is. Kindergarteners used Kodable and learned how to move the fuzzball through tunnels by telling it the directions to go. First graders chose from RodoCodo or Kodable. Second graders worked to solve challenges in Beaver Achiever or created their own characters and then code their actions in Scratch Junior. Some students chose to do some unplugged coding like in the picture below - Compound words from STEAMPoweredFamily.com. Digital coding can be found at code.org. Now that they've gotten started, they can continue coding all year long! 

The Brewster School library was so excited to participate in the 2022 Global Traveling Mural Project this fall. I have participated in the past and it was amazing to send and receive mural pieces from all over the United States as well as countries as far away as China! 

First we signed up with a group. Librarian Shannon Miller posted about the project and included the link to the group sign-up. Then we needed to create the mural! This year we partnered with our amazing art teacher Ms. Dwyer to create the mural. In library class we read Hey, Wall by Susan Verde and illustrated by John Parra to help students understand what a mural is. Once we did that, Ms. Dwyer added a design to our paper and started having learners add color to it using pastel crayons. It came out amazing! 

Once the mural was complete, we cut it (gasp!) into 10 pieces. I wrote a note to the other schools in our group which included a little about our school and a picture of our completed mural. We kept 1 piece and mailed the other 9 to our group members. And then we waited! And slowly but surely, other pieces began to arrive. Our first piece was from Alabama and we read the note, explored their piece, and then searched for their school using Google Maps. It was exciting to see how close they were to the Gulf of Mexico! We also noticed that because their school was brand new in August, all we could see on Google Maps was a construction area. We have also received pieces from the Hudson River Valley area of New York, a town outside of Chicago, Illinois, a small town in SW Kansas, a piece from northern California, one from a middle school in right here in Connecticut, and a town in Kentucky. Our school community loves to watch the new mural growing in the hallway. 

We are hoping to do a mini-traveling mural project with schools in Connecticut beginning in January. And of course, we can't wait til next year!

We added something new to the Brewster Library today and boy were they a hit! Inspired by my friend Wendy (@dancelibrarian on Twitter), I purchased Wooden Sorting Stacking Rocks Balancing Stones. She was actually sharing about the dinosaur balancing and I was intrigued!

The stones arrived on Saturday and my family couldn't stop playing with them, so I knew my library students would love them too. I simply left them out on one of our tables and sure enough, the kids loved them! I can't wait to order another set and the dinosaurs too!

PS - After a 2 year pause, I'm glad to be back sharing on the blog. But don't forget to check out what we are up to on social media too!

Especially at the end of this very emotional Teacher Appreciation week, there are so many things I could write about this unreal time we are experiencing. We have been out of school since March 13 and will not be going back this year. My job changed in a moment, from being with students & teachers, sharing books and inquiry, to almost completely tech support for teachers and families. I have been struggling with ways to connect my students and teachers with books. Doing everything virtually has provided big challenges, but also some amazing things have come out of it. Publishers, authors and illustrators are creating ways to connect via YouTube live, FB live, Instagram live and more. Thanks to my great librarian friend Melissa Thom (@msthombookitis) who created a calendar of events and shared it with me so that I could make an elementary version. I'll update as I find things! They've been so much fun! Enjoy!

Click on the calendar to go to the actual doc.

Sometimes I am lucky enough to go to a conference where I can get my hands on a book BEFORE it is actually published and sometimes they come to me in an undistinguished yellow envelope or a super amazing box or even something shiny and sparkly. Sometimes the books are book birthday brand new. Either way, I get a little shiver of excitement every time because there is not much better than a new book. It is so much fun to read them and then share them! I'll admit, I'm a little behind on sharing them here, but better late than never.

-War in the Ring (Macmillan - May 2019) was unlike most books I read. I'm not much into boxing or war, but I was intrigued how these boxers connected with America and Hitler. I am so glad I read it because I learned so much! I spent the next few days sharing facts with my family. I appreciated the clear explanations of the choices Joe Louis and the others made. The authors were also honest about Joe Louis' treatment because of the color of his skin. Fascinating!

All the Impossible Things by Lindsay Lackey makes you fall in love with the main character Red​. Everything always seems to be going against her and finally she finds a little calm in her life, only to be interrupted by her mother. Bittersweet with a little magic thrown in. 

Kids will love The Bone Garden for its spookiness and edginess. I was never quite sure what was real and what wasn't, but it doesn't matter. Irreelle is a true heroine and her friends, including The Hand are with her all the way. 

I can understand why Wunder Ellis of The Miraculous stops believing in miracles. I think many of us have thought about this at one time or another. When someone precious is taken away, it's hard to keep believing. I loved how unique characters are brought together and ultimately go on a journey which changes their lives. I think this has great read aloud potential. 

The Biggest Little Farm - Saving Emma the Pig tells the true story of Emma who had 17 piglets!!! Not only that, but she was sick and the farmer had to do some problem solving to figure out how to help. I can't wait to share this one with my students and talk about perseverance! 

Sarah Stewart and David Small have created a special book celebrating the power of reading. This Book of Mine reminds us that books can be so many things for so many people. A fantastic one with which to start the year!

It's all about perspective in Little Juniper Makes it Big. Everything is too big, until Juniper visits her friend Clove's house. Sometimes you need to live life in someone else's house to appreciate what you have. Great discussions will be had with this one!

One of my librarian mentors, Paige Jaeger, shared a new book that she wrote with me and I can't wait to share it with my students and teachers. Who Will Roar If I Go? is a terrific way to get kids asking questions. There are so many animals, some familiar, some less-known, that kids will want to find out more about. Use this book to support NGSS standards and ELA standards. I think the title will grab them too!

Listen - Just reading the title and seeing the cover draws you into this gorgeous about the senses and the earth and all that connects us! 

The Last Peach was my first week of school read aloud for my 2nd and 3rd graders. We loved the different voices seen in the book with different colored words. My students also enjoyed looking at the illustrations which were made out of all different papers. The bug characters cracked us up! 

Many thanks to Macmillan Publishing for providing review copies. 

It's been a while since I've posted as I have thought about the best use of my website and blog. I've got some ideas and I'll be slowly working it back into use for my students, staff and my PLN. I'm excited to start sharing again! 

​Happy Reading!

Chapter 3 - Being Candid
​
The word Microaggression was new to me, but once I understood, I knew exactly how they felt. Each of the author's teaching strategies that are embedded are really helpful for me as I think about how to go about this work. Subtle differences, such as just asking if someone has HEARD the word versus knowing what it MEANS can mean a lot. I really liked how even when working with a word like that, she brings it back to "What does it mean in your experience?". To me, this brings together inquiry and personalizing the learning and as the author tells us, it helps everyone to work from the same understanding.

Being candid, honest with intent to evolve - this is the part that always stops me and makes me think. What if kids don't want to do this? What if they don't see a need? This is hard work and emotional. 

The author uses stories a lot - personal ones, stories from poems or books. I think for all kids, but especially for elementary students, story is a really great way of talking about this. Whether it is a personal story of your own or from a book, it allows them to peek through a window into that world. 

After reading the part about implicit bias, I began noticing all kinds of little things that my kids and I were saying or doing, even just with each other. Awareness is so important! 

This section also helped me think about how to talk more about bias with my library students. When we evaluate a resource, one of the criteria is Bias, but I've never been really sure how to talk about it with them. I think I now have some really really great ways to begin the conversation. Drawing the doctor, pilot, etc I think will be very powerful. I can't wait to try it on my own 2 children. I'll post the results.

Chapter 4 - Becoming Better Informed

I have absolutely been there when kids just need to talk about something. I only see my students once a week for 45 min., so it is really hard when they come in because many times they are just bursting to tell me things. Sometimes it  is about a birthday or other event and sometimes they are bigger questions or topics. Some days I tell them that I want to hear about _________ and can they talk to me at check out time. Sometimes I know I need to abandon whatever we were supposed to do and focus on what they need. I love how she calls it "student news". 

I think the chart that is created is terrific! I love the column that is for their thinking. I have been working to add more reflection into my students' lives and this is a great way of doing that. It is really helping to make their thinking visible and it might take a lot of modeling and practice. So worth it. 

I've used a tool that may have come from Smoky Daniels originally when we notetake - Fact / React. 
I love it because it isn't just about kids writing down a fact about their animal, but they need to DO something with that fact. Ask a question, realize that it is important, something new they learned, etc. I have them code it using little pictures. It has helped move kids from just regurgitating facts. 

The mini-inquiries that come out of the taking action column are a great way to give kids an outlet. My daughter (she's 11) has been struck by many things she's heard about plastic straws harming animals and even did a writing in school about it. She didn't get to the point of taking action, but almost. I was happily able to tell her about Starbucks working to get rid of plastic straws by 2020 and McDonalds moving on this too. She was thrilled!