by Koloud 'Kay' Tarapolsi
This past Friday was Multicultural Children’s Book Day, an annual event held the last Friday in January. This was the 9th annual, and it is growing each year as word spreads. I have been honored to be a co-Host for this wonderful initiative for six years. The mission of MCBD is, “to raise awareness for children’s books that celebrate diversity by getting more of these books into classrooms and libraries. This nonprofit also strives to shine the spotlight on the diverse books and authors that often get overlooked by mainstream publishing and media.” The nonprofit was started by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen, two diverse moms who had a desire to highlight wonderful multicultural authors and their books that they used in their own homes. For the past 9 years, they have managed to deliver over 10,000 diverse books into the hands of readers and their educators. The MCBD website is full of free resources, teaching tools, classroom kits, booklists, and downloads. More resources can be found on social media by following #ReadYourWorld. In 2017, 3.6 BILLION social media share impressions were logged on one day using that hashtag. I even wrote a blog post on how to get MCBD into school libraries. While MCBD is a wonderful initiative to get diverse books into the hands of children, scholarships like those at the Children’s Book Academy help get diverse and low-income authors to write the stories. At this point, the CBA offers full and half scholarships to underrepresented and low-income writers and illustrators in the children's publishing industry as well as children's librarians who might not be able to take the courses otherwise. Programs like MCBD and the CBA scholarships are important opportunities to assist unrepresented authors in a disproportionately white middle-class publishing industry that has not caught up to the diversity of its readers. They not only help diverse writers learn the craft, but also navigate the publishing industry and then physically deliver their diverse children’s books into the hands of young readers. Seeing themselves reflected in the books, diverse readers develop a sense of pride about themselves and their history. Reading books with diverse protagonist, all children begin to understand the impact immigrants, minorities, and others have contributed to society. I am a beneficiary of a CBA Yuyi Morales Scholarship, which helped hone my writing craft. Through my second CBA course, I received five Golden Ticket opportunities with agents and editors, which led to a book contract, a second book at auction and an agent. In the near future, inshaAllah, I hope to have my published diverse book ready to give away for free on MCBD and the Picture Book Palooza, which is CBA's magical fundraising event to help support more scholarships, one day. It is my dream that by writing about these opportunities, an inspiriting author reading this blog post will be encouraged to apply for a Children’s Book Academy scholarship. Then their story will also be shared on Multicultural Children’s Book Day or the Picture Book Palooza.
25 Comments
Zainab
1/31/2022 06:06:04 am
Hello,
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1/31/2022 04:23:41 pm
Shukran for stopping by!
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Sabrina Shah
1/31/2022 06:17:50 am
What an amazing initiative and the awareness is hoping just going to grow and grow.
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1/31/2022 04:26:11 pm
I so appreciate you taking the time to read about these two great programs. They were set up to help others succeed!
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Rozana Rajkumari
1/31/2022 10:44:09 am
Very inspiring, thanks for sharing!
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2/1/2022 04:30:09 am
Shukran for stopping by! Please feel free to share with others about these valuable resources.
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Kirsty
1/31/2022 11:21:41 am
Wow, very inspiring Koloud.
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2/1/2022 04:33:24 am
Shukran for your support. It has been such a beautiful journey with the help of CBA! I have learned so much from Dr. Mira & am so honored to have been chosen for the scholarship.
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Imelda
1/31/2022 01:15:27 pm
Thank you very much for sharing. As a BIPOC writer, this is mu appreciated.
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2/1/2022 04:35:41 am
Shukran for taking the time to read and support these resources. We have to all look out for each other & share what we know so we can all succeed together!
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Cristina Raymer
1/31/2022 01:50:36 pm
This is so inspiring and such an important topic. Thank you!
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2/1/2022 04:38:18 am
Shukran for stopping by & reading about these important resources. It is so important to let more people know about them so we can get more diverse books into the hands our children.
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Melisa Wrex
1/31/2022 02:04:19 pm
What an opportunity to open the world of publishing to everyone! Amazing!
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2/1/2022 04:47:58 am
Shukran for stopping by to learn about these wonderful opportunities. I hope it will allow other diverse writers to pull up a chair to the publishing table.
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Armineh Manookian
1/31/2022 03:29:42 pm
Koloud, thank you for raising awareness for such important causes. Supporting diverse books begins with supporting diverse authors.
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2/1/2022 04:52:52 am
Shukran for stopping by. I so appreciate your words of encouragement about raising awareness. It is important to me to make sure other diverse authors know about them & are able to apply.
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Sarah
1/31/2022 04:51:36 pm
Thanks for sharing, Koloud! Happy to support diverse authors and their stories which need to be told! Can’t wait to add your books to my shelf soon!
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2/1/2022 04:56:22 am
Shukran Sarah for your kind words, I can't not wait for my children's book to be honored on your shelf as well. It has taken a long time to publish America's first ever Libyan picture book & I can't wait for the world to finally meet my beautiful country.
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Dee Crick
2/1/2022 06:41:26 am
I’m going to join the tag #ReadYourWorld. Great and important article, thank you.
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2/2/2022 06:44:08 am
Shurkan for stopping by & reading! I am so glad I was able to introduce you to #ReadYourWorld. I hope you are able to share it with others as well.
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2/2/2022 05:49:56 am
Hooray for Multicultural Children’s Book Day!! Thanks for writing this great article, Kay! And congrats again on all of your success!!
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2/2/2022 07:11:12 am
Shukran Gennie! Hip hip horray indeed! So wonderful to have a fellow CBA grad cheering me on.
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Becky Walker
2/2/2022 04:06:27 pm
Great post, Kay! So important to celebrate Multicultural Children’s Books every day! I’m so excited to buy ALL your books!
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Anita Crawford Clark
2/3/2022 10:13:34 am
So a wonderful journey. I have loved and thrived in every CBA course I have taken. Thanks for sharing this info.
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Lakshmi
2/6/2022 02:52:16 pm
Awesome post, Kay!
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We are so excited to be mixing things up at CBA, beginning with some delicious additions to the Blogfish. Meet our awesome bloggers!!
Here's our lineup: 1st Mondays begin with awesome Aussie debut author and former student Amanda Lieber who will be focusing on Aussie kidlit. 2nd Mondays will feature super smart Melissa Stoller whose career is taking off with several new books. 3rd Mondays will feature STEM, STEAM & SEL obsessed author Kourtney LaFavre sharing delightfully dorky, quirky, and fun info. 4th Mondays will be a mystery for right now. And 5th Mondays we'll be taking a break Archives
September 2023
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