A collection of 30 lullabies and nursery rhymes performed by children, men and women from Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Reunion celebrate the culture and sound of the tropical islands, in a volume complemented by informative facts and lyrics in French Creole and English […]
Children's Picture Books: Stories set in Latin America
The road to Santiago
In Cuba, in the early 1950s, a young boy and his family try their best not to let the rebel soldiers keep them from traveling to Santiago to celebrate Christmas with their relatives. Based on a true incident in the life of the author […]
The rowdy, rowdy ranch / Allá en El Rancho Grande
On the first visit to El Rancho Grande in Mexico, a Mexican American boy hears the stories of how his grandfather bought it "for a song." […]
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Adelita
After the death of her mother and father, Adelita is badly mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters until she finds her own true love at a grand fiesta. […]
Caribbean dream
A lyrical and evocative dreamscape of the Caribbean. […]
Estrellita says good-bye to her island / Estrellita se despide de su isla
As Estrellita leaves her beloved Caribbean island home, she combines all of its features into an ode celebrating its green and eternal beauty. […]
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Frida
Discusses the childhood of Frida Kahlo and how it influenced her art. […]
The secret footprints
A story based on Dominican folklore, about the ciguapas, a tribe of beautiful underwater people whose feet are attached backwards, with their toes pointing in the direction from which they have come. […]
Anancy and Mr. Dry-Bone
This delightful trickster tale based on characters from traditional Caribbean and West African folk-tales is brought to vivid life with vibrant illustrations. Poor Anancy and rich Mr Dry-Bone both want to marry Miss Louise, but she wants to marry the man who can make her laugh. She does not laugh at Mr Dry-Bone’s conjuring tricks and acrobatics so Anancy decides to ask the animals for help in winning her over. — publisher […]
The International Day of the Girl
“This introduction to the International Day of the Girl and its worldwide significance encourages children to recognize their own potential to make change, providing both a perfect lesson in social justice and a celebration of girl power.
The United Nations designated October 11th as the International Day of the Girl, a day to increase awareness of problems that affect girls — and only girls — around the world and to encourage progress toward gender equality. Nine stories inspired by the real-life experiences of girls from all over the globe bring to light the importance of this day. Each story is set in a different country and sensitively describes an inequity faced by a character and how she addressed it. The challenges include gender-based violence, illiteracy, lack of access to technology, sanitation, nutritional disparity and child marriage. Each story features a positive description of the main character — strong, smart, creative, inventive, brave, talented, caring, funny, ambitious — and each concludes with a realistic yet hopeful outcome, presenting the girls as more than victims of their circumstances. Their powerful, and empowering, experiences will stir the activist in every child.
Jessica Dee Humphreys’s well-researched and illuminating stories are both readable and age appropriate. Award-winning Simone Shin’s simple, warm illustrations bring the characters and their circumstances to life. Sidebars expand on the issues covered in each story. This book is a perfect choice for social justice discussions, as well as for social studies lessons on global communities, and for character education conversations on citizenship. It includes a foreword by the Honorable Rona Ambrose, who led Canada’s call for the day to be formally adopted by the United Nations. Also included are an annotated time line of the day’s creation and additional statistical information. A portion of the proceeds will go to Plan International Canada.” — publisher […]
