My colleagues and I have launched a childhood literacy initiative called the Birthday Party Pledge; we’re asking adults to commit to buying multicultural books as gifts for the children in their lives. “It takes a village” to ensure that each child has a home library, yet finding books that feature black children can be challenging. Our site provides lists (picture books, historical fiction, graphic novels, books boys love, speculative fiction, poetry, global fiction, etc.) so that adults can go into a bookstore or library armed with titles that truly reflect the diversity of our world.
You can also “like” our page on Facebook.
And please, add the button to your website to show your commitment!
Cotton Quilts 
What a great idea! I actually have two birthday gifts I need to buy this weekend, and both are for kids of color. I’ll check out your book suggestions. Thanks! 🙂
LikeLike
Fantastic! I love this idea. We don’t do much for birthday parties in Japan but when I have the chance I will do this!
LikeLike
This is a wonderful idea. I’ll definitely do this and have ‘liked’ you. Good luck with it!
LikeLike
This is a great initiative andI’m definitely joining in – thank you for starting it up. It’s just the nudge I need as, although I find it easy to give books to younger children and mostly do, I’m starting to find it harder with the older children in my life – so yes, books it will be!
LikeLike
What a good idea! I think adults assume that kids want toys or books about people who look exactly like them, but that’s not true at all. I worked at the American Girl store for a summer and was in the “Just Like Me” doll section. So often parents would be really picky, trying to find a doll that looked JUST like their daughter. But the girls would often choose dolls that looked nothing like them. The more we can encourage multicultural stories, the better.
LikeLike
What a wonderful pledge! May we all broaden our world through reading in 2012!
LikeLike
Annie, In all the reasons I have for why multicultural literature is so important, I’ve never considered that it nurtures our curiosity about the world around is!
I’m so glad to see so much support for this project! Hopefully, all children, not just children of color, will benefit from our efforts.
LikeLike
This is a wonderful idea for all children…I am definitely going to make an effort to purchase more multicultural books for the children in my life and my own library too. Thank you for the resources! a.
LikeLike
This is a great idea. I just signed up for the challenge at the Paper Tigers blog to read 7 books from different cultures: http://www.papertigers.org/wordpress/spread-your-reading-wings-and-join-the-papertigers-reading-the-world-challenge-2012/ …I’m finding so many interesting blogs via the comment challenge.
LikeLike