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Book Review: Little Artists by Niki Daly
For Multicultural Children's Book Day (MCCBD)*, I did a book review of Little Artists by Niki Daly, published by Kane Miller Press.
Little Artists Books is a boxed set of four baby hand-sized board books, titled Ruby, Carlos, Mondi and Nina. Each character is a person of color and they celebrate art in its various forms. Ruby likes to play dress-up, Carlos likes to paint and draw, Mondi likes to make music and Nina likes to dance.
The first thing I thought when I saw the boxed set was, "This would make a great gift! Do I know any babies or toddlers I can present this to?"
Pictures and words are just right for the intended age group. My favorite pages are when the characters use or play with items in nontraditional creative ways. For example, Ruby dresses up in a dress, shorts, socks, booties, but instead of a hat she uses a bowl to cover her head. Mondi plays the trumpet, the xylophone, cymbals, bongos, etc. but he also snaps his fingers to show that his digits can serve as instruments too. Not only does Nina use her body to dance, she also creates movements to simulate a cat, a butterfly and a cloud - adorable.
A great introduction to possibilities and imagination, these books conjure memories of times when my kids used to play and explore in the same ways as Ruby, Carlos, Mondi and Nina do; I still have some of my children's favorite dress-up clothes and instruments. Thanks
for the reminiscence!
* Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2017 (1/27/17) is its fourth year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness on the ongoing need to include kid’s books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators. Despite census data that shows 37% of the US population consists of people of color, only 10% of children’s books published have diversity content. Using the Multicultural Children’s Book Day holiday, the MCBD Team are on a mission to change all of that.
Current Sponsors: MCBD 2017 is honored to have some amazing Sponsors on board. Platinum Sponsors include Scholastic, Barefoot Books and Broccoli. Other Medallion Level Sponsors include heavy-hitters like Author Carole P. Roman, Audrey Press, Candlewick Press, Fathers Incorporated, KidLitTV, Capstone Young Readers, ChildsPlayUsa, Author Gayle Swift, Wisdom Tales Press, Lee& Low Books, The Pack-n-Go Girls, Live Oak Media, Author Charlotte Riggle, Chronicle Books and Pomelo Books
Author Sponsor include: Karen Leggett Abouraya, Veronica Appleton, Susan Bernardo, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Maria Dismondy, D.G. Driver, Geoff Griffin, Savannah Hendricks, Stephen Hodges, Carmen Bernier-Grand,Vahid Imani, Gwen Jackson, Hena, Kahn, David Kelly, Mariana Llanos, Natasha Moulton-Levy, Teddy O'Malley, Stacy McAnulty, Cerece Murphy, Miranda Paul, Annette Pimentel, Greg Ransom, Sandra Richards, Elsa Takaoka, Graciela Tiscareño-Sato, Sarah Stevenson, Monica Mathis-Stowe SmartChoiceNation, Andrea Y. Wang
We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also work tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.MCBD Links to remember:
MCBD site: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/
Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta
Free Kindness Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teachers-classroom-kindness-kit/
Free Diversity Book Lists and Activities for Teachers and Parents: http://bit.ly/1sZ5s8i