Enough of Frankie Already! Multicultural Children’s Book Day

As part of Multicultural Book Day, we are one of many bloggers who are highlighting some fantastic multicultural books by some talented authors.  The cocreators of this fun event are Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom and Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book/Audrey Press.  And don’t forget to enter our Giveaway, which you will find at the end of this post.

Enough of Frankie Already!

Enough of Frankie Already!  was written by Felicia Capers and illustrated by Christopher Fabor Muhammad.  It is set at Jefferson Elementary.  From the outside, it appears to be a friendly, average school.  But things are not as they seem.

Frankie likes to bully the grade 2 class in various ways.  One young student, Amir has had enough of Frankie and his hurtful ways and one day decides to stand up to Frankie in an assertive and non-aggressive way.  He asks Frankie why he is such a bully.  As it turns out, Frankie, who is in the 3rd grade is being bullied by the 5th graders, who in turn are victims of the 8th graders.  Everywhere one looks there’s a form of bullying on the playground.

Amir talks to a teacher and explains things to him.  He and his friends, who now include Frankie, make posters to hang in the halls of Jefferson Elementary to remind all of the students that bullying is not appropriate and will no longer be tolerated.

At the end of this book, Felicia has included a page of questions for children to answer to help get them thinking about what bullying is and what they can do about it.  This is a good way to guide children and have them think more about what they can do when they experience or see someone being bullied.

The children have been enjoying this story over the past few weeks.  Although they are home educated, they are able to take the lessons learned with Frankie and apply them to their own lives.  It’s important for children to learn how to be assertive and stand up for themselves without being aggressive.  This is something that I didn’t learn myself until I was in university, and I still have to push myself when needed.

I thought it would be fun for my children to practice different situations where they have or might in the future encounter bullying.  It can often be difficult for children to act out their own emotions.  Kallista has just recently begun role-playing with her dolls and having them carry one discussions with each other and with her.  Sometimes using props to role play instead can help children feel more comfortable so this is the route we took.

Tristan and Kallista made some stick puppets using some multicultural foam stickers we had in the craft cupboard.  They had a lot of fun making clothes for their characters and drawing different emotions onto their little faces.

Next we talked about what bullying is, using “Enough of Frankie Already!” and some of the situations that Frankie made unpleasant for others at his school.  The children used the puppets to create a situation and try to find a better way to resolve any problems.  We spoke about what is and is not appropriate behaviour, and in which circumstances additional help should be found.

Tomorrow we have a real treat for you, when Felicia Capers, the author of “Enough of Frankie Already!” will be guest-posting for us and she’ll give us lots of great advice on how to be assertive and stand up to bullies at different ages.  Don’t miss it!

 Here are some ways you can help us celebrate Multicultural Children’s Book Day

• Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day website and view our booklists, reading resources and other useful multicultural information.
• Visit our Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board for more reading ideas.
• Have children bring in their favorite multicultural book to school on this day and share it with the class.
• Watch for the #ReadYourWorld hashtag on social media and share.
• Visit our Diversity Book Lists and Resources for Educators and Parents on our website.
• Visit MCCBD sponsors (you can find them HERE)
• Create a Multicultural Children’s Book Day display around the classroom or library.
• Visit The Multicultural Children’s Book Day website on January 27^th to view and participate in our huge blogger link-up, multicultural book reviews, giveaways and more!

Multicultural Children’s Book Day’s mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.

“MCCBD team hopes to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media.”

MCCBD’s 2015 Sponsors are:

Platinum: Wisdom Tales Press, Daybreak Press Global Bookshop,

Gold:  Satya House,  MulticulturalKids.com,   Author Stephen Hodges and the Magic Poof,

Silver: Junior Library Guild,  Capstone Publishing, Lee and Low Books,  The Omnibus Publishing.

Bronze:Double Dutch Dolls, Bliss Group Books, Snuggle with Picture Books Publishing,  Rainbow Books,   Author FeliciaCapers,   Chronicle Books   Muslim Writers Publishing ,East West Discovery Press.

Author Sponsors include:

Beautiful Rainbow World by Suzee Ramirez

Lulu and the Very Big Meanies by Mac McGooshie, illustrated by Alexis Hogwood

Real Street Kidz Multicultural Children’s Book Series by Quentin Holmes

Have a fun trip around the web by visiting the co-hosts:

Africa to America, All Done Monkey, The Educators’ Spin on It, Growing Book by Book, InCultural Parent, Kid World Citizen, Mama Smiles, Multicultural Kid Blogs, and Sprout’s Bookshelf

First Book

We’re also partnering with First Book to offer a Virtual Book Drive that will help donate multicultural children’s books through their channels during the week of the event. We want to help get diversity books into the hands of kids who most need it and now we have a way to do it! The Virtual Book Drive is LIVE and can be found HERE.

Children’s Book Council:

MCCBD is collaborating with Children’s Book Council to highlight wonderful diversity books and authors on an ongoing basis all year.

Twitter Party

We are hosting a Twitter party! Join us for Multicultural Children’s Book Day Twitter Party on Jan 27th 9:00pm EST. Use hashtag: #ReadYourWorld to win 10 book packages. Use this info to share with your readers and to tweet it out!

Paper.li

MCCBD now has its own Paper.li! A Paper.li is a free online newspaper that aggregates information on the topic of multicultural books for kids from all over the Internet. Please feel free subscribe and stay up-to-date with this topic.

If you have not done so, check out the MCCBD blog! Thanks to support from the Children’s Book Council we are posting author interviews like crazy and are thrilled with the response. You can find the MCCBD blog here: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/blog/

Giveaways:

Platinum Sponsor Wisdom Tales Press is hosting a book giveaway on their website.  The winner will receive 6 Wisdom Tales Books of their choice.

And our very own Felicia Capers is giving away a copy of “Enough of Frankie Already!”  Please use the Rafflecopter entry form below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway