HIT: Multicultural picture books and price of picture books

[Laura Palmer <llpalmer@MAIL.JAX.BELLSOUTH.NET>]

Thanks to everyone who shared information and opinions with me regarding
picture book prices and multicultural picture book availability in
school media centers.

In answer to my question regarding the current price of picture books
for school media centers several people replied with this information:

Renee Olson's editorial in the March 2000 issue of School Library
Journal
included "Average Book Prices for Children's Materials."  The editorial
is available electronically at
http://www.slj.com/articles/opinion/20000301_7434.asp.  A link to the
editorial is included in the "Budget" bibliography in AASL's Resource
Guides for School Library Media Program Development at
http://www.ala.org/aasl/resources.

In response to my opinion regarding the availability of multicultural
picture books in school media centers two people responded with the
following:

1.
I am not sure if the problem is the region of the country where you work

or the personal preference of the Media Specialists whose Media Centers
you visited but there are countless books that address this problem
available today.

I have been in the profession since 1969. I have worked in Hispanic
neighborhood and black neighborhoods in NYC as well as middle class and
upper class districts. In the early days in the 1970s, there were a few
books about blacks and Hispanics available. The situation has only
increased in the ensuing years. Currently there are thousands of picture

books available with multicultural themes. How do I know this? I
completed a course on Current Children's Lit and my final product was a
6 page paper on picture books that use dialects in the text.

My multicultural school has a large ESL population as do many other
schools in NJ. We use a literacy text from Macmillan that uses authentic

literature. Most of the books in the texts are multicultural.

I recently received a grant to purchase books to help our new immigrants

feel welcome in my school. The choice of books range from books about
slave chants to South African voting to a Japanese child and her
grandfather. Katie Couric has recently written a book about a blond,
blue eyed foreign child who feels unwelcome in a new school.

Here are some websites about multicultural books:

http://www.wordweb.org/positive/index.html

http://www.cofbooks.com/

http://www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/25mult.htm

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/multipub.htm

http://www.wmht.org/trail/explor02.htm

http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/socialstd/MBD/Books_Begin.html

http://www.kstrom.net/isk/

http://www.csusm.edu/csbs/english/

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/afro.html

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/afro1.html

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/asian.html

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/hispanic.html

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/native.html


2.
When I have money to spend, I do buy multicultural books.  Money is a
big
problem.  If funds are limited,the percentage of multicultural books
that
I
can buy goes way down, as I have to meet curricular needs in all content

areas, including many teacher requests.


Multicultural books are mostly fiction, 900's,398.2's, and holidays.  I
have
bought sets in the 200's, too, and reference.  There are multicultural
materials in all subjects, but those seem to be the biggies. These are
not
the "Dewey sensitive" areas that our state standards look at most
closely.
We are still playing catch-up buying new resources in those areas to
meet
standards.

It is helpful when the state award nominees include multicultural
titles.


Again, thanks to everyone who responded!

Laura Palmer
MLS student and future school media specialist
Jacksonville, FL
llpalmer@mail.jax.bellsouth.net

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