Bruce Jensen

Día de los niños/Día de los libros

Children’s literacy promoter extraordinaire Oralia Garza de Cortés last week sent around a reminder about the fast-approaching celebration of El día de los Niños/El día de los Libros--Children’s Day/Book Day--coming again this April 30.

In the dozen years since this great idea was hatched by author and educator Pat Mora, "Día" has exploded into one of the biggest events on the U.S. library calendar.

Last year more than 400 libraries and schools in almost every state took the time to describe their Día activities on an index kept by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) of the American Library Association. (ALSC invites you to do the same this year on their site.) Tens of thousands of people enjoy the annual festivities in Mora’s hometown of El Paso, and the countless much smaller celebrations are what keep Día growing.

Many libraries stretch it beyond just one day, making much of April a month for celebratiing children and books and the fabulous alchemy that happens when you mix the two. Take a look at Albuquerque’s two-week series of programs, for example.

There is still time to put together something on a smaller yet very worthwhile scale. Want tips?

Last year’s WebJunction webinar, El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros (Children's Day/Book Day): Programming and Outreach Ideas is chock full of suggestions from Ruth Rose Hennessey of Oregon and Melanie Tucker of Utah, whose Día programs won awards. "If you commit to a Día program, you are guaranteed success," Ruth says. "There’s no way you can lose." Not bad, huh?

Melanie asserts that "You can do a Día program on little or no funding at all. You can be creative and you can put together a good program that your community will really appreciate." Take note that the first try at such a program at one of their libraries drew 12 people; three years later, they pulled in 500 (with the help of Clifford, el gran perro colorado).

That webinar is archived here; skip the first twelve minutes, in which the Live Meeting participants got the hang of muting their telephones, and you can jump right in to an interesting presentation that will cost you less than an hour of your time. Your friends at WebJunction also offer a brief bibliography of related craft project books, and links to relevant sites, on this page.

One of those books is 25 Latino Craft Projects (Celebrating Culture in Your Library), by Ana-Elba Pavon and Diana Borrego whose generous preview of most of the first fifth of the text through the miracle of Google Books will make you want to buy it. (But if you can’t, and you’re really anxious about the missing cascarones page, this site will tell you how to make those whimsical confetti-stuffed eggshells you can bust over people’s heads.)

Oralia points out that some freebies are available at the ALSC’s Día site. You can go here to find out whom to email to request posters, postcards, and of course the inevitable tool kit.

There is a hundred-page one of those that you can have online courtesy of the Texas State Library, which also offers this valuable list of Día-related links. Another page you don’t want to miss belongs to Reading Rockets.

This very magazine a couple weeks ago published the article, "New List Recommends Children’s Books for Día de los niños/Día de los libros" which can take you to the Association of American Publishers’ Get Caught Reading site.

But if you want to know more about the thinking of the person who started the whole thing, don’t miss this inspiring 25-minute video interview with Pat Mora. In it she credits REFORMA and its many members who picked up her idea and helped build it into something truly grand.

Posted by Bruce Jensen on February 18, 2008 | Comments (0)