Children's Favorite Arabic Stories

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

When Hazel was young, we did a lot of exploring the world and different cultures from home. We participated in blog group series like Around the World in 12 Dishes and Global Learning for Kids as well as the various cultural heritage months series with Multicultural Kid Blogs. But one of Hazel's favorite things to do was read a collection of folk tales and fables from other countries. She would have loved today's book when she was younger. The book is Children's Favorite Arabic Stories: Fables and Folk Tales from Across the Arabic Speaking World by Jehanne Moharran and illustrated by Chaymaa Sobhy. It is recommended for ages 5 to 13 and it is part of the Children's Favorite Stories series. 

Vietnamese Children's Favorite Stories Book Review

 Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation. 

Hazel loves exploring the world. She loves learning about different cultures. Since her father does not like to travel or spend the money to travel, we explore from home. We try recipes from other countries, listen to music from other countries, read books about other countries and we love to read stories from other countries. Tuttle Publishing sent us Vietnamese Children's Favorite Stories retold by Phuoc Thi Minh Tran and illustrated by Nguyen Dong and Nguyen Thi Hop.

Review of Indonesian Children's Favorite Stories -- Multicultural Monday

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

January is always an exciting month here at Crafty Moms Share. It always represents Multicultural Children's Book Day since it is held the last Friday in January and the books are reviewed throughout the month of January. I am co-hosting once again this year as well as one of the many book reviewers for the event. Tuttle Publishing is always a sponsor of this event and although this book qualifies to be part of it I am not reviewing it today for Multicultural Children's Book Day. It is one I have on my review shelf before I started getting the books for the event. 

2022 is the Year of the Tiger--Tiger Fun Facts & Craft Round-Up

 

The lunar new year begins on February 1, 2022. Many countries celebrate the lunar new year and see it as one of the most important holidays of the year. I have shared about different countries and different celebrations over the years. I always enjoy checking out the Chinese horoscope that goes with it. The legend says that the Jade Emperor wanted twelve animals to be his guard. He sent an immortal to tell the animals and they raced to the Jade Emperor. The first twelve animals became his guard and are the animals of the Chinese Horoscope. This year we are on the third animal of the horoscope, the tiger. 

Malaysian and Singapore Children's Favourite Stories -- Asian Pacific-American Heritage Month Review & Giveaway

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me copies of these books free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation. 

May brings us into Asian Pacific-American Heritage Month. To celebrate I always like to read some Asian stories. Luckily I have a contact at Tuttle Publishing. Tuttle Publishing focuses on Asia in their books. They are also a supporter of the Multicultural Kid Blogs' Giveaway for this month. As such they sent me a copy of Malaysian Children's Favourite Stories by Kay Lyons and illustrated by Martin Loh which is the only prize from them I have not previously reviewed as well a copy of Singapore Children's Favourite Stories by Di Taylor and illustrations by LK Tay-Audouard. They have quite the selection of Asian countries for this series of books and I have to admit we have quite a few of them as well. Hazel always LOVES these books and never lets me donate them. Actually it looks like I am missing a few. I am guessing they may be hiding in Hazel's room.

The Year of the Monkey -- Exploring Chinese New Year with books & Chinese New Year Link Party

 Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me copies of these book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. They also sent me a copy to giveaway! As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation. 

We have explored the lunar new year and more specifically the Chinese New Year for several years now and have tried many different crafts, recipes and books (see below for a sampling and links). We have looked at the Chinese Zodiac and as of yesterday we have begun the year of the monkey. Last year was the year of the sheep.

A Monkey Valentine Craft from a Kit

 Since we are not Chinese or any of the cultures that celebrate the lunar new year, we do not do too much for our Chinese New Year except try to learn a bit about it. This year since we have an idea of the celebration and the stories behind it we decided to take a look at Chinese stories and especially ones involving the monkey.  We started with Celebrating Chinese Festivals by Sanmu Tung.

Our Japanese Tea Party -- Exploring Japan with Tea Parties Around the World

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.


So last month our plan was to have a Japanese tea party for Tea Parties Around the World, but life interfered and our tea party happened in May instead, but this is perfect since it is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. So through April and into May we have been exploring Japan. Now Japan is known for its tea ceremony. It sounds so fancy and has an interesting history. To learn more about the tea ceremony we read Tea Ceremony by Shozo Sato.



This book covers everything from a brief history of tea and the types of tea in Japan to the history of the tea ceremony itself. It also gives steps on how to have a tea ceremony at home. We did not try this because I am a bit intimidated by the tea ceremony and I do not feel like we have the right space for it. I had hoped to find a local place that offers them, but I couldn't. The process of the making the tea is a huge part of the Japanese tea ceremony. It is about finding peace and harmony with one's guests. In Japan how the food and drink look is as important if not more important than how it tastes, so presentation is a huge thing in the ceremony. There are different supplies and displays for a traditional tea ceremony.


The book goes into the various utensils and types of them often used in the tea ceremony. There are also various steps to the ceremony with various spaces of each one. There are also various steps to making the actual tea. This book gives beautiful photograph tutorials to them.

It is a fun book to learn about this amazing tradition. It provides kids with what they need to know to try their own.


To learn more about Japan we checked out some DVDs from the library and of course turned to our favorite resource All About Japan. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the photos I took of our DVDs. We took the ones above as well as some folktale ones. We love to get the culture of the country through stories. In the past we have had the pleasure of reviewing The Last Kappa of Old Japan, The Peace Tree from Hiroshima, Once Upon a Time in Japan, Japanese Children's Favorite Stories and Yuko-Chan and the Daruma Doll.


Plus another favorite resource for us is The Magic Tree House series.


Now we know a bit about Japan and its culture so we will tell you about our tea party and our Japanese craft. For our tea party we went to David's Tea and asked our friend there for a good Japanese tea. He sold us Sencha Ashikubo.


He gave me the warning of not steeping too much because it will get a very grassy taste. It was too grassy for us, but we tried it. I used our Chinese tea cups and a tea pot I felt looked a bit Japanese. (It was a gift, so I do not know the history of it.)


We also found some instant Japanese soups to try. Since we were a bit busy we did not try to make anything from scratch this time.



We put a little of each soup into our regular tea cups so we could each try it. We liked the udon soup better than the miso.



To go with our tea party I wanted to do a craft. We found a fun craft making kokeshi dolls in this book.


They are usually simple wooden dolls.



Kokeshi By Kimivanil (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Ours are made from origami paper (ours is from Tuttle Publishing), a toilet paper roll and a ping pong ball. I made one but Hazel has not gotten around to making hers yet.


Hazel loves how mine came out though. What do you think? Now I also have sewn a kimono for Hazel's 18-inch dolls.



So that is our exploration of Japan with a Japanese tea party. This post is part of the Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month Blog Series and Giveaway!!



Welcome to our fourth annual Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month Blog Series and Giveaway! Follow along all month for ideas about sharing with kids the rich cultures of this vast and varied region. Also, be sure to enter the giveaway below and link up your posts at the bottom of the page. For even more ideas, visit our blog hops from last year, 2015 and 2014. You can also follow our Asia and Australia & Oceania boards on Pinterest.

May 1 Miss Panda Chinese on Multicultural Kid Blogs: 10 Fun Facts About Taiwan for Kids
May 5 Chinese American Family: Visiting Locke and Connecting with California's Rural Chinese History
May 9 Kori at Home
May 11 The Art Curator for Kids: Chinese Bronze Vessels with Abstract Zoomorphic Designs
May 12 Kori at Home
May 15 Crafty Moms Share
May 17 Bicultural Mama
May 19 Wise Owl Factory
May 22 Ketchup Moms on Multicultural Kid Blogs
May 23 All Done Monkey
May 25 Miss Panda Chinese
May 30 All Done Monkey
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Giveaway Enter below for a chance to win one of our great prize packages in our annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month giveaway! The giveaway goes from May 1 to May 31, 2017, at midnight PT. If the winner falls outside the shipping area of a prize, that prize will revert to the next lower prize package. Read our full giveaway rules. And for all of our readers, here is a special offer from our sponsor Tingomo! Use the code TENOFFTINGOMO to get 10% off any pre-order! (first kits to ship in July)
Grand Prize
From One Dear World: Set of 4 plush multicultural dolls, each with its own passport, plus the story book The Adventure of Hat Hunting in London, starring the dolls as the main characters
From Tuttle Publishing: Adventures in Asian Art, Indonesian Children's Favorite Stories, Malaysian Children's Favorite Stories, and Filipino Children's Favorite Stories
From Wisdom Tales: Rock Maiden - US Shipping Only
From Bollywood Groove: Go on a fun adventure with Maya & Neel and learn about famous festivals and places in India! In this very colorful, three-picture-book series, kids will learn about festival of lights - Diwali (Amazon best-seller), festival of colors - Holi and the home of Bollywood - city of Mumbai. US Shipping Only
From Miss Panda Chinese: Winner's choice of an "Everyday" learning unit with audio links
From Tingomo: Passport Craft™ Kit: Make Your Own NEPAL Paper Lanterns US Shipping Only, will ship in July

1st Prize
From World Music with Daria: set of tingsha (handbells) US Shipping Only
From Quarto Knows: Summer Under the Tamarind Tree, I is for Iran, and 50 Things You Should Know About the Vietnam War - US Shipping Only
From Monika Schröder: Saraswati's Way - US Shipping Only
From Miss Panda Chinese: Winner's choice of an "Everyday" learning unit with audio links
From Tingomo: Passport Craft™ Kit: Make Your Own NEPAL Paper Prayer Flags US Shipping Only, will ship in July

2nd Prize
From The Dumpling Mama: Pack of 20 good luck envelopes: Give good luck wishes with money in a red envelope. Perfect for Lunar New Year, birthdays, graduations, and holidays US/Canada Shipping Only
From Kathleen Burkinshaw: The Last Cherry Blossom - US Shipping Only
From Candlewick Press: A Piece of Home and Bronze and Sunflower - US Shipping Only From Miss Panda Chinese:
Winner's choice of an "Everyday" learning unit with audio links a Rafflecopter giveaway
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An InLinkz Link-up

Steeped in Stories -- a Book about Reading Classic Children's Stories in Modern Times

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

What are the classic children's novels you read when you were little? Have you read them again as an adult? Have your children read them? Or are they on a banned list for the racism and other inappropriate things that are no longer acceptable in our modern society? Today I am sharing a book for adults about reading those stories as adults with or without kids and relating them to our modern world. Are you ready to reminisce? The book is Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children's Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls by Mitali Perkins.

Exploring Korea from Home Reviews of Two Books

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease,but receive no compensation.

Today we are going to share with you two wonderful books from Tuttle Publishing. The first is All About Korea by Ann Martin Bowler. This book is a wonderful introduction to South Korea. It includes stories, songs, crafts, recipes and what life is like there. We really enjoy trying the different things and Hazel insists on trying all of them. This book also has additional resources on the Tuttle Publishing website. The book does a nice job of explaining about the split of North and South Korea and how the focus of the book will be on South Korea.

Multicultural Books for Multicultural Monday

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are my own.

January is upon us. Wow, time has been flying. Now that the holidays are over we turn back and look at our lives. Did you make resolutions? I always find January to be bitter sweet. I enjoy the holidays and seeing everyone and they are over. We take our Christmas decorations down and the house seems empty. However as someone who loves diversity there are always more things to look forward to. Multicultural Children's Book Day is January 31st and I am co-hosting again this year. Stay tune for my official posts starting this week. The lunar new year is also approaching. I will be participating in Multicultural Kid Blogs annual blog series on January 20th to share books about China and Korea and their lunar new year celebrations. And of course Martin Luther King Day is this month. So much great stuff. Then February hits with Black History Month. Lots to look forward to. Today I thought I would share four multicultural books with you to start off our January. 

Learning about China through Books

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

May is Asian American Heritage Month. Last week we focused on Vietnam and this week we will focus on China. I have two books to share with you today. One of them I reviewed an older edition several years ago. The other is a book of children's stories from both China and Tibet. I began to wonder about Tibet. Tibet was taken over by the Communist Chinese Government in 1949. The leader of Tibet prior to that was the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama escaped to India and lives there in exile with over 100,000 Tibetan refugees. (Source) We will start with Favorite Children's Stories from China and Tibet by Lotta Carswell Hume and illustrated by Lo Koon-chiu.

Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month -- Book Round-Up

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. I always feel bad about this month. It happens at such a busy time of the year and is often overlooked. May was chosen to mark the anniversary of the first Japanese immigration and the completion of the transcontinental railroad. (The majority of the workers on the railroad were Chinese immigrants.) It also represents such a large area. Asian-Pacific Island includes all of Asia and the islands in the Pacific including New Zealand and the Polynesian Islands. It covers a huge area. (Source)

Source: World Atlas

Although we have no Asian or Pacific Island heritage that I know of, I like to teach Hazel about all the various cultures. I always describe myself as an American mutt since I have quite a mixture of European ancestors and even have some that can be traced to the Mayflower. There is a story in our family history of someone marrying a Native American as well, but I do not know the details. As such I do not identify with any ethnicity besides American and I find it interesting to look at the different ones around. To begin looking into Asian and Pacific Island Heritage we went to the library for books.

General Asian Stories and Picture Books

• A is for Asia by Cynthia Chin-Lee
• Asian Children's Favorite Stories by David Conger, Marian Davies Toth & Kay Lyons
• Asian Holidays by Faith Winchester
• Come Look With Me: Asian Art by Kimberly Lane
• I Dreamed I was a Panda by Debra A. Johnson
• Floating Clouds, Floating Dreams Favorite Asian Folk Tales edited by I. K. Junne
• Moon Magic: Stories from Asia by Katherine Davison
• The Tiger's Whisker and Other Tales from Asia and the Pacific by Harold Courlander
• Folk Tales from Asia by  Asian Cultural Centre for Unesco
• Tikki Tikki Tembo and More Stories to Celebrate Asian Heritage DVD produced by Weston Wood Studios, Inc.

Asian Crafts and Animals

• Asian Kites by Wayne Hosking
• Haiku: Asian Arts and Crafts for Creative Kids by Patricia Donegan
• Asian-American Crafts Kids Can Do! by Sarah Hartman
• A Kid's Guide to Asian American History by Valerie Petrillo
• Asian Crafts by Judith Hoffman Corwin
• Monkeys of Asia and Africa by Patricia A. Fink Martin
• Really Wild Animals: Adventures in Asia DVD produced by National Geographic Society

Next I took some of the many countries in the area and found some picture books to read with Hazel. I am sure there are more and of course there are more countries, but at least this is a start. I am going to add a link party to the end so people can add their own favorite Asian and/or Pacific Island themed books to help learn about the cultures and celebrate the month. Many of these books are about immigrants' experiences in coming to America or leaving their country. Since there are so many, I am not going to list each one. I will however list the ones I have posted about previously with links in case you want to learn more.

Cambodia

China

The Year of the Horse is part of a series of books about the Chinese Zodiac

Julie Black Belt and Julie Black Belt: The Belt of Fire

The Phillipines

Cora Cooks Pancit

The Bamboo Dance

India

Japan

Sora and the Cloud Review

Butterflies for Kiri

Korea

Around the World in 12 Dishes visits Korea

Thailand

Book Reviews at my Around the World in 12 Dishes visits Thailand

Vietnam

Asian-Pacific Cinderella Tales

The Golden Slipper

Kao and the Golden Fish

 

Anklet for a Princess

Kongi and Potgi

The Korean Cinderella

The Gift of the Crocodile

The Golden Sandal

Wishbones and Yeh-Shen

If you know a good book to learn about an Asian or Pacific Island culture or to help celebrate this month, please list its title and author in this link party and share with us all!! You do not need to link a review or post about the book!!

Global Learning for Kids

Have you entered my current giveaway? This is one you do not want to miss!!

 I am joining a group of Multicultural Kid Blogs to start a new series called Global Learning for Kids. Each month we will explore a country with books, music, crafts, lessons, food, etc. and share our exploration as well as have a link party so the posts will be a one-stop place to get many resources on the chosen country. This month we are starting with Japan! I wrote an introduction to the country of Japan over at Multicultural Kid Blogs to kick off Global Learning for Kids as well as the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Blog Series and Giveaway. (Make sure you stop by to enter the giveaway--there are some amazing prizes!!) We will be sharing posts about our exploration of Japan all month and later this month we will share two posts in the Blog Series and Giveaway (not having to do with just Japan). Make sure to follow this month!!

Since we are starting with Japan, I thought I would start with a round-up of everything we have already learned about Japan since we actually have quite a few posts with things about Japan in them.