Lists of All Those Books You Haven't Read Yet

December is the month of lists. The top 10 things you didn’t get around to all year long or the top 10 things you need to plan to do for next year.  And of course - all those books you didn't read this year, but luckily books don't expire.  To save you a little effort, I’ve gathered a few lists of books you may have missed this year.  My only criteria – it had to be a diverse list, presenting books by and about people of color. (Note that I didn’t say “for” because books can be for anybody, regardless of what the characters look like.)

Stock up for the hours you might steal away during the holidays or getting snowed in one day (if we here on the East Coast ever get out of this 50 degree weather.)

Adult Books

Toppa Top 10: Ten Great Books By Caribbean Authors In 2015

I already have Land of Love & Drowning on my to-read pile and will be adding a few more from this list. And I didn’t know Edwidge Danticat had a new book (Untwining), so that will go on my list, as it should for you if you haven’t read anything by her yet.  There are some promising looking new authors on this list – that’s always fun.

25 New Books By Black Women That Would Make Perfect Holiday Gifts (The Culture)

I like the variety of books on this list. There’s fiction, nonfiction, memoir, motivational – a little something for everyone. And a genre you don’t find on too many general lists? Cookbooks! I love a good cookbook, I own maybe 25-30, as a conservative estimate, and am always looking for something new and interested.   I’m adding My Life on a Plate to my list because international cookbooks are one of my favorites (desserts – cakes especially, is the other if you’re wondering.) 

Children’s Books

Mother in the Mix: 23 Children’s Books with Interracial Families 

Multiracial as an official race category is a relatively new thing, so its interesting to see books with mixed race families. I might even be a little bit surprised that she rounded up 23!  Reading over the titles and descriptions of these books, one thing that I like is that they aren’t all about race. There are the cultural stories which are great for kids to see their own food and traditions and stuff in books. Then I also like that some of them are just stories about a family doing family stuff – visiting grandma, figuring out what to do with a new baby – and kids doing regular kid stuff – taking over the world, becoming a cowboy.  These are the kinds of “diverse” books we need – a little bit of everything.

Tutu's Storybooks: Children’s Holiday Books

For children’s books, Tutu’s Storybooks is a great go-to source. Her books are available online and if you are in Maryland, you may be lucky enough to find her at local street fairs, book fairs and other community events. Be sure to stop by, browse and buy.

This is the Holiday Books list – they are specifically about celebrating Christmas and Kwanzaa and winter – so order these soon so you can read them while the tree is still up.  In addition to the posted list, check out her tweets (‏‪@TutusStorybooks) for more holiday books, too, like these:

All I Want for Christmas is You – Mariah Carey

Little Red Gliding Hood – Tara Lazar, Troy Cummings

The Snowman Shuffle – Christianne Jones, Emma Randall

Roc & Roe’s 12 Days of Christmas – Nick Cannon, AG Ford

I know there are about 1000 other favorite books lists that I could’ve included and another 10,000 books. Leave your favorite recommendations in the Comments.

#ColorMyShelf - Diverse Books for All Kids

Author Walter Dean Myers wrote an article, Where Are The People of Color in Children's Books? in the New York Times about the lack of diversity in children's books. This isn't new news, as I posted about this last year, with a chart from First Book, illustrating that 93% of the children's books published in 2012 featured White children; all other racial categories accounted for the remaining 7%.  In 2013, The Cooperative Children's Book Center counted less than 300 books about children of color of the 3200 they reviewed (with an estimated 5000 books actually published).

Myers' article, however, did spawn a new Twitter hashtag #ColorMyShelf.  If you scroll through, you'll find mentions of books featuring children of various races and cultures, as well as the call for more diverse books.

And you'll find, if you haven't noticed already, that many "multicultural" books are for younger kids - pre-school up to elementary age. Many explain a particular culture - about "nappy" hair or how to use chopsticks or a grandmother's kimono or how to light candles for divali.  Many of the African-American books, for example, are about historical figures, African-American culture post-slavery, or retellings of African folktales. We have several of them on our family bookshelf.

There are few, however, where the kids are going about their own little kid business - falling into rabbit holes or eating fried insects or pestering their little brothers - and just happen to be African-American or Chinese or Mexican.  It's as if the subtle message is "children of color are people for little kids to learn about, they don't lead normal lives."

Books for older readers seem to have even less diverse characters. My high-school daughter reads a lot.  By a lot, I mean she wanders through the library and bookstore, picks up five books at a time and will read them, barring a Physics exam, within the week.  Books about kids who turn into birds, kids with crazy scientists chasing them, mean girls, kids dying of cancer - all of that, in addition to her school assigned reading.  I've asked her how many have Black characters. She laughs as she reports that none of them do.  Well, accept Rue and Thresh and their neighbors from the Hunger Games.

Remember the surprise/shock/outrage when Rue was cast as Black (as described in the book)?  On one side of the aisle, folks fumed about this Black character who dared to show up and not be there to teach us about how to take care of curly hair?  On the other side, folks cheered that there on the big screen was a cute Black girl who wasn't poppin' gum with her hands on her hip carrying a baby.  There didn't seem as much outrage that Thresh was also Black; maybe people expected that or didn't mind the fighting boy to be Black.  (We won't even get into why the people of Rue and Thresh's District were picking cotton, we'll save that for another day.)  And then what was the next book with a regular kid who just happened to not be White?  .... Right.

So, what? Why does it matter? It matters because as much as reading is about falling into another world, time, life, story, it's also nice to encounter a diversity of characters, just like in real life. For children of color, it's an affirmation to see children like themselves doing normal kid stuff, not only running away from slavery or helping a grandmother cook a family recipe handed down through generations.  For White children, it's a statement that these other kids do normal stuff, too, not just celebrate special holidays and show off their cultural costumes. Diversity in books emphasizes the commonalities of all people and teaches us that we all want the same things - love, friendship, family, security, happiness.

Then, what? How do we get more books with children of color?  Well, someone has to write them.  Good books that kids will enjoy reading, about kids doing kid-stuff.  And other people have to support these writers by buying their books for their children and sharing them with their friends.  We have to post and tweet about books as much as we do about the Real Housewives and celebrity "news." We have to make reading entertaining and not-nerdy.  Simple, right?

I've reviewed on this blog a few books about children of color doing normal stuff.

• Penny & the Magic Puffballs (review to come, this is a link to the author's Facebook page)
• The SupaDupaKid
• Twindollicious
• The Island Hunters

Take a look and share them with your kids. And share any other recommendations in the comments below.

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

Best of Just Piddlin': Top 10 of 2013

Thanx for Just Piddlin’ along with me in 2013!

I've had a wonderful year blogging and chatting with you.  Checking over my blog posts, these were the 10 most read posts of the year (no particular order).

Working moms and stay-at-home moms, alike, were represented in these motherhood and parenting posts:

• "Lean In" Isn't Such a Bad Message
• Now That You're a Stay-at-Home Mom
• Shall We Give The Kids a Sticker for Breathing

These dishes perfect for busy moms who want home-cooked food for their busy families were popular:

• Next Best Thing to Fried Shrimp - from Witchery in the Kitchen
• Asian Chicken in the Crockpot - selected as a Circle of Moms Recipe of the Day
• And for birthdays, holidays, or any reason to have cake - Cake Decorating - tips from Fancy Cakes by Leslie

Perhaps I’m not the only one struggling with the “where’s your family from” projects, as many of you read up on Another Family Heritage Project.

Fellow yarn-holics picked up their needles for this one: My First Knit Hat

Folks were busy cleaning out their closets & looking for tips on what to do with those old clothes: Re-Use & Recycle Old Clothes

And friends were looking for answers of why they were de-friended (or justifying why they de-friended folks): 5 Reasons You & I Are No Longer Friends

Was your favorite in the top 10?

In 2014, we'll continue striving to grow Just Piddlin' and make it better - for you, the reader, and me.  To learn more about this whole blog-o-sphere, I attended 2 blogging conferences - Disney Social Media Moms and Blogalicious - conferences will be in the plans again in the coming year.  We received a pile of products and books for review which was a lot of fun and look forward to continuing to bring you great products and recommendations.

Book reviews will continue, but I’ll be changing the reading plan a bit.  I’ll let you know in the beginning of the month the Book I'm Carrying Around and invite you to read along and discuss the book with me.  (I’m busy trying to pick out what to start the year with.)

I’ll still be In the Kitchen, cooking and trying out recipes, especially anything chocolate.  Feel free to recommend any great foods or coffee/chocolate shops you think I should try if ever in your city.

And of course, I will continue to be a busy mom of 4, who is always carrying around a skein of yarn, a book, and my perceptions of the world.  I hope you’ll keep piddlin’ along with me.

Please feel free to let me know in the Comments below what you would like to see in 2014.  We'll see what we can do.

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

Who Knew I was a Multi-Cultural Mom Blogger?

There are some parts of your identity that you take so much for granted that you don't even think about it.  Not really, not until someone or something reminds you of it.

When the natural hair movement started gaining steam, with women left and right shunning their perms and chemical processes for the beauty of their natural texture and all these curly hair and mixed-chick hair products were on every beauty supply shelf - it took me a while to realize "oh, that's me." I've been "natural" and "curly" all my life, but never thought of it that way, it was just my hair.

Recently, I came across a blog that celebrated being a multicultural mom blogger and promoted a network for such moms. This particular blog was written by a White mom with a Black husband and bi-racial children. There were other variations in the network - white moms, Asian moms, Hispanic moms, Black moms - with all shades and races of husbands and children.  Reading over the blog descriptions and author bios, it eventually struck me - "hey, that's me."  Of course, I've known, embraced, touted my ethnicity and heritage all my life, but I didn't give it much thought as defining me as a blogger.

In many ways though, doesn't our race and self-identity affect much of what we do, in ways we realize and in ways we don't much notice. The foods we eat, the activities we enjoy, our holiday celebrations.  Our language and word choice.  Our values and life choices.  It's not good or bad, better or worse.  It's what makes us all different and unique, but in many ways the same.  Beautiful, right?

So, how does this "multicultural mom blogger" distinction define my blog?  I guess in the same way that it defines me.

And now that I have had this "revelation", I'm heading to Blogalicious! in Atlanta.  A social media conference especially for multicultural bloggers.  This is my first blogging conference and I'm anticipating learning new ways to continually improve the blogging experience at Just Piddlin' - for me and you.  Be sure to keep up with me on Facebook and Twitter this week, starting Thursday, for the interesting tidbits I find there.

And while I'm there, of course I'll be multi-tasking as well.  I have a few book signings scheduled for my novel, Life in Spades. At a coffee shop, at a chocolate shop, another coffee shop - ha ha, are you really surprised?  I've got to build in my caffeine into my busy schedule.  Dates, times & locations are listed on my book site - www.francesfrost.com. So if you happen to be in Atlanta this week - stop by and say "hi"! 

Now, off I go to settle my household before I head out of town.  (Hmmm - mom's left-behind list to keep the household together while gone - perhaps another post all together.)

Another "Family Heritage" Project

Four kids = at least 8 "family heritage" projects so far.

And sorry to say, because maybe it's not a good mom statement or "cultural"person statement, but I kinda get tired of doing them.  I know that they are supposed to celebrate diversity and recognize different heritages and all those wonderful, world-wide lessons.  I'd like to have my kids scribble Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B" on the poster board and recite it, but I don't think that would be acceptable.

The roofline of a Korean palace - I love the colors and design.

My son is working on his now.  There's questions like "what country is your family from", "who in your family is an immigrant," "how did they immigrate here,""what language does your family speak," "describe what do you do to celebrate your heritage," "describe the holidays and dress of your heritage."  As a family with mixed heritage, my kids have a couple of options.  My kids select the Korean family lineage for these projects, because that's more in line with the goals than a poster about North Carolina. (We won't even discuss the incident in which the teacher suggested my child choose some African country instead.)

My kids are partly 2nd generation Americanized-Korean.  As infants, they had 100 Day celebrations and a big first birthday, my mother does cook special foods on New Year's Day, and we regularly eat Korean food.  Do you see a theme?  Our Korean-ness is mostly about food.  The kids don't speak the language, I do only at a basic level, and we don't really celebrate any special occasions. My mother does recognize days such as the lunar new year and the birth or death days of her family members, but the kids rarely do.

The direct immigrant questions are easy.  Annually, they discuss whether I actually am an American citizen or not and can I run for President.  Yes and yes and no, you can't see my birth certificate.  For language, they write "English" although that doesn't answer the point of the question.  They only know basic commands in Korean, "come eat," "come here," "stop talking," "go to sleep" - the essentials of a childhood, so they can't honestly say we speak Korean.

To the other questions, they write answers like "we celebrate Christmas and Easter," because we do, but as I explain to them, that's not because we're Korean, that's because we're Christian.  How about "we eat black-eyed peas and rice on new year's day - with mandoo (dumplings) and rice cake soup"?  That's a more accurate picture of who we are, yeah, write that.

A bowl of Korean rice cake and mandoo soup.

Granted, part of my tiredness of this project isn't the project itself. It's being asked the question, "so, what are you" for over 30 years. I'm proud of my heritage, no doubt, but sometimes I get tired of being asked by random strangers (and yes, I do get asked by random strangers). "No, where are you really from?" "Oh, where is that?" "What do they speak there?" "Say something." Yeah, I love my Korean self, I just get tired of the interrogations.

But for all that, as my son was working on his questions the other day, I realized the best part of the project. My kids sitting with their grandmother as she explains something only she can - her heritage. And no matter how many times she's gone over these same questions with each kid, she doesn't seem to get tired of telling them all about their distant ancestoral home.  And they don't get tired of listening.