 International Children's Book Day opens up the world of books and story in so many ways from place to place and child to child. USBBY is THRILLED to be the sponsor for 2021!
CLICK HERE to read the message and inspiration from author and poet, Margarita Engle, and author and illustrator, Roger Mello. The vibrancy they each create is a treasure. To lead you into ICBD, please delight in this poem from Margarita Engle: The Music of Words When we read, our minds grow wings. When we write, our fingers sing. Words are drumbeats and flutes on the page, soaring songbirds and trumpeting elephants, rivers that flow, waterfalls tumbling, butterflies that twirl high in the sky! Words invite us to dance---rhythms, rhymes, heartbeats, hoofbeats, and wingbeats, old tales and new ones, fantasies and true ones. Whether you are cozy at home or racing across borders toward a new land and a strange language, stories and poems belong to you. When we share words, our voices become the music of the future, peace, joy and friendship, a melody of hope. Written by Margarita Engle Poster illustrated by Roger Mello
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What are YOU doing in your community for International Children's Book Day this year? PLEASE CONTACT newsletter editor, Bindy Fleischman, by April 20 to report on what you did for ICBD - to share pictures, videos, collateral from the day - so your work can be highlighted in the May 2021 issue of BRIDGES!
 One example of how members are using their USBBY/IBBY awareness to inform and support their communities comes to us from South Carolina State Ambassador, Yang Wang. She explains: My daughter went to Kindergarten at a dual-language immersion school in the beginning of the pandemic. It was so hard for many children to keep the language learning environment in remote learning. They didn’t have live instruction at that time. She was one of the two Asian children in the class. The other 20 are Caucasian, African American and Latino. So we had this idea of reading books for her friends. I also shared the link with the other dual language immersion school in town. We tried to use the authentic trade books. However, we had a few translated fun books in there, too. We two had a great bonding time and it’s unbelievable to see how much she grew as a reader. We still read together and update our channel slowly. We brought most of those books we read from China. All books are in Chinese only. There are some books translated from English to Chinese (for example, Peppa Pig). This playlist is a collection of traditional Chinese stories. Those stories of famous people in history and folklores are passed down from the ancient time. The small sized books came as two sets and are recreated by a publisher. They didn’t identify the illustrators. This playlist includes videos of reading aloud contemporary books. Those are written by Chinese authors and illustrators except one is written by a Taiwanese author. Here is the video she made for A New Year's Reunion by Yu Li-Qiong (Candlewick, 2011.) Her endeavor also resulted in using several titles from our USBBY friends at Candied Plums. Click on the bold titles to get to publisher info. Click on the "Read With CoCo" links to access the videos. Picking Turnips/Read With CoCo - Picking Turnips CeeCee/Read With CoCo - CeeCee Flame/Recording soon! An’s Seed/Recording soon! What a WONDERFUL bridge Yang Wang - and CoCo - helped to create!  Have you done USBBY/IBBY outreach lately? Please free to send a brief description to newsletter editor, Bindy Fleischman, for consideration in a future quarterly issue of BRIDGES.
Looking for more ways to get involved?
Wonder who represents you and your interests in USBBY? Here is the extraordinary 2021 Board - Officers President: Evelyn Freeman President-Elect: Tucker Stone Past President: Terrell Young Secretary: Wendy Stephens Treasurer: Jim Stiles Elected Directors Shanetia Clark Laretta Henderson Claudette McLinn Susan Polos Appointed Directors Children’s Book Council: Ellen Myrick and Lizette Serrano American Library Association: Jade Valenzuela and Caroline Ward International Literacy Association: Isaac Larison and Deborah Wooten National Council of Teachers of English: Amy McClure and Ebony Thomas Ex Officio Executive Director: V. Ellis Vance Secretariat: Christina Hoover Moorehead and Junko Yokota Webmaster: Marion Rocco “Bridges” newsletter editor: Bindy Fleischman  Readers find truth in fiction, hope in times of desperation, and tools that defy isolation. USBBY/IBBY provides these avenues of connection in small ways and large, from member to member and member nation to member nation.
In this issue of Bridges, USBBY celebrates HCA nominees, International Children's Book Day poster and message creators, national and international children's book conferences, the 2020 IBBY Honour List, and of course the myriad ways our members can get involved in all of these things and more.  President’s Message, November 2020
Dear USBBY members, We are currently in the 9th month of the pandemic in the United States. I think about my parents who lived through the Spanish flu, the Depression, and World War II. But I never imagined that our generation, with all our medical and technological advances, would be in the throes of a global health crisis. We hope you and your family are staying well and safe. We are very grateful for our USBBY members and all you do to promote international peace and understanding through children’s books, even during these challenging times. As you know, we held our first virtual USBBY Annual Members’ Meeting on November 14 where we launched the 2021 International Children’s Book Day poster and message. The magnificent poster was created by Brazilian illustrator and good friend of USBBY, Roger Mello, and the inspiration message was written by award-winning author Margarita Engle. If you were unable to join us, the video of the meeting and the poster can be found on the USBBY website. We were also excited to announce USBBY’s nominees for the 2022 Hans Christian Andersen Awards. USBBY has nominated Linda Sue Park for the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing and Kadir Nelson for the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration. As you do your holiday shopping, we want to remind you that USBBY receives contributions for purchases made from both the Amazon Smile program and Indie Bound Affiliate program. To find out details, visit our website page: https://www.usbby.org/shop-to-support-usbby.html You might also consider a year-end gift to support our Twinning partners through the Children in Crisis Fund or the refugee children at the border through a contribution to REFORMA: https://www.usbby.org/donate.html Our amazing USBBY committees have been hard at work on the many projects of USBBY. We will be appointing new committee members in January. You can see the list of committees on the website: https://www.usbby.org/volunteer-with-a-committee.html We also appoint special ad hoc committees and task forces during the year. If you are interested in serving on a USBBY committee or have any questions, please contact me at freeman.5@osu.edu. We know that your winter holiday celebrations may be very different than usual this year. We wish you a joyful holiday season and good health and happiness in 2021. Warmest wishes, Evelyn “Evie” Freeman USBBY President |
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