book lists for multicultural fiction

Early Learning Teaching Your Child - Other Topics
1

Hi All,

I’m processing the choices for my son’s geography “lessons” for the coming year, and I think I’ve narrowed the options down to something that will work nicely for our family.

Part of the plan, of course, is to have tonnes of books around to access regarding the particular country being studied. Non-fiction is easy enough to find, but I’m wondering if you can suggest where I can find lists of fiction books that take place in different countries. I want to include some stories where the landmarks, foods or people are referenced some how…ones my son will recognize from our non-fiction reading. My brain is taking a break right now and I’m not sure when it’ll clock back in :slight_smile: I can’t think of the right words to google myself. Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you SO much!

2

Hi,

Quick ideas : for chinese - Ni Hao Kai Lan books ( younger children), books by Laurence Yep (older children, amazon says 8 yo and up).

Modern Africa - Nigeria - Anne Hibiscus series books by Atinuke (early chapter book)

Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins - Asia (Bangladesh) (early chapter book)

The White Elephant by Sid Fleischman -Asia

3

Thanks, Awan! I’m looking forward to adding them to my list…well, actually using them to START my list lol

4

Try magic tree house series. Some are geographical but a lot are history based. Easy to skim through and check too.
Maybe the Henty book list will have some. It’s history based but bound to have plenty of geographical references.
Another history one but Story of the World has little snippets of fiction stories in it and all are referenced back to the map.
Gosh this makes me sound like a history nut! lol so not me! :nowink:

5

there are a few “multicultural” books in this list
http://www.thealphaparent.com/2013/03/feminist-childrens-books-part-three.html

6

I think that is a great idea! There are lots of Australian ones of course if that is one of your countries. Are you after picture books or short chapter books? There are lot featuring Australian animals and there are also a lot of books with an Aboriginal theme.

I just found a nice website that has children’s book listed per country - Read Around the World http://delightfulchildrensbooks.com/2011/05/26/read-around-the-world-this-summer/

Another site http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/632293-children-s-books-set-around-the-world
Another http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/books/detailListBooks.asp?idBookLists=280
Another http://www.sln.org.uk/geography/Documents/primary/Some%20Story%20and%20non-fiction%20books.pdf

Also another that comes to mind is Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman, which is a story of an Afghan family who seek refugee status in Australia but this may be for a little older with the themes involved

7

Whoo hooo! This will keep me going for a little while! Thanks, guys! Since initially posting, I had a conversation with our local librarian about it, too and she alerted me to a provincial search engine to try in addition to the one for our library.

I’m prepping for next year (yes, “nerd” might be a good title for me). I’m also going to a homeschooling conference this week so I can search for recommended titles. Your suggestions are greatly appreciated!

BTW, We are in Canada, but most certainly, Australia is on the list :slight_smile: