See what we're reading, what we're donating, & what we're doing throughout the community this month
A look back at December:
December was filled with sugar cookies, ornaments, & very excited children. We went heavy on the activities for the first half of the month, so we could spend time with family resting and recharging. From filling our free libraries with books celebrating the holiday & wintery season to learning about Miigiwe with our school partners, we stayed busy. We want to say a special thank you to all of you who donated books off of our Dec Wishlists. Each book was donated into our free libraries in our diverse, rural communities. And again, all have been claimed. This is great!!! It means that diverse books are finding their way into homes, libraries, & classrooms and this showcases a true need throughout our communities for books that are representative of the communities they serve.
Our book clubs: This month we took our MOSS Kids Book Club to five locations!! We learned a few Anishinaabemowin words while discussing the the gift of giving to others. Kids crafted their own ornaments just like Baby, created cards for the community, and took home plenty of printable activities to continue their learning. Check out our blog post to grab those printables!
Lunch Bunch: We met up with our local elementary school kids to participate in their Lunch Bunch program — every week, we meet at lunchtime with a group of four third-grade students to read aloud, craft, and encourage a love of books. We blew through another book this month, Sadiq and the Festival of Cultures, with the kids giving it a 5/5 (& an extra note that it was the perfect length). We celebrated with cookies and gifted books for each student based on their interests to go into their winter break. Starting this week, we will be back to our regularly scheduled meetups & a new book series that we can't wait to start!
Classroom Sponsor: We sponsored a second grade classroom this holiday season & donated early reader books to each student. We wanted to make sure each student was able to get a gift this holiday season & honestly, books make the best gifts. This school has been going through a merger and we wanted to make sure everyone (including the teacher) felt a warm hug this season.
MKB Awards 2024: Our second annual MKB Awards have been chosen!! We chose some of our favorite board books, picture books, emerging reader books, middle grade, & young adult as nominees & then somehow narrowed it down to just one winner in each category. We know that in the grand scheme of things, our mock award doesn’t truly matter. We don’t have a huge following, most of the books we’ve purchased ourselves or thanks to YOU and your support. But we wanted to showcase our favorite books of 2024 all by diverse authors who statistically do not get the promotion/inclusion on big named lists. These books matter. These voices matter. These are the books that should be on all library shelves. In classrooms. In homes. So if you are gifting children in your life books this season, please consider one of these. Check out the MKB Awards 2024 winners here.
A sad day: Unfortunately, not all updates are good updates. This month one of our free libraries was vandalized. We filled our Macclesfield free library with Indigenous stories, books celebrating the queer community, wintery & holiday reads. A week later, we went to restock and were devastated. This isn’t the first time our free libraries have had issues. This isn’t the first time that THIS specific library has been vandalized. But this time our stickers had been removed. The glass is cracked & scratched into (we’ve replaced this once already). All books were taken with the exception of the Indigenous and queer books, which were left out of the library in the rain & ruined. This isn't new. This is the blatant racism & hate towards the queer community that we see across the country. That we are actively fighting against. That lights a fire under us to keep going. We know the importance and the impact that these books have on our youth. These books are educating our kids. These books are developing empathy. These books are empowering our kids to take a stand. And there are so many people trying to ban that from happening. But not here. We've decided that the best course of action is to fix it again & continue to make diverse and inclusive books accessible to this community, a community that doesn’t have a library in their town. Losing out on grant funding to support our free libraries earlier this month and now having to deal with vandalism/ruined books, is hard, but going forward into 2025 we know we’ll have to tighten our bootstraps, button our cardigans, & stay ready as a safe space for our youth to get free access to diverse literature. We hope you’ll join us.
A look back at 2024:
This past year has been one of incredible growth. We added new free libraries. We donated over 5,000 books. We added local elementary schools and Drag Story Hour to our MOSS Kids Book Club. We introduced new programs, Picture Books on Tap & Lunch Bunch. We took an active role in our local community as a member of an education & workforce advisory board to our county. We visited many book festivals, met incredible creators, & conjured a conviction that we will fight for our freedom to read. Despite our setbacks, we are choosing to continue to make diverse books free and accessible for our local communities, to make a difference in our local literacy scores, and to empower our youth to be themselves, to be empathetic, understanding, and accepting. Here's to another year of growth through the hate and hopes that our mobile dream becomes reality.
2024 MOSS Kids Book Club: This was our first full year of MOSS Kids Book Club. We currently bring our book club to Title I schools across two counties, to a public library in a neighboring county, to our favorite community spaces, & partner with Drag Story Hour at Boxyard RTP. We’ve grown tremendously over the last twelve months and we’re extremely proud of this kids book club we’ve created. So here’s to our #mosskidsbookclub picks of 2024, we absolutely loved each & every book, every craft & activity, & incorporating each story into learning about our community.
What we're reading:
Our January MOSS Kids Book Club pick is A Little Bit of Everything, written by Meghana Narayan and illustrated by Michelle Carlos. With stunning, whimsical art, this lyrical picture book asks readers to celebrate their own uniqueness -- and that of others. A lullaby to any child who is discovering who they are. We can’t wait to share more about A Little Bit of Everything, and the craft we’ve come up with to go along with it, later this week. Check out this supplemental book list to pair with our January MOSS Kids Book Club pick to celebrate the beauty in being yourself.
We recently celebrated Human Rights Day, which served as a reminder of the fundamental rights that every person, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or identity, is entitled to. It was a day to reflect on the progress made and the work still needed to achieve a world where dignity and equality are upheld for all. This month, we're celebrating Civil Rights Day & Martin Luther King Jr's birthday with a similar list acknowledging our civil rights. We want to honor the strength of those that fought for those rights and appreciate those who continue to fight.
New Year celebrations are happening around the world this month -- a giant ball dropping, toasts, reflections & new goals set. Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year celebrated in China and it is also widely celebrated in South Korea, Vietnam, and countries with a significant overseas Chinese population. The Spring Festival in China, LNY is a fifteen-day celebration marked by beautiful traditions. At home, families decorate windows with red paper cuttings and adorn doors with couplets expressing auspicious wishes for the new year. Learn along with us by reading some of our favorites to celebrate!
In honor of legendary greats, Zora Neale Hurtson (1/6) & Langston Hughes (2/1), celebrating birthdays to start the new year, we have created a booklist that takes us back to the Harlem Renaissance. An influential movement in African American history, the Harlem Renaissance embraced literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, where participants sought to reconceptualize “the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced Black peoples’ relationship to their heritage & to each other. We want to celebrate & educate by honoring these monumental makers.
More booklists in January: We’re in the process of making our lists on environmental education, stories with siblings, books celebrating Valentine's Day, & books with pink covers. Keep an eye out for these lists, which will be featured throughout the month.
What we're donating:
This month we’re filling up our free libraries with brand new titles to celebrate and educate on New Year traditions around the world, the Harlem Renaissance in honor of Zora Neale Hurston & Langston Hughes upcoming birthdays, and civil rights in honor of MLK Jr. We are extremely grateful for all donations from the community. Even the smallest contributions help us get new books into rural communities where affordable access to diverse books is scarce. Heading into January, we could use your help to restock our Macclesfield library that was vandalized in December. Check out our wishlists & consider donating today. Help us create a better society by raising kind, empathetic, accepting, & understanding kids.
What we're doing throughout the community:
Picture Books on Tap, our adult picture book club: Come out to Larema Beverage Company at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, January 8th, to connect with your inner child and your local community through stories, crafts, and great food and drinks! Check out our monthly calendar for a complete list of events.
Book Clubs: We’re continuing to bring MOSS Kids Book Club to our local locations -- four elementary schools across two counties and the Wilson County Public Library. Plus, we're back with Drag Story Hour at Boxyard RTP. We're looking to add another local library & a couple more schools in 2025. We're reading all about honoring ourselves and the uniqueness of others.
Lunch Bunch: We’re planning to start a new book series this month. We cannot wait to start this chapter book series celebrating different kids in Mrs. Z's class, all from different perspectives & backgrounds. And every book in the series is by a different author! We love spending time with these students and providing a safe space for them to learn and grow as readers. A set will be donated to the school for other Lunch Bunch groups to have access.
LibLearnX Library Conference in AZ: At the end of the month, Kara is headed to Arizona for the American Library Association's LibLearnX Conference. Last year, Kara connected with incredible authors, illustrators, publishers, & librarians who share in the mission to bring diverse books to kids in our communities. Can't wait to see who we meet & what wonderful ideas come as a result of this meeting of the minds.
What's coming next:
Events: We are still eagerly anticipating the installation of two new free libraries in Sharpsburg, North Carolina. They are looking beautiful with fresh new paint — just waiting on an installation date as we are discussing where these libraries would serve the community best. We can’t wait to stock these fresh libraries with brand new diverse books for the kids of Sharpsburg to take home. We're hoping to host a ribbon-cutting event to officially launch these soon. World Read Aloud Day is the first Wednesday in February where we will be making an appearance in classrooms across the Twin Counties. Booklists in February: We'll be sharing books celebrating Black history & Black joy in honor of Black History Month. We'll also be updating our book lists for Valentine's Day, women in science, kindness, & languages. Don't forget to follow along with us on our socials to see what we're doing every week.
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