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Welcome to the second installment of three, for Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2019 (you can read the first here and the third here)! I’m so honored to be apart of this program this year and I can’t wait to share the incredible books I was gifted to review by MVP Kids Media, LLC! For more information about the Multicultural Children’s Book Day, scroll to the bottom of this post!
NOTE: I received these books for free in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts are my own.
Now, welcome to the world of the Real MVP Kids® ! This is such an exciting book series written by Sophia Day, a pen name to represent the creative team behind the Real MVP Kids® to help build a consistent and familiar brand for the series!
The Help Me Become™ hard cover book series inspires character building in early elementary children by providing meaningful stories with the same recognizable characters and enticing artwork you are used to. All Real MVP Kids® books come with teachable moments with mentor guidance support and the Help Me Become series is no different. It includes questions and tips after each story to help parents and educators find new opportunities to share additional information on the books topic, tips to strength emotional connections, and practical ways to help children apply this to their own lives. Furthermore, the Real MVP Kids® website includes science-based resources of what makes each book important, and additional activities to further develop the related skills.
If this sounds like the best kids book series you’ve ever heard of, then keep reading because each book stands on its own! In no particular order:
Title: Away With Wastefulness
Written by: Sophia Day (MVP Kids Creative Team)
Illustrated by: Stephanie Strouse
Age Range: 4-10
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: MVP Kids Media, LLC 2019
ISBN:
9781642551914
What to Expect: How not to be wasteful
Short Description: Away With Wastefulness
Overall Thoughts: This book is brand new, just came out this month and I LOVE it. Possibly my favorite in the Help Me Become series! I love reusing, recycling and living with less waste and teaching my daughter to do all of that is high up on my priority list. The stories are highly relatable (at any age!) and the solutions for each story are highly creative. I think this is one of the strongest Real MVP Kids books and I’m so excited to share it with my daughter, and I hope you add this to your bookshelf as well!
Title: Stand Down, Bullies
Written by: Sophia Day (MVP Kids Creative Team)
Illustrated by: Stephanie Strouse
Age Range: 4-10
Hardcover: 66 pages
Publisher: MVP Kids Media, LLC 2018
ISBN: 978-1642552331
What to Expect: How Bullies come in all shapes and sizes
Short Description: STAND Down, Bullies is about how bullies come in all shapes and sizes and how you react to a situation can make you a bully.
Overall Thoughts: This is a fantastic conversation starter about bullying. It’s easy to react negatively to a situation and become a bully yourself. This book focuses on real life scenarios that can create this outcome and how to STAND against it. Generally I love the book, and welcome it as a starting point. The helpful guides after each story are empowering as well. My only concern is the line “we are supposed to stand up for those who are weak and beaten down” on page 48. I think that assuming anyone who is bullied is ‘weak’ is an inappropriate message to send. I don’t think it takes away from the overall message of the book but rather should be its own conversation topic and would still recommend it to anyone!
Title: Stand Together Against Bullying
Written by: Sophia Day (MVP Kids Creative Team)
Illustrated by: Stephanie Strouse
Age Range: 4-10
Hardcover: 66 pages
Publisher: MVP Kids Media, LLC 2018
ISBN: 9781642552324
What to Expect: How to stand together against bullying
Short Description: STAND Together Against Bullying is about working together to make a difference.
Overall Thoughts: I love these stories, they are about standing against bullying both together and individually. They show children how to make a difference in someone else’s life and how one minor act can make a world of difference. I appreciate the relatable stories, strong characters and the honesty in how difficult it can be, but how worth it, it is. Definitely highly recommend this book for every child’s bookshelf!
Title: Stand Up to Bullies
Written by: Sophia Day (MVP Kids Creative Team)
Illustrated by: Stephanie Strouse
Age Range: 4-10
Hardcover: 66 pages
Publisher: MVP Kids Media, LLC 2018
ISBN: 9781642047929
What to Expect: How to STAND up to Bullies!
Short Description: STAND Up to Bullies is a positive spin on what to do when being bullied.
Overall Thoughts: I love the STAND against bullies series, it’s a great way for people of all ages to look at bullying, recognize the various ways it can happen, why it happens and positive ways to stand up against it. I love this message, violence doesn’t have to be the answer. My favorite part of the STAND message is to display kindness. I love the first story, she tries to kill the situation with kindness and though it doesn’t work, she can feel better about the end result because she tried and did the right thing. I think this is an amazing discussion starter. You can see this is what you should do in the situation, this is why, and here’s what to do if it doesn’t work. That opens even more opportunities for you to interact with your children and create rules that apply to their life specifically.
Title: Lock Up Lying
Written by: Sophia Day (MVP Kids Creative Team)
Illustrated by: Stephanie Strouse
Age Range: 4-10
Hardcover: 60 pages
Publisher: MVP Kids Media, LLC 2018
ISBN: 9781642047912
What to Expect: The importance of being honest
Short Description: Lock Up Lying is about the importance of not lying and why being honest is the best policy.
Overall Thoughts: The stories are great reminders and conversation starters about lying and the consequences. The lies in the stories seem very relatable to children, however I don’t know that the consequences and parental conversations seemed realistic. With the intent of having your own conversations on these topics, I think the book is great – just use the discussion guides not the story conversations to guide you.
Title: Defeat Disobedience
Written by: Sophia Day (MVP Kids Creative Team)
Illustrated by: Stephanie Strouse
Age Range: 4-10
Hardcover: 60 pages
Publisher: MVP Kids Media, LLC 2018
ISBN: 9781642047905
What to Expect: Consequences for not following rules
Short Description: Defeat Disobedience is about obeying rules and the consequences associated with not.
Overall Thoughts: I think this may be the weakest book in the series. The stories are very relatable to kids, and the discussion questions at the end of each are helpful in guiding and understanding the topics. However, I don’t feel like strong explanations were given to each kid before or after the disobedience. I think these books are great teaching tools for parents as well, and understanding we need to treat our children as humans who want to know WHY they should or shouldn’t be doing something is equally as important as making sure they do (or don’t) do it.
Title: Stomp Out Selfishness
Written by: Sophia Day (MVP Kids Creative Team)
Illustrated by: Stephanie Strouse
Age Range: 4-10
Hardcover: 60 pages
Publisher: MVP Kids Media, LLC 2018
ISBN: 9781641366236
What to Expect: Why being selfish is bad.
Short Description: Stomp Out Selfishness is about why being selfish is not a good quality, and how to treat others with compassion.
Overall Thoughts: The overall concept of this book is wonderful, the stories felt very contemporary using crafts, superheros and festivals to spark interest. I thought the book did a great job using these items to share different ways of being considerate. Personally, I didn’t love the last story. I think there are ways of being considerate that don’t include putting people above yourself and would have loved to see a story that focused on showing compassion to yourself as I think that is a lost art. I love that the boy gave away his prize without a second thought, it makes him a wonderful human being. But he worked for that and deserved it, and sometimes we can work hard and not win – that’s unfortunately part of life, and that’s a lesson in itself that doesn’t require you to give up what you worked for. Still would recommend the book, just use that moment for another discussion topic!
I hope that everyone was able to find a book (or seven!) to add to their shelves this week! I’m so excited to be apart of this wonderful program and I completely love these books. The series should truly be a must have in any education program, and I’m excited to follow the Real MVP Kids as they grow up! Stay tuned next week for my final set of reviews on the Help Me Understand! series! For information on Multicultural Children’s Book Day, how to get involved, find more books and more- read on!
Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2019
Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2019 (1/25/19) is in its 6th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.
MCBD 2019 is honored to have the following Medallion Sponsors on board!
*View our 2019 Medallion Sponsors here: https://wp.me/P5tVud-
*View our 2019 MCBD Author Sponsors here: https://wp.me/P5tVud-2eN
Medallion Level Sponsors
Honorary: Children’s Book Council, The Junior Library Guild, TheConsciousKid.org.
Super Platinum: Make A Way Media
GOLD: Bharat Babies, Candlewick Press, Chickasaw Press, Juan Guerra and The Little Doctor / El doctorcito, KidLitTV, Lerner Publishing Group, Plum Street Press,
SILVER: Capstone Publishing, Carole P. Roman, Author Charlotte Riggle, Huda Essa, The Pack-n-Go Girls,
BRONZE: Charlesbridge Publishing, Judy Dodge Cummings, Author Gwen Jackson, Kitaab World, Language Lizard – Bilingual & Multicultural Resources in 50+ Languages, Lee & Low Books, Miranda Paul and Baptiste Paul, Redfin, Author Gayle H. Swift, T.A. Debonis-Monkey King’s Daughter, TimTimTom Books, Lin Thomas, Sleeping Bear Press/Dow Phumiruk, Vivian Kirkfield,
MCBD 2019 is honored to have the following Author Sponsors on board
Honorary: Julie Flett, Mehrdokht Amini,Author Janet Balletta, Author Kathleen Burkinshaw, Author Josh Funk, Chitra Soundar, One Globe Kids – Friendship Stories, Sociosights Press and Almost a Minyan, Karen Leggett, Author Eugenia Chu, CultureGroove Books, Phelicia Lang and Me On The Page, L.L. Walters, Author Sarah Stevenson, Author Kimberly Gordon Biddle, Hayley Barrett, Sonia Panigrah, Author Carolyn Wilhelm, Alva Sachs and Dancing Dreidels, Author Susan Bernardo, Milind Makwana and A Day in the Life of a Hindu Kid, Tara Williams, Veronica Appleton, Author Crystal Bowe, Dr. Claudia May, Author/Illustrator Aram Kim, Author Sandra L. Richards, Erin Dealey, Author Sanya Whittaker Gragg, Author Elsa Takaoka, Evelyn Sanchez-Toledo, Anita Badhwar, Author Sylvia Liu, Feyi Fay Adventures, Author Ann Morris, Author Jacqueline Jules, CeCe & Roxy Books, Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace, LEUYEN PHAM, Padma Venkatraman, Patricia Newman and Lightswitch Learning, Shoumi Sen, Valerie Williams-Sanchez and Valorena Publishing, Traci Sorell, Shereen Rahming, Blythe Stanfel, Christina Matula, Julie Rubini, Paula Chase, Erin Twamley, Afsaneh Moradian, Lori DeMonia, Claudia Schwam, Terri Birnbaum/ RealGirls Revolution, Soulful Sydney, Queen Girls Publications, LLC
We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.
Co-Hosts and Global Co-Hosts
A Crafty Arab, Agatha Rodi Books, All Done Monkey, Barefoot Mommy, Biracial Bookworms, Books My Kids Read, Crafty Moms Share, Colours of Us, Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes, Descendant of Poseidon Reads, Educators Spin on it, Growing Book by Book, Here Wee Read, Joy Sun Bear/ Shearin Lee, Jump Into a Book, Imagination Soup,Jenny Ward’s Class, Kid World Citizen, Kristi’s Book Nook, The Logonauts, Mama Smiles, Miss Panda Chinese, Multicultural Kid Blogs, Raising Race Conscious Children, Shoumi Sen, Spanish Playground
TWITTER PARTY Sponsored by Make A Way Media: MCBD’s super-popular (and crazy-fun) annual Twitter Party will be held 1/25/19 at 9:00pm.E.S.T. TONS of prizes and book bundles will be given away during the party. GO HERE for more details.
FREE RESOURCES From MCBD
Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta
Free Empathy Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teacher-classroom-empathy-kit/
Hashtag: Don’t forget to connect with us on social media and be sure and look for/use our official hashtag #ReadYourWorld.
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