Author of Skin Deep and Spike and Ali Enson, Malaika Rose Stanley, contributed a fantastic blog post for An Awfully Big Blog Adventure last week. In Black, White and Just Right Malaika compiles a list of children’s and young adult fiction which feature mixed-race and mixed-heritage main characters. The list includes titles from authors such as Bali Rai, Philip Pullman and Rick Riordan. However, it was not easy to put the list together. As Malaika says, ‘It’s a short list – and not in a good way – but in the end, isn’t quality always more important than quantity?’ We couldn’t agree more Malaika. 

To read the full article, follow this link: http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/2011/11/black-white-and-just-right-malaika-rose.html

Friday July 9^th saw Brighton’s Balfour Infants School in for a treat – not only did they get a visit from their newly-elected local Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, but also Tamarind illustrator Karin Littlewood! The Year 1 and 2 pupils listened cross-legged to a great speech from Caroline about biodiversity. She explained that if you imagined the world as an apple, only a quarter of it would be land, and the rest water… and only a half of that bit of land was habitable! So you can imagine how important it is to protect that relative slither of land we live on.

After Caroline spoke, Karin gave a brilliant reading of The Day the Rains Fell. The book explores the idea of how the watering holes appeared in the savannah desert and celebrates the diversity of the animals living in the plains. One by one, each animal lends its colours to Thandi’s beaded necklace until she has a rainbow assortment of colours! After the reading the children decorated their own beads with all the patterns of their favourite animals.

The children enjoyed the arts and crafts no end, but the event had a serious message. Caroline Lucas said “…young people need to learn about the earth’s fragile state.  We’ve taken the biosphere for granted for too long. The global climate talks last year in Copenhagen failed to tackle climate change in any meaningful way so time is running out.”

Caroline also praised the book, saying “The Day the Rains Fell is the best book I’ve seen for younger children – and for parents who want their children to enjoy and learn at the same time – about why humanity and every species on the planet is threatened.”

More of Tamarind’s ‘green’ books:

It’s time to put dads, step-dads and grandads back in the limelight. Here are some lovely picture books that do just that…  

A Safe Place
And Me!
The Best Toy
Dave and the Tooth Fairy
Ella Moves House
The Feather

We love all our books, but if you need recommendations, here they are: 10 books every library and school must have! Click on the titles to find out more.

10
Dave and the Tooth Fairy

Themes: jobs, losing teeth, Down’s Syndrome, wheelchair use, fairies

9
Choices, Choices…

Themes: jobs, poetry, humour

8
Amina and the Shell

Themes:  climate change, giants, agriculture

7
The Day the Rains Fell

Themes:  environment, water, creation, animals, African jewellery and pottery

6
The Silence Seeker

Themes:  immigration, making friends, noises and silence, urban life, ESL, SEN

5
Miss Bubble’s Troubles

Themes:  humour, poetry, school, hospital, pets

4
Ferris Fleet the Wheelchair Wizard

Themes:  space, humour, wheelchair use, single-parent family, working mums, moving house 

3
Accessible biographies of well-loved icons

Themes:  Black History Month, non-fiction, biography, careers

2
Spike and Ali Enson

Themes:  humour, aliens, sibling rivalry, adoption

1
The Young Chieftain

Themes:  dual heritage, bereavement, family history, responsibility

And a little something for bed time…
The Night the Lights Went Out

A soothing, lyrical story for anyone who’s afraid of the dark.