{"id":15418,"date":"2017-04-11T00:01:53","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T04:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=15418"},"modified":"2017-04-10T23:14:29","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T03:14:29","slug":"libraries-awarded-dia-grants-for-programming-with-an-african-american-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/libraries-awarded-dia-grants-for-programming-with-an-african-american-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Libraries Awarded D\u00eda Grants for Programming With an African American Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past five years, the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children\u2019s Literature (CSMCL) has partnered with ALSC to spotlight D\u00eda de los Ninos\/Libros programs held by libraries with an African American focus. Based in Los Angeles, CSMCL strives to preserve the many cultures accessible through children\u2019s and young adult literature.<\/p>\n

Not only does the center do research related to multicultural literature, but CSMCL seeks to engage the library communities across the country through sponsoring programming.\u00a0 In an interview with Dr. Claudette McLinn, director of CSMCL, she sheds light on diverse literature, the grant itself, and the winners for 2017.<\/p>\n

\"BasketDr. McLinn emphasized the importance of children seeing themselves in a positive light in the literature they are exposed to saying, \u201cAll children need to see positivity and beauty in themselves and understand that we are all one people.\u201d Incorporating diverse and multicultural books into libraries is not only the movement within literature at large, but a personal passion for Dr. McLinn as she did not grow up with books having characters, narratives, and experiences that looked like her, sharing, \u201cif the literature about your culture, who you are, your group is absent, you feel as if you are absent. Do they see me, hear me, value me? Am I important?\u201d And therein lies the D\u00eda Grant.<\/p>\n

The D\u00eda Grant, started with a browse of the ALSC website that listed the D\u00eda Programs happening all over the country. Reading through the programs, \u201cI noticed there was one community that really was not participating. That community was the African American community. So we decided to provide a grant with an African American focus and ALSC totally embraced that!\u201d The D\u00eda Grant awards $500.00 in selected children\u2019s books for the chosen libraries holding a D\u00eda de Los Ni\u00f1os\/El D\u00eda de Los Libros program with an African American focus. \u201cWe are finding that not only were we involving the African American community with this grant, but we were also involving communities that did not have people of color in their communities but wanted to expose children to various experiences,\u201d shares Dr. McLinn. This year\u2019s D\u00eda Grant winners are Alturas International Academy Library in Idaho<\/strong> and Quinby Street Resource Center Library in Pennsylvania.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christina Barber, Spanish Teacher & Librarian at Alturas International Academy<\/a> plans to host a program titled \u201cBeauty in the World: Celebrating Dia\u201d in which participants will spend three weeks researching inspiring African American authors whose contributions have made this world a more beautiful place.<\/p>\n

Roland Barksdale-Hall, Library Director of Quinby Street Resource Center Library, is planning an intergenerational program called \u201cPassing the Baton: The Influence of Frederick and Patricia McKissack\u2019s Children\u2019s Books\u201d, as a result of the impact the two authors have had on his love of writing and storytelling.<\/p>\n

At CSMCL, \u201cwe are proud of being members of ALA and ALSC and our ethnic caucuses. We are proud of the work and committed and looking forward to doing more.\u201d CSMCL preserves a non-circulating collection of literature, available to scholars, teachers, librarians, students, and those interested, as well as accepts contributions of multicultural children\u2019s literature, including manuscripts and illustrations. Dr. McLinn and the Center\u2019s passion for diverse children\u2019s literature comes from the power of the literature to \u201cbuild compassion and love- and that\u2019s how we will go forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more please visit www.csmcl.org<\/a>. For more information on D\u00eda, visit www.dia.ala.org<\/a>, or the National D\u00eda Program Registry<\/a> for information on these and other D\u00eda programs.<\/p>\n

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\"Picture
Photo courtesy of guest blogger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today’s guest blogger is Sania Zaffar. Sania <\/span>is currently a student at Loyola University Chicago finishing a degree in Special Education and interning at ALSC. She can\u2019t wait to see how her future students will respond to literature that resembles their own lived experiences, something she did not have growing up.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at\u00a0alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learn more about the recipients of the D\u00eda Grant which awards $500 in children\u2019s books for chosen libraries holding a D\u00eda de Los Ni\u00f1os\/El D\u00eda de Los Libros program with an African American focus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[92,61,98,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dia","category-diversity","category-grants-and-fundraising","category-guest-blogger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}