Multicultural Children's Literature

VOYA - Leigh Ann Jones

With the high demand for multicultural materials and the current emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching, a bibliography of multicultural children's literature could be a welcome tool for both teachers and librarians. Certainly Lind's bibliography, with over 1,000 annotations for African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and native American children's literature, has potential. Each section is helpfully broken into Informal Nonfiction, Biography/Autobiography, Historical/Realistic Fiction, and Folktales, Myths and Legends for both Grades K-3 and 4-8. A short annotation is provided for each title, and a directory of children's publishers, curricular resources, and informational reading and research for teachers are also included. A check with Books in Print reveals a possible drawback to Lind's work, however. A search of the titles listed on five pages selected randomly showed that eight of the forty-four books are out of print. In addition, a one-hour random search of titles with publication dates older than 1990 turned up seventeen other out-of-print titles. Given this potential problem, the cost of the book, and the large number of elementary titles in Lind's collection, young adult librarians may want to consider Hazel Rochman's excellent bibliography Against Borders: Promoting Books for a Multicultural World (ALA, 1993/VOYA, December 1993), Global Voices, Global Visions: A Core Collection of Multicultural Books (Bowker, 1995/VOYA, August 1996), or Our Family, Our Friends, Our World: An Annotated Guide to Significant Multicultural Books for Children and Teenagers (Bowker, 1992), both by Lyn Miller-Lachman. Index. Further Reading.

Booknews

A bibliography with one-to-three-sentence annotations of some 1,100 fiction and nonfiction works, with sections on African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American literature divided into grades K-3 and grade 4-8. Includes listings of publishers, and selected bibliographies of curricular, informational, and research sources for teachers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)