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Book review: Nonni's Moon


Thank you to Julia Inserro, the author of the new picture book, Nonni's Moon, for gifting Field Elementary Library with a review copy.  Nonni's Moon  is written by Julia Inserro and illustrated by Lucy Smith, published by Julia Inserro. This is a picture book about a young girl and her family separated by many time zones, and their struggles to stay in touch. Beanie misses her Nonni desperately and wants to talk to her every day. Rather than calling on the phone, the two devise a clever plan to use the moon to send messages to each other.  

Beanie’s teacher wears a headscarf and her family is mixed race. Some elements of the illustrations, like the palm trees and desert hills outside Beanie’s school, may call to mind a setting in the Middle East, but no country is specifically mentioned in the text. Nonni, (Italian for “grandmother”) seems to live in a large city on the “other side of the world”, although the illustrations blend from page to page in such a way that it is difficult to place any character precisely in her setting.

The text is welcoming and natural at the beginning of the book, reflecting the way children talk about missing relatives and their attempts to understand time zones and large geographic distances. The solution about “sending messages through the moon” is comforting and sweet, and helps give Beanie things to look forward to each day besides just thinking about her sadness. Beanie is excited to share her strategy with her teacher who also has faraway relatives.

The text was very well paced until the last two pages, when an extra problem of how to use the new communication strategy during a new moon was introduced. But overall, many children with faraway family members will be able to relate to Beanie and her worries, and will appreciate her solution.

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 home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.  
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: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/about/co-hosts/
TWITTER PARTY Sponsored by Make A Way Media: MCBD’s super-popular (and crazy-fun) annual @McChildsBookDay Twitter Party will be held 1/27/19 at 9:00pm. E.S.T.
Join the conversation and win one of 12 five book bundles and one Grand Prize Book Bundle (12 books) that will be given away at the party! We will be giving away a prize every 5 minutes!
FREE RESOURCES from MCBD
Free Multicultural Books for Teachers:  https://wp.me/P5tVud-1H
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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