Lee & Low announced today that it has acquired Tu Publishing, a company founded by Stacy Whitman in the fall of 2009 to publish multicultural Middle Grade and YA fantasy and science fiction. Tu Books is now an imprint of Lee & Low, and the first books under the new imprint are due out in 2011. Here’s the press release.

Congratulations, Lee & Low, on this new development! We look forward to enjoying the books and helping spread the word on them!

To remind people that Black History is worth teaching all year long, Lee & Low is having a end-of-Black-History-Month book giveaway. For a chance to win one of three sets of six fantastic books, you must enter the contest by midnight of February 28th. So hurry up! There are four ways to enter, and the more actions you take, the better your chances of winning! Head on over to Lee & Low’s blog now for the details, and good luck!

As part of its efforts to encourage children to read and love books, Scholastic India has started a nation-wide series of Storytelling Nights “to celebrate stories and to go back to an earlier time when gathering to listen to stories was a part of every child’s life.”

Every quarter, Scholastic India will be organizing The Scholastic Aviva Storytelling Night in ten cities. You can see the schedule for the first ten cities here. They are: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad, Pune, Jaipur and Chandigarh. And if you’re in Jaipur, you’re in luck, as the next and last event of the project’s first season is happening there, this coming Saturday!

Some of you may have noticed we have added a Google Friend Connect widget to our sidebar – and some of you may not! We would love you to join our pawprints in the picture pool and have that concrete link with you, our readers. At the moment, he’s a rather lonely tiger!

Author Rukhsana Khan, who recently wrote a Guest Post for us here at PaperTigers, has just launched a new blog, Khanversations (I love the name!). I had the pleasure of interviewing Rukhsana for our last update so I know there’ll be plenty of opinion and thought-provoking content on her blog.

And to celebrate the publication of her fabulous Wanting Mor in Australia (where it will be called Jameela (why? Why not Wanting Mor?!)), Rukhsana is giving away a signed copy of the rather beautiful Australian cover flap to the first twenty people who email her. So head on over and join in her conversation…

Over the past year we have blogged about children reading aloud to dogs and about Ethiopia Reads’ donkey-drawn libraries but here is a first: children reading with donkeys.  To celebrate National Storytelling Week in the United Kingdom, The Donkey Sanctuary,  will be opening its doors to local groups and schools for storytelling sessions in the company of the donkeys!  Emma Foster reports:

The sanctuary’s education and activities team will be bringing donkey-related children’s stories to life with the assistance of puppets and props. During each session the children will have a refreshment break and then take part in donkey walking and grooming around the barns.

Janice Aherne, education and activities manager, said: “We are thrilled to be taking part in National Storytelling Week. It will give our staff the chance to put into practice their recently acquired skills following training from a professional storyteller.

“Our donkeys always enjoy playing to an audience and we can’t wait to share stories and puppet shows with the children.”

Places are limited so booking is essential, the charity said. There is no charge for groups attending, however donations to the sanctuary are welcome.

For more information click here.

The Donkey Sanctuary aims to protect donkeys and mules and promote their welfare worldwide. Every year on March 20th, The Donkey Sanctuary celebrates World Storytelling Day by working with children throughout the world, using stories and discussions, to encourage better attitudes to donkey welfare.

Photo credit: Ethiopa Reads’ Donkey Drawn Library

We are delighted to welcome Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland DeSaix, joint authors and illustrators of The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust (Holiday House, 2009), talking about the background to the book – and posing some thought-provoking questions. And we offer our congratulations too: The Grand Mosque of Paris has been included on the recently announced ALA 2010 Notable Books for Children (Middle Reader) and the 2010 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children Recommended Books lists. I have read and re-read this wonderful book and cannot recommend it highly enough – and it is such a plus to have history presented in such a beautifully illustrated picture-book format. You can read more about Karen and Deborah’s work on their website, particularly about another of their co-authored books, Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon.

But enough from me – over to Karen and Deborah:

Wartime heroics in Paris. Persecuted Jews and prisoners-of-war fleeing the Nazis through the utterly dark, twisting tunnels of the labyrinth beneath the city and escaping hidden among giant wine casks on barges heading south. A clandestine Resistance group using a rare language — Kabyle — as code. Rescuers and the rescued slipping secretly in and out of one of the most beautiful buildings in Paris — the Grand Mosque — and finding refuge among its lush gardens and apartments, or even in the sanctuary. Who wouldn’t be seduced by a story like this one? But the one thing that drew us into this little-known piece of World War II history was the fact that Muslims were risking their own lives to save the lives of Jews.

“Save one life, and it is as if you’ve saved all of humanity.” It is striking and ironic that these words are found in each of these two religions that all too often seem to be bitterly divided. The current conflict between Muslims and Jews has been going on for so long, sometimes it feels as though it’s been that way forever.

But as we researched our book, The Grand Mosque of Paris: The Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, we learned that North African Muslims and Jews had referred to each other as brothers for centuries and lived side by side in peace. One of our goals with this book was to remind people that Judaism and Islam were once in harmony. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could be that way again? Seems almost impossible to imagine, doesn’t it?

And if it’s hard for us, how difficult must it be for kids, who have only experienced the intense hostility trumpeted in the news every day? But we believe that children may be our best hope.

Martine Bernheim believes this, too. She is Vice-President at a French organization that works to eradicate racism and anti-semitism (LICRA). In schools all across Europe, she has shown Derri Berkani’s wonderful documentary film, Une Résistance Oubliée: La Mosquée, about the WWII rescue of Jews at the mosque. She is struck by the shift in attitude she sees in the kids who have seen this film: racist violence decreases tremendously, as compassion increases.

Wouldn’t it be great if our book had a similar effect?

I only came across A Caribbean Dozen: Poems from Caribbean Poets recently and am making up for lost time! Editors John Agard and Grace Nichols have brought together a selection of verse from thirteen poets, including themselves, and the book is vibrantly illustrated by Cathie Felstead. One of the things I love about it is that each poet introduces him or herself, with reminiscences of their childhood and how they were introduced to poetry. Those extracts alone make wonderful, inspirational reading. So here are three energetic extracts to give you a feel for this wonderful anthology:

From “What the Teacher Said When Asked: What Er We Avin for Geography, Miss?” by John Agard:

This morning I’ve got too much energy
much too much for geography

I’m in a high mood
so class don’t think me crude
but you can stuff latitude and longitude

I’ve had enough of the earth’s crust
today I want to touch the clouds [...]

I’m not settling for river beds
I want the sky and nothing less…

All you teachers out there, don’t you feel like this sometimes! And here’s a bit of “Quao” by Pamela Mordecai:

Quao
is a
lizard.
he is a
wizard
at catching
flies…

and finally, because it’s Friday: “I Love The” by Marc Matthews:

…friday night
smell of mammie
baking bread
putting me to
sleep, dreaming
of jumping from
the highest branch
of the jamoon tree
into the red water
creek
beating calton
run & catching
the biggest fish
in the world
plus…

This whole book is full of zing. The poetry transports its readers to the sunny Caribbean islands but also speaks to them of deep, universal truths…

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Liz Scanlon at Liz in Ink – head on over!

Martin Luther King devoted his life’s work to causes of equality and social justice. Today, to honor his teachings and legacy, people of all ages and backgrounds work side-by-side in volunteer service projects across the country on Jan 18, as part of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service. Through serving their communities, they are answering the important question, “What are you doing for others?” as well as helping create the “Beloved Community” envisioned by him. Large or small, every project, every helping hand, heart and mind make a difference.

In many cases, the meaningful work being done on this day by so many won’t stop at the end of the day. During the next 40 days, thousands of individuals and organizations will be taking part in the 40 Days of Nonviolence: Building the Beloved Community initiative, created by the Corporation for National and Community Service, in 2008, to mark the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. The initiative’s aim is to encourage the development of service activities that extend beyond MLK Day and help create sustainable community changes.

On a related note, through Jen Robinson’s Lights from the Kidlitosphere I learned that Youth Service America is sponsoring Get Ur Good On, a network of blogs that inspire many to action by showcasing the diverse voices of youth who are “doing good” in their communities. There’s nothing like some inspiration from history and one’s peers to get the social activism flowing!

Prolific author, teacher and consultant Anastasia Suen has recently had an article posted to Booklist online called Ten Multicultural Books for New Readers (first published in December 2009). The books highlighted make for a nice round-up, and her intro, for a timely commentary. Children learning to read on their own will definitely benefit (on many levels) from reading the easy readers and chapter books with narrators of color that she calls attention to. We don’t have nearly enough of these books in the market, so it’s good to see existing ones being given thought and attention.

For more on Anastasia’s books and work, check her website and literacy blogs.