This year, unusually, feast days from many of the world’s religions have fallen around these last few days – so, as Time put it:

unlike some holy days — say, Christmas, which some non-Christians in the U.S. observe informally by going to a movie and ordering Chinese food — on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday…

Today I focus on two books, which each in their own way explore the celebration of one of these religious festivals against a different cultural background.

Mina’s Spring of Colors is a very special story about a young Indian girl who, although she now lives in Canada, is determined to throw a Holi party for her school-friends and neighbors: they won’t just watch the celebrations but participate in them. The book is aimed at 8-11 year olds, though younger children could enjoy having it read to them. It will certainly fill their heads with ideas about how to throw their own Holi party. The author Rachna Gilmore said in an interview with PaperTigers:

I have wonderful memories of Holi – memories of the physical excitement and dread and anticipation of getting others with coloured powders and water and also trying to dodge them in return, the shrieking, hysterical laughter and the wild delight. I don’t know of any readers who have put on a Holi party for themselves, but oh, I do hope some have. Kids love the idea and I know it would be an absolute blast. In one of the libraries I have visited to do a reading, the librarian was very keen on the idea, but of course, we couldn’t use coloured water and powder, so instead, we sprinkled each other with sparklies and squirted those cans that spurt multicoloured streamers. It was great fun.

There are some great pictures from this year’s celebrations in India here (and I can’t resist these from a couple of years ago too!); and you can find out more about Holi here.

Charlotte chose Amelia Lau Carling’s gorgeous, autobiographical picture-book Sawdust Carpets/Alfombras de aserrín as the subject of her first post for the PaperTigers blog, back in May last year; and it’s well worth pointing it out now as a special book for Easter. It exemplifies a harmony of both diversity and fusion of cultures, as we learn about the celebration of Holy Week in Guatemala through the eyes of a young Amelia. Her parents had fled China during the Second World War and had made their new home in Guatemala, as described in Carling’s first book, Mama and Papa Have a Store. As well as insight into her family’s participation in the festivities, we learn about the incredible carpets made of dyed sawdust and millions of flower petals, which everyone joins in making to celebrate Easter:

They are offered up as a sacrifice in anticipation of the procession that will destroy them by marching through the painstaking and fantastic creations.

So whatever you may have been celebrating these last few days, we send you best wishes – do tell us about any special traditions you have, from whatever part of the world you come from; and if you have any favorite books to recommend…

In Amelia Lau Carling’s Sawdust Carpets, a Chinese-Latino family drives to visit their (also Chinese) relatives in Antigua, Guatemala, where a little cousin will be baptized during Holy Week, and where Quan Yin and the Virgin share space on the family altar, “like friends.” Carling illustrates her own texts, bringing this Chinese family’s life as Guatemalans vividly to the reader in softer pastels than we usually see in stories set in tropical countries. The reference in the title is to a tradition shared by cultures around the world: making art that is destroyed in the process of an annual celebration. Carling’s young characters learn a deep lesson in observing their carpets trampled upon. And Chinese tamales? That’s how this multicultural family refers to the rice dumplings, wrapped in bamboo or lotus leaves, that they made back in China. The comparison is an imaginative stretch, unless you grew up, as Carling did, “learning about Chinese, Mayan and Spanish cultures.”

PaperTigers is all about such imaginative stretches. The blog stretches the website’s field of interest to include all multicultural children’s books in English. Our topics will evolve as we explore. For today, Chinese tamales are our motif for reflection.