Great Books for Children

Best bets include : Animal Boogie (Paperback with CD) for $4.49, Driving My Tractor (Paperback with CD) for $4.49, Dotty Spotty Doddle for $3.99, and Cleo’s Counting Book (Paperback or Board Book) for $3.99. These are the best prices I’ve ever seen for these titles.

This video is amazing! I’d love to stay here. Even if you don’t like yurts (impossible as that sounds), Starlight Sailor is read in its entirety during this video making it a must watch. A beautiful tribute to a beautiful book.

Buy Starlight Sailor – until Aug 15, 2011 on sale for only $12.99 in hardback form.

A child’s worldview is shaped largely by their parents.  The exposure to different cultures through books, TV, music and travel will determine their feelings towards people and places they would not normally encounter in their daily routine. A lot of parents take this responsibility quite seriously, and do everything possible to raise their children to be good “global citizens”.

What Does it Mean to be a Global Citizen?

While the term “world citizen” or “global citizen” is often associated with the socio-political movement eradicating poverty and violence as well as environmental stewardship, but with a child there would be a more basic definition.  In order to be a global citizen, a child needs to know about other cultures.  Through exposure and understanding, a child can develop empathy towards different cultures as well as simple awareness about their differences.  As they get older and are capable of more complex thinking, seeing and understanding other culture’s point of view will be possible.  The idea of being “cosmopolitan” (a citizen of the world) is not a new one, and can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The differences between people need not act as barriers that wound, harm and drive us apart.  Rather, these very differences among cultures and civiliazations should be valued as manifestations of the richness of our shared creativity.  – Buddhist Philospopher Daisaku Ikeda

Building a Multi-Cultural Library

One of the easiest ways to expose your children to other cultures is through literature.  Fill your child’s library with multicultural books full of vibrant artwork!  Not only can you give them books set in other cultures, you can also bring them traditional tales from different parts of the world.  Adding books in other languages will also help expand their knowledge.

Several great choices : The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales,  African Animals ABCs,  El Mundo (Spanish Language)

Play World Music

Kids love music!  Playing music of other cultures can be a fun way to expose your kids to other cultures.  Whether you play it as background music throughout the day, as lullabies at night, or dance till you drop to it – your kids are sure to thank you.

Several great choices : World Playground CD,  Kid’s World Party CD,  African Playground CD,  Caribbean Playground CD

Celebrate Holidays

Everyone likes to party, so why not take the opportunity to do so as often as possible?  By celebrating holidays from around the world you can open up discussions about history, religion, tradition… and have lots of fun!

A great choice : A Calendar of Festivals

Theme Nights

Pick a country or culture and go nuts.  Have your child help you pick a recipe from that area and help you make it.  Listen to music from that culture.  Maybe you can even find an appropriate movie from that country on Netflix.  Use a small vocabulary from the language in your dinner discussions.  The possibilities are endless.

A great resource : Theme Recipes on AllRecipes.com

Parental Resources on Raising Your Child as a Global Citizen

Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World is a great book that aids parents who want to raise their children to be true global citizens.

The author helped compile a great free resource for summer enrichment which you can find here (pdf).  Libraries across the US have teamed up to present the One World, Many Stories theme this year, and this resource helps further this theme.