Middle Grade Goddess Fiction

Do you have a daughter who loves to dress up as a princess?  Inspire her with a tale of a real-life princess or a story of a goddess from mythology!

Every little girl, it seems, wants to be a princess; yet the lessons many princess stories teach are questionable at best: Sit around and look pretty until a prince comes and rescues you!  Shirin Yim Bridges was troubled by this trend and decided to do something about it, so she began to research and write books about goddesses and real-life princesses who did much more than sit around and wait to be rescued.

Herself a successful children’s author, she is now also the head of Goosebottom Books, which publishes The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses, as well as The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames and A Treasury of Glorious Goddesses.  These works are a much needed antidote to the popularized image of passive, pretty princesses that most girls are familiar with.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Call Me Ixchel; however, all opinions are my own.

Middle Grade Goddess Fiction

I had the opportunity to review Call Me Ixchel from Goosebottom Book’s goddess series.  While these are works of fiction, they are based on careful research of world mythology.  They are first person stories, each told from the viewpoint of a goddess from history.  Call Me Ixchel, for example, tells of a young Mayan Goddess of the Moon who falls in love with the God of the Sun.  What girl wouldn’t get swept up in the story of feisty Ixchel as she elopes with her dashing suitor?

Yet when the young couple attempts to escape from Ixchel’s very protective grandfather, disaster ensues.  But this is just the beginning of Ixchel’s adventures, which ultimately take her to the underworld and the realm of the Vulture King.  Ixchel’s marriage with the Sun God is passionate but unstable, and Ixchel must decide whether to stay with him.  Can their relationship mature, or are they destined to stay apart forever?

This series does a brilliant job of bringing mythology to life for young readers, accomplishing the dual task of inspiring them with tales of strong girls and teaching them about the cultures from which they came.  Each book has a lengthy non-fiction section at the end with additional information about the peoples who worshiped the goddess in the story.  Call Me Ixchel, for example, contains information about the Mayans, from what they ate to how they worshiped.

Goosebottom Books is a wonderful resource for parents and educators looking to inspire girls and boys with stories of strong heroines from the past.

Are you worried about the lack of diversity in children’s literature? So were Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom and Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book/Audrey Press. That’s why they created Multicultural Children’s Book Day, a unique event whose mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.

Young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2016 Medallion Level Sponsors! #ReadYourWorld

Platinum: Wisdom Tales Press * StoryQuest Books * Lil Libros

Gold: Author Tori Nighthawk * Candlewick Press * Bharat Babies

Silver: Lee and Low Books * Chronicle Books * Capstone Young Readers T

Tuttle Publishing, NY Media Works, LLC/KidLit TV

Bronze: Pomelo Books * Author Jacqueline Woodson * Papa Lemon Books * Goosebottom Books * Author

Gleeson Rebello * ShoutMouse Press * Author Mahvash Shahegh * China Institute.org * Live Oak Media

Multicultural Children’s Book Day CoHosts

Multicultural Children’s Book Day has 12 amazing Co-Hosts (including yours truly!):

All Done Monkey, Crafty Moms Share, Educators’ Spin on It, Growing Book by Book, Imagination Soup, I’m Not the Nanny, InCultureParent, Kid World Citizen, Mama Smiles, Multicultural Kid Blogs, Spanish Playground