Category Archives: Holidays and Celebrations
Recommended books and activities for holidays and celebrations throughout the year.
Happy LGBT Pride Month!
June is LGBT Pride Month, and throughout this month people everywhere (including President Obama) have been celebrating the positive impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have had in the world. The fight for LGBT rights has always been a matter of civil rights and equality, as our publisher noted in a recent post, and it’s nice that we live in an era when that’s acknowledged by so many people.
The biggest full moon of the year
In our busy day-to-day life, certain things often slip by unnoticed. When is the last time you stepped outside to admire a full moon?
If you can’t remember the last time you admired the moon, tomorrow night is the night to do it. Thanks to the fact that our lunar neighbor will be especially close to Earth (a mere 221,802 miles away!), tomorrow’s moon is expected to be the biggest, brightest full moon of the year, also known as a supermoon.
And meanwhile, over at Pinterest…
In case you missed it, on Pinterest this week we created a booklist of books with Passover themes:
Happy Spring from Lee & Low!
Celebrating International Women’s Day
As you may know, today is International Women’s Day. Although it has become a bit of a Valentine’s Day sequel in some communities, many countries are still recognizing the holiday for it’s original purpose. The United Nations created this day to recognize women who have impacted our world, as well as a way to focus public service efforts towards women in need around the world.
Each year since 1975 (when the United States began celebrating IWD), the United Nations selects a theme to focus the day’s efforts. This year’s theme is “Empower Rural Women- End Hunger and Poverty”, and I encourage you to find out more about what you can do to participate in this important cause.
Happy Valentine’s Day
Thanksgiving
This week is Thanksgiving! There’s lots to love about this holiday, and some of it doesn’t even have to do with food (although…pies! stuffing! MORE PIES!).
Thanksgiving is also a great opportunity for teaching and discussion. I know sometimes people have an adverse reaction to that–something like “Stop trying to make my holiday traditions politically correct!”–but so much of the Thanksgiving story is still relevant today. I like thinking about Thanksgiving as a celebration of a history that is still being written, a history that we can take an active part in.
On that note, Fourth World Journal points to a new teaching resource for Thanksgiving developed by a teacher and historian whose ancestors happen to be Quebeque French, Metis, Ojibwa, and Iroquois. He suggests that it’s time to move past some of the myths surrounding Thanksgiving towards historical accuracy, and insists that this will make the holiday more, not less, meaningful. I especially like some of the discussion questions, like this one: