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One way for schools and families to explore other cultures is to look at how holidays are celebrated around the world. Christmas around the world is an excellent example of huge diversity of cultural traditions surrounding a single holiday. One excellent way for kids to learn about customs in other places is to read great quality children’s literature with authentic stories and colorful illustrations to grab kids’ attention. Here is a collection of our favorite children’s books about “Christmas Around the World-“ from traditional folktales, contemporary fiction, religious stories, and stories about kids from all corners of the globe.
What Do We Do All Day has compiled a lovely list of Swedish Christmas books: I love this incredibly thorough list of books about Christmas, St. Lucia Day (a festival of light celebration on December 13th), as well as Scandinavian books about winter. There are so many new books to discover!
At Kid World Citizen, I put together my favorite books about Christmas in Mexico– from las posadas to poinsettias, to the Nativity. Several of the books about immigrant families are especially appealing to kids who are far away from their family for Christmas.
Glittering Muffins has put together an incredible list of 24 (+2) Christmas books (many of them in French!) that they are using as an Advent calendar for their son- a book a day!
On a recent post from Learning with Mouse, you can learn about Christmastime in Russia with a lovely inter-generational craft activity paired with a book that links Russian and Western Christmas traditions.
All Done Monkey found a special book that looks at different families across Africa, and how they celebrate Christmas. I can’t wait to find that book for my son, since there seems to be a lack of children’s books from this part of the world.
Discovering the World through my Son’s Eyes found a wonderful book that puts a Latin twist on the “12 Days of Christmas” song we all love. I loved her “Reyes Magos” playdate idea!
In a wonderful round-up, What Do We Do All Day put together 20 books from diverse cultures literally around the world: from Japan to Italy to South Africa and more, kids get to see a plethora of customs all in celebration of Christmas.
And finally, not completely Christmas but definitely a part of the season, we have worked together to come up with a list of Gingerbread Stories from Around the World.
Becky is the mom of 4 bilingual, multicultural, active kids ages 6-9; she and her husband are doing their best to raise them as compassionate world citizens, and lifelong learners. She founded Kid World Citizen, where parents and teachers can find global activities to do at home that help enrich little minds. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. In her free time loves to cook and travel and is a wannabe triathlete.
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Great group of book lists. Thanks for including us.
Awesome compilation! Thanks for including ours 🙂
I love this list and all the great links – the Christmas options in our home library are severely lacking so this will help me build that up. Thank you!