Virtual Book Tour: Day 4

Welcome back to the tour! It’s been such a joy to share everyone’s excitement about D is for Drinking Gourd. One of the thrills has been getting news from the publisher each time it’s chosen to receive an award. Here are links to the awards and honors it’s won since it was published in September:

D is for Drinking Gourd: An African American Alphabet was chosen as a 2007 NAPPA Honors Winner. We received word that it had won the NAPPA (National Parenting Publications Awards) just as a large order of the books was going to press, so they were able to include the award seal on the cover!

It was a Finalist in the USABooksNews.com Best Books 2007 Awards.

And we just found out that it was selected for the Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2008, a cooperative project of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC). This site doesn’t list its newest titles yet, but you can find out more about the types of books they select.

For added fun, be sure to check out author Anastasia Suen’s blog where she lists “Picture Book of the Day,” hosts Nonfiction Mondays, and more!

Just for Kids:
Do you have a favorite book? It might be fun to tell your friends all about it! First draw a picture of an award you would like to give your book. Give the award a title such as: The Funniest Book Award. Then write the title of the book and the author's name below the picture of the award. You can show the award to your friends or make photocopies of it and let them keep a copy. For even more fun, ask your friends (or even your teacher!) to all draw an award for their favorite book. Then you can share the awards with each other and read each other's favorite books. Now doesn't that sound like fun?

Yesterday’s Trivia Q and A:
Yesterday’s question was: Which of America’s Founding Fathers also took part in the American Revolution?
a. James Forten, wealthy sailmaker and abolitionist
b. Richard Allen, founder of the AME Church
c. Barzillai Lew, fifer and drummer
d. All of the above
The answer is: d. All of the above. James Forten, one of the nation’s wealthiest and most influential abolitionists, carried gun powder from below deck up to the cannons on an American privateer during the war before he was captured by the British and put on a prison ship. Richard Allen drove wagonloads of salt from the shores of Delaware inland to the Patriot troops. Barzillai Lew was a fifer and a drummer and is credited with playing Yankee Doodle at the Battle of Bunker Hill. His descendants have served in every major American war up to the present day.

Today’s Trivia Question:
Who founded the city of Chicago?
a. Nannie Helen Burroughs, educator
b. Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, fur trader and frontiersman
c. Hiram Revels, first African American senator
Submit your answer by posting it as a comment to today’s blog. It won’t be published on the blog, but your name will be put in a hat to be drawn for 5 prizes to give away at the end of the tour. Check back in tomorrow for the answer!

Coming tomorrow:
On Day 5 of my Virtual Book Tour, we’ll be stopping to visit the Web site of a wonderful online bookseller to watch a video explaining some of the story about how D is for Drinking Gourd came to be.