I think this is my fourth year reviewing books for Multicultural Children's Book Day! If you need ideas for multicultural children's books to add to your home or school library, MCBD is a great resource. They also have free classroom kits and other resources for bringing diversity into story time. Anyway, this year I was gifted a copy of "A-Train Allen" by Lesley Younge to review. This book was a grand prize winner of the Own Voices, Own Stories Award from the Cherry Lake Publishing Group. The Own Voices, Own Stories Award is offered every year to a new author from historically marginalized groups. This award helps get diverse books in bookstores and on bookshelves!

So first, let me say CONGRATULATIONS!! to Lesley Younge for winning the award and getting her book published. And now, I can tell you a bit about the book! 

Author Eugenia Chu is at it again and this time she's teamed up with Y.Y. Chan and illustrator Eliza Hsu Chen to bring us an amazing reference book for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Just like "Celebrating Chinese New Year," this is an all-inclusive guide to the holiday including information about its history, legends, traditions, as well as instructions on how to make your own mooncakes and decorations. 

I was initially thrown by salt as the mystery ingredient this week. I mean, I use salt in almost every single recipe I make, but how do you really highlight it? Well, after a little researching and exploring, I discovered there's more to salt than meets the eye.

Here's a good article about salt's uses from Spruce Eats: Six Functions of Salt in Food. Our bodies need salt so one use is obviously as a nutrient, but it also helps preserve food and enhance the flavor by cutting bitterness or enhancing and balancing out sweetness. And I did not know you needed it in yeast breads for proper rise and structure! I always thought it was just for flavor!

So, using that article as inspiration, I've put together some ways to explore salt's different uses in this week's activity calendar, which you can download here: 

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