It's Diwali!

November 15, 2016
Preschool-G Diwali is perhaps the most important holiday in India. A five-day festival of lights, the celebration includes special prayers, colorful costume, family traditions, feasts, and gifts. Most notably, Diwali is known for the lighting of small oil lamps, called diyas, which are used to celebrate the holiday. Each page of this book, part of the Bumba Books: It's a Holiday! series, includes photographs exploding with the color and vibrancy that is a hallmark of the holiday. A picture glossary defines possible unfamiliar terms. Leveled text offers the key ideas, and critical-thinking questions are included in the margins to encourage higher-order application. These basic ideas are intended to not only provide an introductory understanding but also to encourage readers to connect Diwali traditions to their own experiences. Even readers who have never heard of Diwali before will not be able to miss the universality of many of the aspects of the holiday and the similarities between their own traditions and those of Indian culture.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018
The attractive series, filled with engaging, glossy photos, deserves more specific texts. �cf2]Easter�cf1] does not mention Christianity or the resurrection of Christ, although there's one picture of an unidentified church; the story of Rama and Sita, the basis of Diwali, is omitted from that volume. Sidebars with reader-engagement questions are included. Reading list. Glos., ind.

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