Anyone else see those gorgeous personalized books scroll through their feed? You customize the characters to look like your child and/or family (their names, skin color, hair color, etc.). I always see as for these books pop-up in my feed around the holidays, and think they would make such a lovely gift. However, there’s just one problem…they’re all in English! For my Spanish-speaking husband, and Spanish-preferring hijas, it makes such a special gift, well…just a little less special. However, there is a new book company making waves, and seeing families like ours. Snowflake Stories is a customizable book company, offering bilingual stories! I am so excited to partner with this company for Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2020, to share about our experience building a customizable book. I was gifted this book in return for my honest review. All opinions shared are my own.
What Is It?
Snowflake Stories offers 4 different customizable stories. You pick the storie that best suits your child’s interests. Then you customize the characters to look like your child and family. You pick the skin color, hair color, eye color, etc. You even get to chose the names of all the characters. Finally, you choose the languages you want your story in. You can pick any 2: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. I’d saw this book series is best for 3-8 year-olds.
What I Loved
I LOVE that these books are bilingual so that you can customize the book to your family’s languages. Everyone in the family will be able to read these books. I also love that ALL of the characters are customizable, making this gift more personable for bicultural families, like ours.
The customer service is excellent. I initially had some troubleshooting issue. I reached out to their support team and they replied the same day, walking me through the process.
What The Toddlers Loved
We customized our book with Naomi as the main character, because she has a birthday coming up. We chose the Dance Recital book option, because my girls love all things pink, and princess-like. Naomi (almost 2) loved hearing her name as we read the pages. Vale (3) loved seeing a character with her name, and quickly realized that all of the characters look like people in our family. She delighted in opening the pages and showing Papí his character, and when Grandpa and Grandma came over she showed them who they were in the book. This book quickly became a favorite in our home.
Anything I’d Change?
I would have loved an option to give the adult male characters beards. We wanted to add ‘Grandpa’ to our story, but I have literally only seen my dad without a beard once in my entire life. We did add him to the story anyway, but it just wasn’t the same seeing a clean-shaven Grandpa.
We Love These Books!
In the end, this has become one of our favorite books already. Snowflake Stories are such a beautiful gift to give any child so that they can really see themselves in a story.
Click Here to purchase your own Snowflake Story!
Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2020 (1/31/20) is in its 7th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those book into the hands of young readers and educators.
Seven years in, MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves continues.
MCBD 2020 is honored to have the following Medallion Sponsors on board
Super Platinum
Make A Way Media/ Deirdre “DeeDee” Cummings,
Platinum
Language Lizard, Pack-N-Go Girls,
Gold
Audrey Press, Lerner Publishing Group, KidLit TV, ABDO BOOKS : A Family of Educational Publishers, PragmaticMom & Sumo Jo, Candlewick Press,
Silver
Author Charlotte Riggle, Capstone Publishing, Guba Publishing, Melissa Munro Boyd & B is for Breathe,
Bronze
Author Carole P. Roman, Snowflake Stories/Jill Barletti, Vivian Kirkfield & Making Their Voices Heard. Barnes Brothers Books, TimTimTom, Wisdom Tales Press, Lee & Low Books, Charlesbridge Publishing, Barefoot Books Talegari Tales
Author Sponsor Link Cloud
Jerry Craft, A.R. Bey and Adventures in Boogieland, Eugina Chu & Brandon goes to Beijing, Kenneth Braswell & Fathers Incorporated, Maritza M. Mejia & Luz del mes_Mejia, Kathleen Burkinshaw & The Last Cherry Blossom, SISSY GOES TINY by Rebecca Flansburg and B.A. Norrgard, Josh Funk and HOW TO CODE A ROLLERCOASTER, Maya/Neel Adventures with Culture Groove, Lauren Ranalli, The Little Green Monster: Cancer Magic! By Dr. Sharon Chappell, Phe Lang and Me On The Page, Afsaneh Moradian and Jamie is Jamie, Valerie Williams-Sanchez and Valorena Publishing, TUMBLE CREEK PRESS, Nancy Tupper Ling, Author Gwen Jackson, Angeliki Pedersen & The Secrets Hidden Beneath the Palm Tree, Author Kimberly Gordon Biddle, BEST #OWNVOICES CHILDREN’S BOOKS: My Favorite Diversity Books for Kids Ages 1-12 by Mia Wenjen, Susan Schaefer Bernardo & Illustrator Courtenay Fletcher (Founders of Inner Flower Child Books), Ann Morris & Do It Again!/¡Otra Vez!, Janet Balletta and Mermaids on a Mission to Save the Ocean, Evelyn Sanchez-Toledo & Bruna Bailando por el Mundo’ Dancing Around the World, Shoumi Sen & From The Toddler Diaries, Sarah Jamila Stevenson, Tonya Duncan and the Sophie Washington Book Series, Teresa Robeson & The Queen of Physics, Nadishka Aloysius and Roo The Little Red TukTuk, Girlfriends Book Club Baltimore & Stories by the Girlfriends Book Club, Finding My Way Books, Diana Huang & Intrepids, Five Enchanted Mermaids, Elizabeth Godley and Ribbon’s Traveling Castle, Anna Olswanger and Greenhorn, Danielle Wallace & My Big Brother Troy, Jocelyn Francisco and Little Yellow Jeepney, Mariana Llanos & Kutu, the Tiny Inca Princess/La Ñusta Diminuta, Sara Arnold & The Big Buna Bash, Roddie Simmons & Race 2 Rio, DuEwa Frazier & Alice’s Musical Debut, Veronica Appleton & the Journey to Appleville book series Green Kids Club, Inc.
We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.
Co-Hosts and Global Co-Hosts
A Crafty Arab, Afsaneh Moradian, Agatha Rodi Books, All Done Monkey, Barefoot Mommy, Bethany Edward & Biracial Bookworms, Michelle Goetzl & Books My Kids Read, Crafty Moms Share, Colours of Us, Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes, Educators Spin on it, Shauna Hibbitts-creator of eNannylink, Growing Book by Book, Here Wee Read, Joel Leonidas & Descendant of Poseidon Reads {Philippines}, Imagination Soup, Kid World Citizen, Kristi’s Book Nook, The Logonauts, Mama Smiles, Miss Panda Chinese, Multicultural Kid Blogs, Serge Smagarinsky {Australia}, Shoumi Sen, Jennifer Brunk & Spanish Playground, Katie Meadows and Youth Lit Reviews
FREE RESOURCES from Multicultural Children’s Book Day
Free Multicultural Books for Teachers
Our New FREE Teacher Classroom Physical and Developmental Challenges Kit http://ow.ly/kcbZ30p3QWz
Free Empathy Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians, and Educators
Free Understanding Developmental & Physical Challenges Classroom Kit
TWITTER PARTY! Register here!
Hashtag: Don’t forget to connect with us on social media and be sure and look for/use our official hashtag #ReadYourWorld.
Baby Devotions 