November MOSS Kids Book Club
- Kara Cecchi
- Nov 6
- 9 min read
And our November pick is...
November Pick -- Tea is Love
A lyrical ode to the warmth, comfort, and traditions of tea drinking, from award-winning author Adib Khorram and Caldecott Honor and the APALA winner Hanna Cha.
Tea is a plant. Tea is a ceremony. But most of all, tea is love.
Whether it's part of an elaborate ceremony, or a quiet cup brewed for one, tea holds a special place in the hearts of millions. This poignant, lovely picture book celebrates the practice of tea-drinking across various cultures and countries, and meditates on the many meanings the ritual holds.
Meet Our Creators:
Author: Adib Khorram
Adib Khorram is a queer Iranian American author of fiction for all ages. His debut young adult novel DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY earned the William C. Morris Debut Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor, and was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Greatest YA Novels of All Time. His other young adult novels DARIUS THE GREAT DESERVES BETTER, KISS & TELL, THE BREAKUP LISTS, and ONE WORD, SIX LETTERS have received critical acclaim, awards, and been bestsellers. His debut novel for adults, I’LL HAVE WHAT HE’S HAVING, was an instant USA Today Bestseller; he followed it up with IT HAD TO BE HIM. He is also the author of the picture books SEVEN SPECIAL SOMETHINGS: A NOWRUZ STORY, and BIJAN ALWAYS WINS (which represented Missouri in the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book’s 2025 Great Reads from Great Places). Adib lives in Kansas City, Missouri. When he isn't writing, you can probably find him trying to get his hundred-yard freestyle under a minute, learning to do a Lutz jump, or steeping a cup of oolong. You can learn more about Adib & his work by visiting his website, here.
Illustrator: Hanna Cha
Hanna Cha is a Caldecott Honor award-winning illustrator and writer with several books under her belt. She is the creator of her first book TINY FEET BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS and illustrated CIRCLE ROUND by Anne Sibley O’Brien. She was also the recipient of the Caldecott Honor and the APALA winner for THE TRUTH ABOUT DRAGONS by Julie Leung and also part of the Junior Library Gold Standard Selection for THE HOUSE BEFORE FALLING INTO THE SEA by Ann Suk Wang. Born in America and a vagabond she lived in tandem between Seoul, Korea, and many states in America. Since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2017, she resides in Boston with her husband, and her tiger-like cuddly cat, Hobac. When she isn’t daydreaming and capturing moments with her soft washes, she is pointing and filing away at lil’ nooks of details to later conjure them into a daydream and inevitably a story. You can learn more about Hanna & her work by visiting her website, here.
Below you will find our monthly craft; printable activity sheets; and our community outreach activity where we will come together to learn about the meditative ritual of making (& tasting) tea. For more books to read this month, don't forget to check out our supplemental book lists -- The Art of Making Tea & Cultural Family Traditions. This November we're also celebrating and educating on Puerto Rican Heritage Month & Indigenous Peoples Month check out our book lists on those too!
We really hope you enjoy this month of book club as we continue to keep our nationwide book club free & accessible for all. Each book is intentionally handpicked with each activity and outreach curated to engage and enrich our youth's experiences. Through these diverse and inclusive reads, working and playing together, and giving back to their own community, we hope to instill empathy, understanding, & kindness in our kids.
Let's Craft: tea rainbows
Throughout our story, you will notice the multitudes of colors. Tea is a rainbow. From the lush green of the growing leaves, to the browns of the baskets that carry them, to the colors of those leaves steeped, and to the vibrant joy, warmth, and comfort a steaming cup gives to those we cherish. Let's make our own rainbows with the beautiful colors of tea.
With this story & craft, we wanted to demonstrate the beauty & diversity of tea. Each tea showcases its own color when steeped. Sometimes tea leaves are oxidized, which means they are allowed to turn a darker color. Sometimes, the leaves are steamed to preserve their lighter color. Creating a rainbow of colors. Tea is a rainbow. This is also the perfect opportunity for students to understand that diversity extends beyond the color of tea, across peoples in our country and the world. Our different cultures, backgrounds, experiences. A way for children to understand the beauty of our differences & what those differences can bring together to create something special.
Materials:
Small rectangle (or square) of watercolor paper
Tea (loose leaves or satchels)
Water
Paintbrushes
Cups/containers
Modifications:
Easy:Â Prep all materials. Child may need assistance holding paintbrush. Draw curved lines for child to trace to create a semi-circle arc rainbow.
Moderate:Â Allow child to create freely. May need verbal cue to create arc motion.
Hard:Â Allow child to make without modifications.
Instructions:
1. Gather materials. Prep tea ahead of time. To get deep, rich colors allow to steep for at least an hour. This way the tea can be fully saturated. We will be using three different teas: a black tea, an herbal tea (raspberry/passion), and a green tea.
Note: Have child write their name on the back of their watercolor paper prior to painting.
2. Create an assembly line. Have each child start with one color & swipe the brush in a semi-circle arc to start your rainbow.
3. Move to the second color & swipe a slightly smaller semi-circle arc underneath the first.
4. Move to the third & final tea color. Swipe a slightly smaller semi-circle arc underneath the second arc. Your rainbow is complete!
Note: Two colors is quicker & easier. The green tea is very similar to the black tea in coloring when dry. You could skip or use another tea with a distinct coloring.
5. Allow to dry. Take note of the colors when wet & the change when they dry. This is a shorter craft so you can spend longer on the tea tasting journal.
*Additional activity: At Picture Books on Tap, our adult guests will be painting on dry tea bags with fine tip acrylic markers to create their own bookmarks. Be sure to follow our socials to see their beautiful creations.
Remember: We encourage you to request your local library purchase the title for your community to share. It's easy to request. Head to your local library's website. On the site, there will be a "Suggest A Title" tab (see below). Just add the book Tea is Love by Adib Khorram & Hanna Cha & submit. You can even share this blog with them. After reading or listening, we encourage you to please review the books on goodreads, on Amazon, & on your social media platforms. Reviews will help get the word out about these incredible books!
printable activity sheets:
We have created an activity kit for Tea is Love filled with worksheets designed to encourage pre-writing skills, fine motor skills, visual motor & visual perceptual skills.
Download the kit:
Community Outreach: tea is love tasting
There is an art to tea. The preparation and the presentation of tea is a cultural activity that spans thousands of years across countries steeped in rich history and traditional practices that we still implement today. We will be taste testing a few different teas across various cultures as a meditation on the many meanings the rituals hold.
Adib Khorram has an author's note at the back of Tea is Love that I think is important and should be noted when discussing the art and preparation of tea. He writes "The history of tea is complicated. European countries wanted tea, and so they formed companies, like the Dutch East India Company or the British East India Company, to trade it. These companies didn't deal fairly with people in Asia, leaving a legacy of violence and colonialism." This we must acknowledge. To move forward, we must look back and learn from our past.
Let's get to the taste test. Download our tea journal worksheet below to encourage children to use all their senses. Fill out the top together prior to beginning -- name, tea name, and tea type. This will depend on what teas you are having the kids try. We will try two different hot teas & a more traditional southern iced tea. Show kids the dry tea leaves. Have them smell the dry leaves & note their appearance. Have them write down their initial observations. Measure out the appropriate amount of tea or use tea bags to make the tea. Make sure you use the appropriate temperature & steeping time (see your packaging for instructions). If your water temperature is too hot, you can burn the leaves & be left with a bitter taste. If you don't steep long enough, the flavor may not infuse correctly. After the tea is made, allow children the opportunity to observe the wet leaves. What aroma do the leaves have now? What do they look like? Write responses on their worksheets. Have children take a look at the tea. What color is the infusion? Have children fill in the bubble with the appropriate hue. While typically tea is enjoyed steaming hot, we don't need to burn any mouths. This is the perfect opportunity to read a supplemental story (see above or below) to learn more about the art of making tea or about other cultural family traditions. Pour each child a splash of tea, what we learned from last year's tea tasting with Meena is that if you don't give kids enough of the tea it tends to taste like water with a hint of something. Be sure to give enough. It's time to taste. After their first sip, have children write what they think it tastes like. Have them draw a picture of what the tea reminds them of. A few minutes after finishing, have them note what the aftertaste tastes like & score on a scale of 1-5 their review of the tea.
This activity doesn't need to be extravagant. This is a way for us to celebrate & educate with our kids -- to talk about cultural traditions, family gatherings, & a way to cultivate community through the warmth of a cup of tea.
Please do not skip the community outreach activities. We truly believe this outreach activity is a vital part of childhood & an opportunity to raise kind kids. Teaching our youth the importance of celebrating & educating & appreciating creativity within ourselves & our community. To learn kindness, empathy, acceptance, & understanding of others & choose to celebrate those differences in their community.
supplemental books:
Picture books are for everyone, so while we believe you should read our MOSS Kids Book Club pick to everyone you know, here are a few supplemental books to get your kids, tweens, teens, & more to keep reading this November. These books make great additional reading to pair with our book of the month, Tea is Love, check them out: Luli and the Language of Tea, kids from all over the world come together to enjoy the shared pastime of tea; Bitter Tea and Rock Candy, a touching ode to grandparents and family traditions—even picky eating; Teatime Around the World, a celebration of diversity and deliciousness uncovering all the wonderful ways to enjoy tea around the world; The Golden Necklace, a contemporary chapter-book mystery about a 12-year-old Nepali girl who sets out to solve the disappearance of her Bengali friend's missing jewelry set within a tea plantation in Darjeeling; Super Boba Cafe, a sweet and magical middle-grade graphic novel about a secret teashop, an earthquake-causing monster, and an unforgettable summer; A Tempest of Tea, a deliciously propulsive young adult vampire-fantasy teeming with slow burn romance, found family, and revenge, led by an orphan girl willing to do whatever it takes to save her self-made kingdom; A Magic Steeped in Poison, blending threads of Chinese and Taiwanese mythology comes a young adult fantasy about the magic of tea where a young woman must stand up against the machinations of the powerful, centuries of protocol, and her own feelings of guilt in order to save a loved one. There are a few great resources for our supplemental books, check them out below:
YAY! Another MOSS Kids Book Club pick, craft, printable sheets, and community outreach activity. We would love to see all the tea rainbows & reviews your kids create. You do not need to share kid's faces. Please be sure to tag us on Instagram @mosskidsbooks & use #mosskidsbookclub. Sharing about MOSS Kids Book Club is a way for your community to learn more about what MOSS Kids has to offer & for them to know about brand new diverse & inclusive books. By doing so, we can reach & help more kids across the country. We'd also love to hear any feedback you may have, please email us at hello@mosskidsbooks.com. We appreciate you all so much for taking the initiative to bring kids together to read diverse books & hopefully learn vital life skills to help make our world a better place.
Don't Forget: We Have Local moss kids book club locations in eastern north Carolina!!
Wednesday, 11/12 at 7pm: Picture Books on Tap at Hopfly Brewing Co in Rocky Mount
Schools are back in session, as is our MOSS Kids Book Club visits & Lunch Bunch with third grade! We're crafting plans to pop-in to more schools in the fall & expand our programming for tweens & teens. Stay tuned!!