September MOSS Kids Book Club
- Kara Cecchi
- Sep 5
- 8 min read
And our September pick is...
September Pick -- The Power of Your Name
For fans of Your Name Is a Song and Tomorrow I'll Be Kind, here is an uplifting and dynamic story which celebrates every name through poetic verse and using the ABC's.
Dynamic. Intentional. Powerful. These are just a few of the many words that describe your name. Bestowed with love, your name is essential . . . just like you. It is alive; it is the beat of your drum; it is a celebration of all the beautiful traits that make you so wonderfully you.
Told through the ABCs with powerful, anthemic prose and breathtaking cut-paper art, Jyoti Rajan Gopal and Olivia Sua deliver a powerful assertion: that whatever your name is, it is alive and the heartbeat of who you are.
Meet Our Creators:
Author: Jyoti Rajan Gopal
Jyoti Rajan Gopal is a writer, mom, and former kindergarten teacher. Growing up, she lived in Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, India, and China. She has published multiple children’s books, including American Desi; My Paati’s Sari; Love is Here With You; Over in the Mangroves; Sister Day; One Sweet Song; & Desert Queen. Her books have received starred reviews in Kirkus Reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, School and Library Journal, Book List, and Book Page and are on the Bank Street, NYPL and SLJ Best Books lists. She is the recipient of the ALA 2024 Stonewall Honor Award and a finalist for the 2023 Neev Literature Award. Jyoti writes stories - fiction and nonfiction - of identity, community and belonging, themes that speak to her heart, that reflect her multiple identities. Jyoti currently lives in New York with her family. When not writing or teaching, she loves to read - a lot! - work in her garden, dance and explore the many New York State Park trails. You can visit her website, and learn how to pronounce her name correctly, here.
Illustrator: Olivia Sua
Olivia Sua is an illustrator for children’s and adult books as well as magazines. Born and raised in a small mountain town in the Pacific Northwest, she is inspired by seasons, nature, and rich storytelling. Her children’s works include: If I Could Choose a Best Day, Water Day, and Uno Más, One More. Much of her work draws from her personal memory and family stories. Her parents met salsa dancing in the U.S.—her father is from Cartagena, Colombia, and her mother is from Durban, South Africa. She grew up in a yellow Spanish-style home with a red roof, where casitas típicas decorated her walls. Her multicultural upbringing continues to influence her voice as an artist and the stories she tells. Representation, especially of her culture, is at the heart of her practice. Olivia currently lives in Washington State. You can visit her website: here.
Below you will find our monthly craft; printable activity sheets; and our community outreach activity where we will come together to discuss the power and importance of our community through an acrostic poem. For more books to read this month, don't forget to check out our supplemental book lists -- The Power of Names; Jyoti Rajan Gopal's backlist; & Back to School:
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: name bracelets with a friend
Let's pretend we're Swifties at a concert & make friendship bracelets. We're working on fine motor coordination & control as we thread the bead onto the string/pipe cleaner. We're utilizing bilateral coordination using both hands as we hold the string/pipe cleaner in one hand and thread with the other. If you want to add another layer of developmental work, you can create pattern strips with the beads you have & have each child create the pattern before threading onto their string/pipe cleaner. We love this idea from our friend Mikaela from Project Based Primary, LLC.
A note on the importance of patterns: Recognizing, creating, and extending patterns is a critical early cognitive skill that forms part of the foundation for more complex concepts. Understanding patterns help children predict and anticipate what’s coming next, a skill that is fundamental to learning how to organize and make sense of the world around them. When your child creates patterns, they’re not just sorting objects or colors, they’re beginning to observe and understand relationships, rules, and regularities in their environment. Creating a pattern of alternating colors can lay the foundations for numerical understanding and algebraic thinking. I could go on for days & bore you on the importance and patterns but I won't, just trust me & work on patterns with your kids.
With this story & craft, we wanted to demonstrate the importance of pronouncing names correctly. This is the perfect opportunity for students to reintroduce themselves. Maybe even do a study on their family names & why they have the name they do. Names are important, powerful, & completely your own. Take pride in them. See the back matter of this story for some tips!
Materials:
Beads; if you are working with younger children, we suggest using larger wooden beads like these -- (1) to lower the risk of being swallowed, (2) to modify for smaller hands
Letter beads
Elastic string, yarn, or pipe cleaners; if you are working with younger children, we suggest using pipe cleaners because they are larger, sturdier, & easier to hold on to while threading
Scissors & tape
Optional: pattern strips check out this post from our friend Mikaela, @projectbasedprimary
Modifications:
Easy: Use pipe cleaner & larger beads
Moderate: Tape down elastic string when threading
Hard: Allow child to make bracelets without modifications
Instructions:
1. Gather materials. Pair child with a peer. Each child will be making a bracelet for their partner & new friend.
2. Have each child ask their partner their name. Make sure everyone is pronouncing names correctly. Encourage each child to say their name proudly & to not be afraid to correct someone if they say their name wrong.
Note: If you're working with an entire class, give each child a slip of paper and have them write their partner's name. This encourages communication between kids, letter recognition & formation, & gives you time to pass out letters for each kids name. If you are working with a smaller group, have each child find their partner's name beads.
3. Set up bracelet making using modifications based on each child's developmental level.
4. Let child make their own bracelets! Easiest, most fun craft yet.
*Additional activity: At Picture Books on Tap, our adult guests will be creating bracelets with a word that will encourage them to end the year strong. What do they want to focus on? Taking a deep breath, strength, rest. Whatever their word, they will talk with their partner about why it's important for them & what they hope to accomplish to end the year.
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 The Power of Your Name by Jyoti Rajan Gopal & Olivia Sua & 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 The Power of Your Name filled with worksheets designed to encourage pre-writing skills, fine motor skills, visual motor & visual perceptual skills.
Download the kit:
Community Outreach: Acrostic Poem
We wanted to invite our community to take pride in their community. To talk about what their community—classroom, school, local, or global—represents. Describe it. Use words that hold meaning and power. They don't have to necessarily be positive. Hopefully that will open up the conversation among themselves on how they can create change to make it what they hope it to be. Grab a poster board and write the name of the community down the side. Have students create a composition, it can be in verse, where the first letter of each line, read vertically, spells out a community name. Their composition can be one word or a full verse for each letter. Let your kids get creative. For younger kids, stick with a word. But let's challenge our older kids to create something more.
Stay tuned for our MOSS Kids poem on our socials!
This activity doesn't need to be extravagant. This is a way for us to celebrate & educate with our kids -- to talk about our communities & inspire joy, creativity, & the collective.
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 gift that to the members our community.
supplemental books:
We're heading back to school, welcoming new friends, and learning about the power of names and just how important it is to pronounce names correctly! These books make great additional reading to pair with our book of the month, The Power of Your Name, check them out: Your Name is a Song; Baba, What Does My Name Mean?; Sister Friend; My Name is a Gift; We're Different and it's Totally Cool!; and New. 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 bracelets & acrostic poems 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, 09/10 at 7pm: Picture Books on Tap at Larema Beverage Co in Rocky Mount
Saturday, 09/13 at 10am: MOSS Kids Book Club at East Tarboro Eco Garden in Tarboro
Saturday, 09/27 at 10am: MOSS Kids Book Club with Drag Story Hour at Boxyard RTP
Schools are back in session! We're crafting plans to pop-in to more schools in the fall & expand our programming for tweens & teens. Stay tuned!!
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