Teaching Materials Center

Multicultural children's books can often act as books that help to build global awareness. 

"...Global awareness is a conceptual understanding of global and cultural perspectives with social, political, economic, cultural and environmental components. Global awareness is key to the understanding of commonalities and differences among people." [Source]

To discover books that help students build global awareness: 

1. Start with a keyword search using terms like:

• "multicultural"
• "Cross-cultural"
• "Manners and customs"
• "Customs and Practices" 
• multiculturalism
• religion
• multicultural education
• food habits
• festivals/celebrations

2. You can also isolate a specific aspect of a culture that you would like to explore, or you can search more broadly with a keyword search for a country, ethnicity, or geographic region (keyword search for Japan or Japanese, Vietnam/Vietnamese for example).

Always remember to limit your search to the TMC 

Watch this video to find out how

3. If you find a book that you like, look at the subject headings that are used in the catalog and click on them for more books within that subject.