Celebrate Día and Learn to Say Hello to your International Neighbors
Sun • Apr 28 • 2-4 p.m. • Clark Pleasant Branch

Families are invited to attend our Celebrate Día program, a festival celebrating children’s books from around the world at our Clark Pleasant Branch Library. 

Throughout the afternoon:

• Listen to a multilingual storytime - "Say Hello" by Rachel Isadora
• Enjoy a traditional Chinese dance performed by the Indianapolis Chinese Performing Arts group
• Help break open a piñata
• Make crafts
• Enjoy snacks
• Learn how to say hello to our international neighbors that live here in Johnson County

El día de los niños/El día de los libros — in English that’s Children’s Day/Book Day — also known as Día, is an international celebration of children, families and reading. Putting an emphasis on promoting literacy in all children, Día connects children to books from different cultures and languages.

At Celebrate Día, guests will be invited to listen to a storytime reading of "Say Hello" by Rachel Isadora. "Say Hello" is the story of a little girl that greets her neighbors in multiple languages, while on a walk with her mother. After the reading, students from JCPL’s Adult Learning Center, as well as JCPL employees and community members, will be introduced and they will be teaching guests how to say hello in their native language.

Guests will also be invited to enjoy a traditional Chinese dance, preformed by the Indianapolis Chinese Performing Arts group. Throughout the event, guests will be able to travel to tables representing languages spoken by our international neighbors. At those tables, guests will learn more about that culture and language, as well as collect beads that represent that country’s flag. Guests can then make a bracelet or keychain to take with them. Snacks from countries like China, Germany, Japan and India will also be available to try.

The Spanish Honor Society from Whiteland Community High School will be at the event with piñatas. Guests can learn about the history of piñatas, a children’s piñata song and children attending will have a chance to try to break open a piñata.

If you’re not able to make it to our Celebrate Día event, JCPL offers a range of language services from bilingual books to online language learning: Learn more about JCPL's Language Resources

For more information about our Adult Learning Center, tutoring provided or becoming a volunteer tutor: Visit the Adult Learning Center