In true Vlogmas fashion we JUST finished this video, so captions are being made right now! Check back in a couple of hours and thank you for understanding. Which book would you have loved the most as a kid?

I think I would have liked “Our Favorite Day of the Year” as a child. I like that they show that some peoples favorite day aren’t necessarily a holiday.

I mean, fantasy books can absolutely be good representation and honestly -needs- more influences than just... The vague idea of medieval britain (or maybe france if we're spicy) + tolkien. Including just a gingerbread man wouldn't be inclusive to me, but having a story about gingerbread people village and having a gingerbread boy discuss how he wants to be a gingerbread girl? Yeah I'd count that, that's actually a really cute idea

In Australia it is very common to not really have a big sit down meal but instead graze on food while swimming and playing so I’d say the beach scene is a pretty good representation of a typical Christmas here.

Aww, imagining reading these books with my partner and I's future kids makes me feel so happy. Can't wait to bring them up understanding all different types of people and learning how wonderfully different and uniquely beautiful we all are. (We don't have kids yet because we don't have the resources/lifestyles that would allow for it right now, but we talk about looking forward to being dads together often, going to show him this video😅) Happy december everyone ❤❤❤

To be fair according to my Australian friend Christmas dinner is fried chicken on the beach and then you go home for presents that actually is a really good inclusion because southern hemisphere people that don't have Christmas during winter the summer instead are often neglected in media so much of Christmas themed everything is winter themed that's an interesting lesson to teach young kids

_And Tango Makes Three_ has been out for awhile. It's not Christmas or specifically winter, but it is about penguins, which is kind of winter. It's based on a true story of two penguin dads who were given an abandoned egg by the zookeepers & raised the chick together. Certain people in this country have banned it.

Thinking about Rupert's obsession with The Nutcracker. Have y'all listened to Duke Ellington's swing version of the music? Very good and gives you a slightly different perspective on it if you need something fresh.

My mom taught for 35 years. Her absolute favorite inclusive books were by Patricia Polacco, specifically “Mrs. Katz and Tush” and “Chicken Sunday” which both have intergenerational and multicultural themes. Patricia Polacco has a lot of books with themes exploring race, divorce, different religions and cultures, poverty, and learning disability. Another one is Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman which tells the story of a girl who wants to be Peter Pan in her school play but is told by the other children she can’t for a variety of reasons, but her grandmother and mom take her to the ballet and it shows her she can be “anything you want, if you put your mind to it.”

Pie day was always a huge celebration at my school! On 3/14, every math teacher would bring enough pies for every student to eat from all of them. It was very special and now I make my wife celebrate pie day with me every year!

"Little Glow" sounds absolutely endearing.

As a little one I put two Jolly Pocket Postman books in my "Emergency Escape Bag"!

5:20 to explain this from an Australian perspective, a traditional Christmas dinner for us is often any big gathering with lots of food, though a Christmas lunch is also common due ro many factors (e.g. divorce parents might have on do lunch and other do dinner, some people might work at night or next day ECT.). As for what we eat, it varies a LOT based off income and home culture but, middle and upper class will often have a mix of hot "typical" Christmas foods (e.g. roast) and cold foods (e.g salads). It's also not out of the ordinary to host gathering at a beach (even for dinner, as sun sets much later in summer, in my area sun sets around 9pm) but in my experience it's more common to be hosted at a family home, ether inside or in the backyard or both.

Thank you, this has given me some interesting choices for my god daughter ❤ I work in a secondary school and on Friday the whole school made our own version of the jolly postman, it covered the tourist area the schools in. Its being made for the local primary school. Jessica, just wondering has Rupert gone to see a live ballet yet? I can imagine he would be so excited 😊

I don't know if you already know about this but there is going to be a project exclusively for looking at disability representation in UK children's books. I'm taking part in it and it's going to be called Reflecting Disability. Also I forget if you previously recommended this one (and I might have commented this last year lol what a great memory I have) but Lonely Planet have a lift the flap book called A Time To Celebrate which shows different holidays around the world. It's so pretty!

Congratulations on being a judge on the inclusive books for children’s panel! These books were all so beautiful and well done. I want to buy and gift them all. Side note: I am also obsessed with your dress. It is gorgeous ❤

I'm an artist and this video made me wanna try working as an illustrator for books like that

I also love Pie Day, but for me, Pie Day comes about 3 times a year. Pi Day (March 14th), the day before Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve. The last two of those because that's when my mom's always made pies for the holidays. 😁

Pi Day is my sister's birthday so she's a fan too! 😂

I'm 31 years old, with no child and I loooove these books! They look amazing!

Those are some lovely recommendations, Jessica! My two nieces are a year apart, a month old and one year old, and I'm already making lists of books to hopefully give to them some day

We've had to stop impulse buying books for our baby. We are very picky with what we want for her, that books are kind of our "safe gift" when people ask what we want. The other thing we'd ask for is a copy of a board game they like to play, so they can come over and play it here, and we don't have to take her off of her schedule, haul all the things she needs to bring her to a new environment, and they won't have to bring their copy over.

I don't know if there are English versions of them, but I LOVE the books of German author Constanze von Kitzing. My son is a big fan of her hidden object books. As a DnD-Fantasy nerd, l am of the opinion that "classic" fantasy absolutely needs more inclusivity. So often, fantasy ends at "there is magic and these creatures that don't exist in real life".

Love this! Sure to recommend to my friends with kids

Golem by David Wisniewski was my favorite growing up, along with Joseph Had A Little Overcoat

Thank you so much for making this series!! I have just started watching, but I will watch the other videos and see if the book I'm thinking of is included in any of them. 😊

thank you for this! as an educator I am always looking for inclusive reads!

Paul castle is a blind queer artist who illustrates children’s book about gay penguins

Fantasy books absolutely can be inclusive! But swapping out humans with non-descript things is kinda just a cop-out tbh also this is perfect! I've been making a list of all my book reccommendations and including all the representations in them, but being 23 it's quite hard to just get small kids/picture books on that list haha. I have a lot of middle grade but missing out that younger age range.

My favorite winter book growing up was The snow child. It has a very russian aesthetic, and has nothing to do with holidays.

💜Happy holidays! Take care of yourselves and each other! Love you all!

So wonderful to hear about and see all these beautiful books :D makes me so happy that children today can grow up with books like these :) thank you for sharing

I am a librarian and while "weeding" books (picking which books are too damaged to keep) as i went over the pages i couldn't help but notice so many inclusive books not only for the lgbtq+ community but for people of color, disabled people, etc. It made me smile sk much, I took pictures of many pages of kid's books

Adorable boardbook with a Black family of 3 celebrating Christmas. There are other holidays in this seires, too. My baby loves Christmas by Jabari Asim ; pictures by Tara Nicole Whitaker.

Was hoping for some older age group books but these are cute. Some inclusive books for slightly older readers the wee one would recommend include Daisy May Johnson's 'How to be..' series, Jamie by L.D. Lapinski, the deepest breath by Meg Grehan and obvs Heartstopper, I don't think any of these are particularly festive though.

I really loved books as a kid and I think I would have loved all of these!

This is only slightly related to the video but I freaking love pi day! Every year my family will make a pie and me and my brother will use a plate to try to calculate pi! It’s probably because my dad is a nerd but I love this tradition and it means a lot to me that Kevin likes pi day even if it’s a little ridiculous that he celebrates it instead of Christmas!

It’s winter themed, but we read “Groucho’s eyebrows” as a kid! It’s a book based in Alaska, USA and we loved it! I still remember it now and even think about it now and want to read it to my own kids when I have them eventually!

The story in the story could be a vignette, like the excellent one in the movie Up.

Thank you so much for this video! I may end up ordering some of these for the library where I work. I’d love to see you talk about diverse children’s books more often!

Yes I absolutely love that dress! 😍 Also great choice of books!

thank you for this resource!

I AM obsessed with that dress! You look so fabulous! And I love your book content! 🎀💖🎀

When I heard Rupert saying Santa Christmas in the cake decoration video, I thought that he was combining Santa Claus and Father Christmas. I thought it was so cute!

The jolly pocket postman is my go to gift for parents to be

Dress is Gorgeous!💗

I must say, I did notice how lovely the dress was before you even mentioned it! 💜

In my country every year they ask an author to write a small book for kids, and they hand that out at bookstores during the "childrens book week". This year they had "Ravi and the last magic". Which was a very cute story about a girl helping retired wizards to get their last magic back from the retired bad wizards. Which is an adorable story off its own, but what makes it extra nice is that (single) mum is in a wheelchair and full on takes part in their home-alone like sceme. In the end the girl learns that mum didn't change because she is in a wheelchair now, and that she is brave enough to make new friends in their new accessible apartment (now that she fought like, wizzards).

Me, an Australian, giggling at attempt at inclusion but people ignoring that literally half the world is in Summer when Christmas happens. And yet somehow it's only Australia in books and movies that are trotted out as the 'look at these weird people, sitting on the beach when it's supposed to be snowing!' hahahahahha. I'm not having a go at you, Jess! It's something that us Aussies experience a lot. I've been asked so many times "Don't you find it weird that everything is advertised as winter and all the movies and tv shows are about roast dinners and chestnuts over an open fire when it's hot for you?". Nope. It's literally been hot every Christmas for MY ENTIRE LIFE. The fact that the other side of the world can't comprehend that isn't a me problem *chortle*.

Thanks for this, weirdly bursting with pride with the wholesome inclusivity. Hope you and yours have a wonderful 2024 that goes to Jessica and her family and the community of this channel. What a delight.

Just as an aside, I still find it amazing that Dickens' 'Oliver Twist' is displayed in the children's sections of book shops and libraries. It is not, and never has been, a book for children. It was written to illustrate the appalling conditions for the poor in Victorian Britain.

Pi day is also my favorite day too, Kevin. Cause it's my birthday! 3/14

Non-inclusive fantasy books: Harry Potter Series (having rarely seen side characters of different races with stereotypical names doesn't count) Inclusive Fantasy Books: Amari & The Night Brothers, and the Broken Earth trilogy.

I thought Ruperts feet were a teddy bear come to life!

Classic Kevin! Happy Pi Day!

Hello Jessica, I always enjoy your videos. I would just like to tell you that people all over Asia celebrates the “Lunar New Year”, so people in Asia prefers it being called the Lunar New Year. Just fyi!

I want to say I am a new fan and I am really enjoying your content! Would you happen to know any good holiday books for pagan children? Especially coming from a British Isles pagan traditions?

Love this! Yes, Australia is weird 😆

First! Lovely video x

Just hoping 'Little Glow' isn't set in London 1666 :-)

I laughed when you referenced snowmen b/c in California I have had more than one non Californian mention that our referring to snow people always throws them off. To me snow man sounds weird. Growing up and even now we default to gender neutral unless the builder informs us of the gender. My friends and I have been doing this since we were kids in the late 80s so it isn't a new phenomenon.

You forgot travel vlogs and montages and baking adventures. You do it all here.

Yeah science isn't a belief, it's a method XD odd bit there XD lovely video 💜

First!

I mean . . . don't we all believe in science? I certainly have never met anyone who thinks that airplanes float because of magic 😂

IMO fantasy books can be inclusive. You can have same-sex/gender couples, blended families, disability rep. I get excited when my fantasy content has explicitly queer characters.

Fantasy books are just any books that involve magic! And so many of them are not inclusive!! There's typically just a white able bodied lead in a straight relationship with another white able bodied character. There's hardly any representation in terms of race, sexuality, body size, disability, etc. If anyone is into fantasy, I'm gonna leave some recommendations below for books to read (not kid appropriate, think YA to adult). I highly recommend reading "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros. The main character has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and several of her friends in the story are queer in some way and/or of different races and backgrounds. The story also is full of dragons, griffons, and other magical elements which gives it the fun part but felt more realistic than the typical fantasy book with an all white skinny able bodied straight cast. I'd also recommend the "Six of Crows" duology by Leigh Bardugo. Three of the six main characters are queer, one of the main characters is fat, one of the mcs is south Asian, at least two of the main characters have PTSD, and one of them has a physical disability. The series still has grisha (people with powers) and fantasy lands but again it feels realistic due to having a diversity of characters. This is set after the "Grisha Series" but I read it prior to reading that one and you can still understand it without reading the first series. "Cinder" in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer also has a disabled main character. The rest of the series follows other characters as the narrator but incorporates the previous characters as well. It's an alternative, steam punk esque version of classic princess tales. Here's also a list of fantasy books I haven't read yet so I don't know if they're good or not but all of them have some elements of diversity in them (in terms of skin color, sexuality, disability, etc.) and are on my to read list: "Crier's War" by Nina Varela, "The Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha Shannon, "Hell Followed With Us" by Andrew Joseph White, "Lies We Sing To The Sea" by Sarah Underwood, "Venom & Vow" by Anna-Marie and Elliot McLemore, "Nightbirds" by Kate J. Armstrong, "These Witches Don't Burn" by Isabel Sterling, "All Of Us With Wings" by Michelle Ruiz Keil, "Survive the Dome" by Kosoko Jackson, "Mooncakes" by Suzanne Walker, "A Marvellous Light" by Freya Marske. If you have any good fantasy books with good representation please let me know!! I'm partial to sapphic fantasies but will try anything

why is it that the other abrahamic religions being represented is good but the christian representation is “unfortunate?” i think religions should all be represented. hot take: excluding one religion is not being inclusive.

Well thats fantasy. Almost none of us here in Australia are on the bloody beach on Christmas Day . The writer got that off a joke. We’re eating together. With family or friends. Or in churches. You could shoot a cannon down the beach At Christmas dinner time, and hit no one. That reminds me of Crocodile Dundee saying “throw another shrimp on the barby (Barbecue). Ive fully met zero people here in Australia who have thrown a shrimp on a barbecue. And I’m 62 and live in three states and been to many many barbecues dinners . That ‘throw a shrimp on the barby’ was designed to entice American tourists to Australia. All made up. Classic, mate. And - it makes you wonder- what else is likely fantasy or tourist postcard ‘research’ in that book. Mate, don’t believe anything you read, lol. Gees.

What's wrong with the good old a night before Christmas. ♥️🎅😵‍💫♥️

You people celebrate diversity but you don't actually care to preserve it