Teachers looking for language arts ideas that can be integrated into a multicultural theme need look no further. Authors Barbara DuMoulin and Sylvia Sikundar have collaborated on a teacher resource book that not only gives information about 20 North American traditional and ethnic celebrations, but is also full of activities that develop children’s reading and writing skills.

Each chapter in this well-organized book follows a similar format. An introductory page gives a brief overview of a holiday and activities found in that chapter. The second page, which gives detailed information about the holiday, is for the student to read before doing the activities. Written in a straightforward manner, these information pages are more appropriate for children in Grades 5 and up, even though the back cover suggests that the book is ideal for Grades 2 through 9. The rest of the chapter contains a number of worksheets for developing specific language skills. These worksheets, which teachers are invited to copy, include word puzzles, poetry ideas, story starters, charts for organizing research, and activities for learning idioms, similes, and proverbs related to a given holiday. The lengthy final chapter is called “General Celebration Activities.”

While the number of holidays covered is limited, the book’s numerous creative ideas can be easily applied to the more numerous festivities described in a book like Caroline Parry’s Let’s Celebrate! Canada’s Special Days. Combine these two books and you’ve got a teacher’s multicultural unit. If you want more information, there’s an extensive useful bibliography as well as a language skills index at the end.