Preschool, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd ; Hard Cover, Nonfiction ; Recommended

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Indigenous Peoples’ Day by Rebecca Sabelko is part of a Blastoff Beginners series of the Happy Holidays. This set is geared towards kindergarten, with sight words, short sentences, and bright color photographs. Each book is 24 pages and starts with the sight words for review before beginning the book content. As a parent of a kindergartner, I like that they provide a list of sight words to review before we begin reading the book together.

This book includes a table of contents, headings, bolded words, glossary, index, and labeled photos – perfect for introducing a holiday to preschool through second grade and working with them on identifying non-fiction text features. 

Each section includes a few sentences and a photograph describing when Indigenous Peoples’ Day is (p. 6), and a variety of ways you could celebrate the holiday (p.10). 

This book is a good, quick overview of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The photos show different aspects of the holiday really well, from people reading books about indigenous cultures, to celebrating the art, and their Native history. I love the Facts page (p. 22) as it summarizes the activities talked about in the book with simple photos, labels and key words.

This series also includes a page referring you to Factsurfer (factsurfer.com) for additional kid friendly web sources. I liked this website and feel like it would be a great place for your beginning researchers to find online sources, or broaden their knowledge base. At the website you type in the title of your book, click the picture of the book cover that pops up, and then are given three age appropriate sites to go to for more information. 

I find these Blastoff Beginners a go-to in my library because I know I can count on them for their eye-catching covers and photos, their quality, and their consistency in content and readability. 

If you need books for primary students about holidays or books that provide a simple to understand overview of a holiday, I recommend adding this book to your library collection. 

Cover of Indigenous Peoples' Day blastoff beginners book. Picture shows three clay pots of different sizes
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About Katy Beattie

Katy Beattie is the Teacher-Librarian at Garfield Elementary School (Olympia, WA), where she has been teaching for 15 years and been the Librarian for more than half that time. She has an Australian Labradoodle and two young boys (ages 6 and 9). Her favorite books are anything by Kate DiCamillo and Jason Reynolds, Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle. Her favorite things to teach are coding/robotics and Battle of the Books.