Global Storybooks Portal

An online collection of illustrated stories originating from Africa, “Global Storybooks Portal” provides forty stories, offered in twenty different languages—English and French, as well as eighteen of the most common languages spoken by refugees and immigrants to Canada—promoting multilingualism and multiculturalism for young Canadian readers. Readers can access the narratives and switch between languages as well as have the book or individual pages read aloud. Universal themes such as choices, diversity, equality, cooperation, and conflict can be used to incorporate curricular goals and content for students in Grade K–10. Suitable for whole-class or small-group instruction, this resource may be of particular interest to teachers with ELL students in their classrooms. There are also opportunities to print and colour the illustrations, inspire reader’s theatre activities, as well as to make connections and write stories.