Filipino American children's books and parol coloring pages

The Filipino American picture books that land with kids show something from their own home: pancit at a birthday, a lola teaching a dance, a balikbayan box being packed for family back home, a parol in the window at Christmas. Below are six picture books, all checked in a public library catalog, then a parol coloring page and craft, and a short explanation of Simbang Gabi for families, with the traditions sourced from Filipino American and Catholic community organizations.

Families from different regions of the Philippines, and different generations in the United States, keep these traditions in different ways. Ask the elders in your family what theirs looked like and draw that version.

Filipino American picture books for young kids

We left out When Lola Visits, which is already in our grandparents book list. All of these are in the Seattle Public Library catalog:

Book	Author	What it is about
Time to Shine	Stephanie Vivit Lehmann	Tala discovers Filipino parols, and her excitement helps her immigrant family reconnect with their cultural roots
Cora Cooks Pancit	Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young	With her older siblings away, Cora's mother finally lets her help make pancit; includes a recipe
Dancing the Tinikling	Bobbie Peyton	Jojo's Lola invites him to join her in the tinikling dance, and he finds his footing between his American and Filipino heritages
Box of Dreams	Faith Kazmi	A girl helps her mama pack a balikbayan box for relatives in the Philippines and tucks in a secret wish
Riding Through Rice Fields	Michelle Sterling	On a family reunion trip to the Philippines, Mateo learns about bayanihan, the importance of community
Joy to the World!	Kate DePalma	A rhyming tour of Christmas traditions from 13 countries, including the Philippines, with endnotes

A good pairing for December: read Time to Shine, then make a parol together. For a child with relatives far away, Box of Dreams is a gentle way to talk about the people on the other end of the box, and our guide to gifts for long-distance grandparents has ideas for what to send back.

A parol coloring page and craft

Northwest Catholic, the Archdiocese of Seattle's magazine, describes parols as star-shaped lanterns representing the star that led the Magi to the infant Jesus. At the archdiocese's Simbang Gabi Mass, representatives from parishes carry handmade parols in procession.

The coloring page. Draw a large five-pointed star, then a smaller star or circle in the middle, and divide the points into sections like stained glass. Leave plenty of room in each section: toddlers need big spaces, and older kids can add stripes, dots and swirls. Print several, since kids usually want one in every color.

The lantern.

1. Print or trace the star onto card stock.
2. Let your child color the border and decorate it with markers or stickers.
3. For an older child, a grown-up cuts out the inner sections, and your child glues colored tissue paper behind the holes.
4. Tape it in a window so daylight shines through the tissue, or hang it on a string.

Keep the scissors for the grown-up with small kids, and skip real candles. A window does the job.

A parol for every night of Simbang Gabi. Draw nine small stars on one page and color one each day of the novena. It works like an Advent calendar and gives kids a reason to ask what comes next.

Simbang Gabi, explained for kids

The Archdiocese of Seattle describes Simbang Gabi as a Filipino Advent tradition, a novena of nine Masses honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary in anticipation of Christmas. The same page explains that Simbang Gabi means "night Mass" and began during Spanish rule in the Philippines: the Masses were first held in the evening after farmers finished long days in the fields, and as a compromise the friars moved them to mornings, sometimes as early as 3 a.m.

For a four-year-old: "Before Christmas, some families go to church nine times in a row to get ready for Jesus' birthday. People carry star lanterns to remember the star that showed the way."

Parishes in many U.S. cities hold Simbang Gabi Masses. In Seattle, the archdiocese lists its 29th annual Simbang Gabi Commissioning Mass at St. James Cathedral on December 12, 2026, with a reception afterward. Northwest Catholic reported that in a past year, parishes around the archdiocese held their own Simbang Gabi Masses through the days before Christmas Eve. Check your parish bulletin for times near you.

More ideas for Filipino American families

• Draw a family table. Pancit, lumpia, whatever your family cooks for birthdays and holidays. Ask a grandparent which dish matters most to them and draw that one.
• Learn the tinikling step. After Dancing the Tinikling, lay two jump ropes on the floor and practice hopping in and out while someone claps the beat. Leave the bamboo poles for when they are older.
• Celebrate Filipino American History Month. The Filipino American National Historical Society says the October observance commemorates the first recorded presence of Filipinos in the continental United States, at what is now Morro Bay, California, on October 18, 1587, and that Congress recognized the month in 2009. A page of a ship coming ashore makes a good October coloring page for older kids.
• Write the Tagalog or Ilocano word for grandmother, grandfather or star on each page. Our guide to bilingual coloring books has ideas.

For other December traditions, see Las Posadas and tamales with kids and our Christmas coloring pages starring your own family.

A page with your own family in it

The page a child keeps is the one that shows their own family: lola and lolo at the head of the table, the cousins, the parol you made together hanging in the window. Trace a holiday photo, or draw simple figures and let your child fill in the details.

Colorkin can make a coloring page of your family from a photo, drafted with AI illustration tools and checked and finished by a person. We are making two Filipino American coloring storybooks, one about a missing parol and one about dancing at lolo's party. They are not on sale yet, but the free sample shows what a page of your own family looks like.

More holidays and heritage books are in our family and heritage guides.

Questions parents ask