AbstractThis paper explores the development of a multicultural literacy project as it took shape in an inner‐city Toronto elementary school. The project was designed to encourage children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to develop literacy not only in English, their second language but also in their first language; and to develop pride in their cultural backgrounds by supplying first language books (in the school library) to children for use in the classroom and at home. The article shows how this intervention provided opportunities for partnerships to be formed between school and minority language parents, and offered minority language students an instructional orientation involving active engagement in their first and second languages within the mainstream curriculum. The author, as the researcher who took on the responsibility of participant‐observation and interviewing within the school, narrates her experience in a socio‐cultural and personal context. The paper focuses on the collaborative relationships among researchers, teachers, parents and students that were promoted by the project and describes the interconnected settings of school, home and community.