Social Justice Books

Critically reviewed selection of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators.

Evicted! The Struggle for the Right to Vote

Reviewed by Rethinking Schools Book Author: African American sharecroppers in Fayette County, Tennessee, tried to exercise their legal right to register to vote in the late 1950s. A key motivation was to break the practice of all-white juries which denied African Americans a fair trial. The white backlash was brutal. Black people who attempted to register […]

The Lost Dreamer

Reviewed by Cris Rhodes Review Source: Latinx in Kid Lit Book Author: MY TWO CENTS: From the very first sentences, when Indir is awoken, afraid and disoriented, by the trumpeting of a conch shell, The Lost Dreamer, Lizz Huerta’s stunning debut, pulls readers into the dreamy and rich world of a magical, uncolonized Central America. Indir holds […]

Rosa Parks: Little People, Big Dreams Series

Reviewed by Paige Pagan Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author:  Enter the children’s section in any bookstore or library and you are bound to see a display of titles from the Little People, BIG DREAMS picture book series. Written for very young readers, they include titles on a range of activists, religious leaders, artists, […]

Martin Luther King Jr.: Little People, Big Dreams Series

Reviewed by Paige Pagan Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author:  Enter the children’s section in any bookstore or library and you are bound to see a display of titles from the Little People, BIG DREAMS picture book series. Written for very young readers, they include titles on a range of activists, religious leaders, artists, […]

Greta Thunberg: Little People, Big Dreams Series

Reviewed by Paige Pagan Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author:  Enter the children’s section in any bookstore or library and you are bound to see a display of titles from the Little People, BIG DREAMS picture book series. Written for very young readers, they include titles on a range of activists, religious leaders, artists, […]

Books We Don’t Recommend

The books on our booklists have each been carefully selected from a big stack of books we review each week. But we’d like to also share some of the books that we do not recommend and how critiques have led to recalls or revisions. At our Social Justice Books website, we feature more than 90 […]