Social Justice Books

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

The Day You Begin

Reviewed by Rethinking Schools Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: This powerful, lyrical picture book speaks directly to the children who are its intended readers, describing those familiar moments when a child may be marked as an outsider among their peers because of their home language, or the color of their skin, or the “different” […]

Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots

Reviewed by Rethinking Schools Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: Every 20th-century U.S. history class covers World War II. However, the 1943 attack by white sailors on Mexican Americans, Filipinos, and African Americans in Los Angeles, known as the Zoot Suit Riots, gets little mention. Author Margarita Engle uses free verse to bring this history […]

Ajijaak – Crane

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: In 2018, Ajijaak – Crane was published by Waub Ajijaak Press, in Manistee, Michigan. Written by Cecilia Rose LaPointe, illustrated by Dolly Peltier, and translated into Anishinaabe by Margaret Noodin, it is one I am pleased to recommend. The story opens with […]

Sing a Song: How “Lift Every Voice and Sing” Inspired Generations

Reviewed by Deborah Menkart Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: We should all know the story and words of the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and now thanks to this picture book, we can. Author Kelly Starling Lyons tells the 120-year history of the song through generations of her family who have […]

The Women Who Caught the Babies: A Story of African American Midwives

Reviewed by Deborah Menkart Reviewed Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: Renowned children’s book author Eloise Greenfield opens her latest title with a note to readers, “I want to take you back only as far as the Africa of a few hundred years ago. That’s when millions of Africans were forced from their homelands, brought […]

Pies from Nowhere

Reviewed by the Zinn Education Project Review Source: Zinn Education Project Book Author: This beautifully illustrated picture book tells the story of Georgia Gilmore and the Club from Nowhere — a grassroots project to provide food and funds for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Gilmore’s work is described in the Beacon Broadside, “Georgia Gilmore, Overlooked Activist […]