Titles that we recommend are featured below. The ones with reviews are noted with an asterisk (*). Some titles are recommended with a caveat.

There is also a comprehensive list of free downloadable lessons, books, film, websites, and articles for teaching about labor at our Zinn Education Project website.

See related titles on these lists: Organizing | Work

Children

Annie Shapiro and the Clothing Workers' Strike

By Marlene Targ Brill

Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909

By Michelle Markel, Melissa Sweet (Illustrator)

Cesar: !Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!

By Carmen Bernier-Grand, David Diaz (Illustrator)

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type

By Doreen Cronin

In Spanish: Clic, Clac, Muu Vacas Escritoras

Ella Jenkins & a Union of Friends Pulling Together (Songs)

By Ella Jenkins (Performed by)

Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman's Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights*

By Mary Cronk Farrell

Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet in Spanish and English

By Alma Flor Ada, Simon Silva (Illustrator)

Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong *

By Dawn Bohulano Mabalon and Gayle Romasanta

Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 *

By Alice Faye Duncan, R. Gregory Christie (Illustrator)

Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A.

By Diana Cohn, Paul Mirocha, Francisco Delgado (Illustrator)

OUT OF PRINT

A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington

By Carole Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders

Still Dreaming / Seguimos Soñando

By Claudia Guadalupe Martínez. Magdalena Mora (Illustrator)
An interview with the author.

That's Not Fair!/No Es Justo!: Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice/La Lucha de Emma Tenayuca Por La Justicia

By Carmen Tafolla, Sharyll Teneyuca, Terry Ybanez (Illustrator)

Unstoppable: How Bayard Rustin Organized the 1963 March on Washington

By Michael G. Long

Middle

Jessie de La Cruz: Profile of a United Farm Worker

By Gary Soto

Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor

By Russell Freedman, Lewis Hine (Photographer)

Shift Happens: The History of Labor in the United States

By J. Albert Mann

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal *

By Margarita Engle

Voices from the Fields: Children of Migrant Farmworkers Tell Their Stories

By S. Beth Atkin

Young Adult

101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed US History

By Michele Bollinger (Editor), Dao X. Tran (Editor)

Black Coal and Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars

By Raymond Tyler

A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America

By Ronald T. Takaki

Lawrence and the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike

By Dr Robert Forrant, Susan Grabski

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

By Barbara Ehrenreich

A Shoeleather History of the Wobblies: Stories of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Connecticut

By Steve Thornton

Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century

By Howard Zinn, Dana Frank, and Robin D. G. Kelley

Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World

By Paul Buhle (Editor), Nicole Schulman (Editor)

A Young People's History of the United States: Revised and Updated

By Howard Zinn, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff, additions by Ed Morales

Adult

10,000 Black Men Named George *

DVD

The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs

Edited by Phillip S. Foner

Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America

By Dana Frank

Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly

By Peter Cole

Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century

By Randy Shaw

Black Workers' Struggle for Equality in Birmingham

Horace Huntley and David Montgomery (Editors)

Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of Us Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade

By Jeff Schuhrke

Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream

By Bruce Watson

Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism

By Allyson P. Brantley

Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality

By Eric Arnesen

Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century

By Chad E Pearson

Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South

Robert Rodgers Korstad

Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America

By Joseph A. McCartin

Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America

By James Green

The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom

By James Green

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

By Ronald Takaki

The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation's Golden Age

By Jake S. Friedman

Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart

By Tom Sito

From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement

By Fred Glass

From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States

By Priscilla Murolo, A. B. Chitty, Joe Sacco (Illustrator)

Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals: A Documentary History of the West Virginia Mine Wars

By David A. Corbin (Editor)

Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression

By Robin D. G. Kelley

Household Workers Unite: The Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement

By Premilla Nadasen

A History of America in Ten Strikes

By Erik Loomis

I Didn't Come Here to Lie: My Life and Education

By Karen Lewis and Elizabeth Todd-Breland

Life Interrupted: Trafficking Into Forced Labor in the United States

By Denise Brennan

No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era

By Jacqueline Jones

No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age

By Jane F. McAlevey

A People's History of the United States

By Howard Zinn

Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement

Edited by Jeff Ordower and Lindsay Zafir

Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement

By Jane McAlevey, Bob Ostertag

Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland

By Jeff Biggers

Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power

Edited by Matthew Hild and Keri Leigh Merritt

Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class

By Larry Tye

Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress

By Steve Early

The Silver Women: How Black Women's Labor Made the Panama Canal

By Joan Flores-Villalobos

Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend

By Scott Reynolds Nelson

Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve

By Michael Charney (Editor), Jesse Hagopian (Editor), Bob Peterson (Editor)

They're Bankrupting Us! And 20 Other Myths about Unions

By Bill Fletcher

To 'joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors After the Civil War

By Tera W. Hunter

Where Are the Workers? Labor's Stories at Museums and Historic Sites

Edited by Robert Forrant and Mary Anne Trasciatti

Women and the American Labor Movement

By Philip S. Foner

Women Strikers Occupy Chain Stores, Win Big: The 1937 Woolworth's Sit-Down

By Dana Frank

Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie

By Ellen Cassedy, Foreword by Jane Fonda

Teaching Guides

Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades

By Mary Cowhey

Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World

By Bill Bigelow (Editor), Bob Peterson (Editor)

It is worth noting that there are few new titles in the Labor History and Organizing category and many of the classic titles are out of print and only available as used copies. For example, Yes We Can! about the Justice for Janitors strike and the McKissacks' A Long Hard Journey about the Pullman porters are out of print. Meanwhile, publishers issue new books about a few individual labor leaders such as Mother Jones and Cesar Chavez. While both individuals merit attention, young people need more stories of grassroots labor organizing across race, geography, and workplaces. Check out the list of titles above and advocate for more titles to add to the list.

Learn More

- Unions, Work, and Class in the Early Childhood Classroom by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards
- Comprehensive list of free downloadable lessons, books, films, websites, and articles for teaching about labor at our Zinn Education Project website
- Labor History Without Unions in Young Adult Fiction by Deborah Overstreet

Most of the books on this page are linked for more information or purchase to Bookshop (an indie bookstore platform). While we always encourage people to boycott anti-labor Amazon, it is all the more relevant for this labor list!

A small percentage from book sales through these links goes to Teaching for Change to support Social Justice Books.

If you value this book list, please help us promote it and create more book lists.

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Children

By Marlene Targ Brill

By Emily Arnold McCully, Emily Arnold McCully (Illustrator)

By Michelle Markel, Melissa Sweet (Illustrator)

Calling the Doves *

By Juan Felipe Herrera, Elly Simmons (Illustrator)

By Carmen Bernier-Grand, David Diaz (Illustrator)

By Doreen Cronin

By Ella Jenkins (Performed by)

Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman's Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights*

By Mary Cronk Farrell

By Alma Flor Ada, Simon Silva (Illustrator)

Joelito's Big Decision*

By Ann Berlak, Daniel Camacho (Illustrator), Jose Antonio Galloso

Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong *

By Dawn Bohulano Mabalon and Gayle Romasanta

By Don Brown, Don Brown (Illustrator)

Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 *

By Alice Faye Duncan, R. Gregory Christie (Illustrator)

By Connie Colwell Miller, Steve Erwin (Illustrator), Charles Barnett III (Illustrator)

By Diana Cohn, Amy Cordova

Side by Side / Lado A Lado*

By Monica Brown

Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A.

By Diana Cohn, Paul Mirocha, Francisco Delgado (Illustrator)

OUT OF PRINT

By Carole Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders

By Claudia Guadalupe Martínez. Magdalena Mora (Illustrator) An interview with the author.

By Carmen Tafolla, Sharyll Teneyuca, Terry Ybanez (Illustrator)

By Michael G. Long

Viva's Voice *

By Raquel Donoso and Carlos Vélez (Illustrator)

Middle

By Harriet Zaidman

By Elizabeth Winthrop

By Pam Muñoz Ryan

By Susan Campbell Bartoletti

By Gary Soto

By Russell Freedman, Lewis Hine (Photographer)

By Katherine Paterson

By Lynn Rubright, Patricia McKissack

By Harriette Gillem Robinet

By Candice Ransom

By Aida Salazar

By J. Albert Mann

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal *

By Margarita Engle

By Jewell Parker Rhodes

Three Strike Summer *

By Skyler Schrempp

By S. Beth Atkin

Young Adult

By Michele Bollinger (Editor), Dao X. Tran (Editor)

By Raymond Tyler

By Katherine Paterson

By Ronald T. Takaki

By Martin Duberman

By Susan Campbell Bartoletti

By Dr Robert Forrant, Susan Grabski

By Alice Childress, foreword by Roxane Gay

By Barbara Ehrenreich

By Peter Blood (Other), Annie Patterson (Other)

By Steve Thornton

By Howard Zinn, Dana Frank, and Robin D. G. Kelley

By Margaret Peterson Haddix

By Paul Buhle (Editor), Nicole Schulman (Editor)

By Howard Zinn, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff, additions by Ed Morales

Adult

10,000 Black Men Named George *

DVD

Edited by Phillip S. Foner

By Dana Frank

By Sarumathi Jayaraman, Eric Schlosser (Foreword by)

By Peter Cole

By Randy Shaw

Horace Huntley and David Montgomery (Editors)

By Jeff Schuhrke

By Bruce Watson

By Allyson P. Brantley

By Eric Arnesen

By Claudia Guadalupe Martínez. Magdalena Mora (Illustrator)
An interview with the author.