Elementary | Upper Elementary | Middle School | HS Fiction | HS / Adult Nonfiction
In honor of Women’s History Month, each day Social Justice Books features a children’s book we recommend to highlight grassroots women’s history in the United States: Women’s History Month: A Book Every Day
Teaching for Change carefully selects the best multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. Learn about our criteria for selecting titles. Feedback on these lists and suggestions for additional titles are welcome. Most of the books on these lists are linked for more information or purchase to Powells, an independent, union labor bookstore and/or Bookshop (an indie bookstore platform). Titles with reviews on this site are noted with an asterisk(*).
Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas
By Jeanne Walker Harvey and Loveis Wise (Illustrator)
Abuela's Weave *
By Omar S. Casteneda, Enrique O. Sanchez (Illustrator)
Recommended with caveat. See review: Abuela's Weave Review
Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World
By Cynthia Chin-Lee, Megan Halsey (Illustrator), Sean Addy (Illustrator)
Beautiful Shades of Brown: The Art of Laura Wheeler Waring
By Nancy Churnin and Felicia Marshall (Illustrator)
Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909
By Michelle Markel, Melissa Sweet (Illustrator)
Dorothea Lange: The Photographer Who Found the Faces of the Depression
By Carole Boston Weatherford and Sarah Green (Illustrator)
Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music*
By Margarita Engle, Rafael Lopez (Illustrator)
Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth: Educator, Feminist, and Anti-Lynching Civil Rights Leader
By Michelle Duster and Laura Freeman (Illustrator)
Keep Climbing, Girls
By Beah E. Richards, Lisagay Hamilton (Introduction by), R. Gregory Christie (Illustrator)
The Little Piano Girl: The Story of Mary Lou Williams, Jazz Legend
By Ann Ingalls, Maryann Macdonald, and Giselle Potter
Mamie on the Mound: A Woman in Baseball's Negro Leagues
By Leah Henderson, George Doutsiopoulos (Illustrator)
Miss Mary Reporting: The True Story of Sportswriter Mary Garber
By Sue Macy, C. F. Payne (Illustrator)
Me Llamo Celia/My Name Is Celia: La Vida de Celia Cruz/The Life Of Celia Cruz
By Monica Brown, Rafael Lopez (Illustrator)
Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan
By Jeanette Winter, Jeanette Winter (Illustrator)
On Our Way to Oyster Bay: Mother Jones and Her March for Children's Rights
By Monica Kulling and Felicita Sala (Illustrator)
Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth
By Anne Rockwell, R. Gregory Gregory Christie (Illustrator)
Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai
By Claire A. Nivola, Claire A. Nivola (Illustrator)
Rachel Carson: Preserving a Sense of Wonder (Images of Conservationists)
By Joseph Bruchac, Thomas Locker
Sharice's Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman *
By Sharice Davids, Nancy K. Mays, and Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (Illustrator)
She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
By Loki Mulholland, Angela Fairwell, Charlotta Janssen (Illustrator)
She Was the First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm
By Katheryn Russell-Brown and Eric Velasquez (Illustrator)
Someday Is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-ins
By Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Jade Johnson (Illustrator)
So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth's Long Walk Toward Freedom
By Gary Schmidt, Daniel Mintor (Illustrator)
Stitch by Stitch: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly Sews Her Way to Freedom
By Connie Schofield-Morrison and Elizabeth Zunon (Illustrator)
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)
What Do You Do with a Voice Like That? The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
By Chris Barton, Ekua Holmes (Illustrator)
Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman
By Kathleen Krull, David Diaz (Illustrator)
The Women Who Caught The Babies: A Story of African American Midwives*
By Eloise Greenfield, Daniel Minter(Illustrator)
Call Me Miss Hamilton: One Woman's Case for Equality and Respect
By Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Illustrator)
Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman's Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights*
By Mary Cronk Farrell
Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters
By Andrea Davis Pinkney, Stephen Alcorn, Stephen Alcorn (Illustrator)
Mae Makes a Way: The True Story of Mae Reeves, Hat & History Maker
By Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Andrea Pippins (Illustrator)
Mother Jones: Labor Leader
By Connie Colwell Miller, Steve Erwin (Illustrator), Charles Barnett III (Illustrator)
She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
By Loki Mulholland, Charlotta Janssen (Illustrator)
Shirley Chisholm Dared: The Story of the First Black Woman in Congress
By Alicia D. Williams and April Harrison (Illustrator)
A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson
By Michelle Y. Green, Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement*
By Carole Boston Weatherford
Deb Haaland: First Native American Cabinet Secretary *
By Matthew J. Martinez and Jill Doerfler
Iraqigirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq
By Iraqigirl
Mighty Justice: The Untold Story of Civil Rights Trailblazer Dovey Johnson Roundtree
By Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe
Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson's Flight from Slavery *
By Winifred Conkling
Rad American Women A-Z: Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries Who Shaped Our History . . . and Our Future!
By Kate Schatz, Miriam Klein Stahl (Illustrator)
Rad Girls Can: Stories of Bold, Brave, and Brilliant Young Women
By Kate Schatz, Miriam Klein Stahl (Illustrator)
Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks, and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History*
By Kate Schatz, Miriam Klein Stahl (Illustrator)
The Autobiography of Maria Elena Moyano: The Life and Death of a Peruvian Activist
By Diana M. Tupac (Editor), Patricia Taylor Edmisten (Translator)
Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine
By Lisa Jervis (Editor), Andi Zeisler (Editor)
Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism
By Daisy Hernandez (Editor), Bushra Rehman (Editor), Cherrie Moraga (Foreword by)
Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC
By Faith S. Holsaert (Editor), Martha Prescod Norman Noonan (Editor), Judy Richardson (Editor)
I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World
By Malala Yousafzai, Patricia McCormick (With)
Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement
By Janet Dewart Bell
Mary McLeod Bethune in Washington, D.C.: Activism and Education in Logan Circle
By Ida E. Jones, Elizabeth Clark-Lewis (Foreword by)
#NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women *
Edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale
Persistence: Evelyn Butts and the African American Quest for Full Citizenship and Self-Determination
By Kenneth Cooper Alexander
Revolutionary Women of Texas and Mexico: Portraits of Soldaderas, Saints, and Subversives
Edited by Kathy Sosa, Ellen Riojas Clark, and Jennifer Speed
Spíləx̣m: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence *
By Nicola I. Campbell
Tell Me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Works
By Tillie Olsen, Laurie Olsen (Foreword by), Rebekah Edwards (Introduction by)
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
Edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa
Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March
By Lynda Blackmon Lowery
Teaching Story from a D.C. Educator: Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom
Warriors Don't Cry: The Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
By Melba Pattillo Beals
We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists
By Melody Berger (Editor)
