Social Justice Books

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

Out of Darkness

Reviewed by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Review Source: DeColores Book Author: On March 18, 1937, a natural gas leak led to a deadly explosion and collapse of the all-white school in New London, a town in East Texas. Ashley Hope Pérez, who grew up nearby, mined her grandmother’s recollections, archives, and historical narratives to build a complex and […]

Noko and the Kool Kats

Reviewed by Barbara A. Lehman Review Source: Africa Access Book Author: Moodie’s original, modern fable echoes classic folktale motifs, such as smaller animals helping bigger ones, solving a problem with brains and by working together, the very ones that should be helping are too lazy, and village life is just as good as city life. This […]

The Syria Dilemma

Reviewed by Jeff Epton Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Authors:  The Syrian civil war and the collapse of the Syrian state is the direct cause of the most severe ongoing humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world today. According to the United Nations, an estimated seven million Syrians are internally displaced and approximately four million […]

My Name Is Not Easy

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Yesterday I read Debby Dahl Edwardson’s My Name Is Not Easy. It is a powerful novel, moving me in the same ways that Joseph Bruchac’s Hidden Roots did. Powerful governmental institutions did some really horrible things to Indigenous people. My Name Is Not Easy […]

Me and Momma and Big John

Reviewed by Katie Seitz Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: Me and Momma and Big John is a quietly excellent children’s book that deserves attention as one of the best of 2012. Told through the voice of her oldest son, the book charts the progress of St. John the Divine’s first woman of color stonecutter […]

Marisol McDonald and the Monster: Marisol McDonald y El Monstruo

Reviewed by Elsa Gall Review Source: Reading While White Book Author: Marisol McDonald loves the letter m, but there is one “m word” she does not like: ¡MONSTRUO! She knows that monsters are not real, but she hears them beneath her bed and her vivid imagination gets the best of her. After begging family member after […]