Social Justice Books

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

Fatima’s Great Outdoors

Reviewed by Paige Pagan Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: Fatima is having a hard time adjusting to her new life in the United States and is looking forward to camping, what her Papa calls “a great American pastime,” (p. 2) as a means of escaping from the bullying and isolation she experiences in her […]

Sleeping with the Light On

Reviewed by Brad Manker Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author:  Sleeping with the Light On is a short chapter book recounting one family’s experience during the first days of the CIA-sponsored Guatemalan coup d’etat in 1954. The story is peppered with anecdotes about young protagonist Davico’s daily life in Guatemala City, such as his fascination […]

Home Is in Between

Reviewed by Paige Pagan Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author:  Mitali Perkins’ words paired with Lavanya Naidu’s art aptly captures an immigrant’s exhausting reality of living in between two spaces and cultures in this picture book for early elementary children. Perkins says in her author’s note, “The space between cultures doesn’t have to be a […]

One Wish: Fatima Al-Fihri and the World’s Oldest University

Reviewed by Paige Pagan Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: One Wish is a powerful narrative about a Muslim woman whose faith, passion, and determination led to something greater than herself. Fatima was born in a time and place where boys went to school and girls were tutored at home. Fatima wished that she could […]

¡Brigadistas! An American Anti-Fascist in the Spanish Civil War

Reviewed by Bill Fletcher Review Source: Monthly Review Book Author: Sometime prior to my eighth birthday, my great-grandfather, the poet, writer, and anthologist William Stanley Braithwaite, bought me my first comic book. For reasons that I have long since forgotten, we walked to a pharmacy on the corner of Edgecombe Avenue and St. Nicholas Place […]