Social Justice Books

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

Pride

Reviewed by Edith Campbell Review Source: Cotton Quilts Book Author: The stunning endpages of Pride set the story by presenting Zuri and Darius facing each other. Each is looking straight ahead, but neither one is looking at the other. You could say they both appear quite prideful. Zuri Benitez and her Haitian-Dominican family live in the Bushwick […]

Mirage

Reviewed by Suzanne Moyer Baazet Review Source: Africa Access Book Author: Mirage is a fictional novel that not only draws the reader into its story and prose, but challenges the reader to observe futurism and science fiction in a unique cultural context where it is not commonly used.  Readers familiar with Moroccan culture find themselves constantly encountering […]

Unpresidented: A Biography of Donald Trump

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indian’s in Children’s Literature Book Author: I haven’t done a rigorous study of biographies of US presidents. The ones I have looked at over the years are lacking in one way or another. Most leave out Native peoples and nations that presidents interacted with–or the information that is included, […]

They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems

Review by Beverly Slapin Review Source: De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children Book Author: Memories from the author’s own childhood experiences—as well as those of his son, his friends, and the young men he worked with as a middle-school teacher—inform this too-slim book of poetry from the perspective of a 12-year-old Chicano border […]

A Girl Called Echo

Reviewed by Jean Mendoza Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature  Book Author: Apple, Echo, and the Importance of “More Than One Book” Two Native high school girls, two unique stories about not fitting in, and about trying to make sense of Indigenous heritage/ancestry when something has disrupted their place in a Native community…. Most regular […]

Dactyl Hill Squad

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Some time back, I learned that Daniel José Older was working on a series that would blend history and fantasy. The first book in the series—Dactyl Hill Squad—is out and I gotta say, I enjoyed it! Older, by the way, is not […]