Social Justice Books

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

Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks, and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History

Reviewed by Rethinking Schools Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: From the authors of Rad American Women A-Z, Rad Women Worldwide has a similarly defiant and playful approach, featuring a few women students may have heard of, but mostly introducing little-known “rad” women who are “passionate, purposeful, and totally powerful.” It’s hard not to fall in […]

Hidden Figures: Young Readers Edition

Reviewed by Tameka Brown Review Source: The Brown Bookshelf Book Author: The book pays homage to four trailblazing African American human computers–Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden–who served as an integral part of NASA/NACA at the height of the Space Race between America and Russia. In November 2016, HarperCollins released the Young […]

One of a Kind, Like Me/Unico Como Yo

Reviewed by Latinx in Kid Lit Review Source: Latinx in Kid Lit Book Author: One of a Kind Like Me/Único como yo is a book every elementary school should own. It takes the subject of gender identity out of the public discourse, where morality and religion weigh heavily in the debate, and puts it into the personal […]

Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life

Reviewed by Megan Schliesman Review Source: Reading While White Book Author: Peggy, John, Charlotte and child, Stephen, Mulvina, Jane, Athelia, Qush, Bacus, Betty. It is with little more than these names that this book began. Ashley Bryan explains in his author’s note that he acquired a collection of slave-related documents and found among them an 1828 […]

All American Boys: A Novel

Reviewed by Zetta Elliot Review Source: Zetta Elliot Book Author: Jason Reynolds It’s an important book, I’m glad it exists. I’ve read all of Jason Reynolds’ books and went into this one worried he’d give short shrift to Black girls—and I wasn’t disappointed. Despite giving a shout out in the acknowledgments section to women who […]