Social Justice Books

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

Illegal

Reviewed by Beverly Slapin Review Source: De Colores Book Author: The Cover A teenage girl stands on dirt mixed with brambles, pieces of ragweed, and burned-out remnants of cypress roots. Nothing will ever grow where she stands. The girl faces away from the reader and away from her home. Her eyes are focused ahead, at […]

We Are Here to Stay: Voices of Undocumented Young Adults

Reviewed by Beverly Slapin Review Source: De Colores Book Author: The original title of Kuklin’s book of interviews with undocumented young people was to be Out of the Shadows: Voices of Undocumented Young Adults. This was during the time of the Obama administration’s DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, which allowed individuals who were brought to the […]

Front Desk

Reviewed by Edi Campbell Review Source: Cotton Quilts Book Author: Front Desk is based in Kelly Yang’s real-life experiences, making it an #ownvoices novel. In the Author’s Notes, she explains how situations in the story evolved from her growing up and helping her parents manage three hotels in California. She also provides background information on […]

Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots

Reviewed by Rethinking Schools Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: Every 20th-century U.S. history class covers World War II. However, the 1943 attack by white sailors on Mexican Americans, Filipinos, and African Americans in Los Angeles, known as the Zoot Suit Riots, gets little mention. Author Margarita Engle uses free verse to bring this history […]

The Women Who Caught the Babies: A Story of African American Midwives

Reviewed by Deborah Menkart Reviewed Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: Renowned children’s book author Eloise Greenfield opens her latest title with a note to readers, “I want to take you back only as far as the Africa of a few hundred years ago. That’s when millions of Africans were forced from their homelands, brought […]

When Morning Comes

Reviewed by Meena Khorana Book Source: African Access Book Author: Set against the background of the 1976 Soweto student march against the Bantu Education Act, When Morning Comes is a multi-faceted novel that covers many important themes: the segregation of Black, White, and Indian racial groups in apartheid South Africa; the intelligence and determination of Black youth to […]