Social Justice Books

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

Return to Sender

Reviewed by: Cindy L. Rodriguez Review Source: Latinxs in Kid Lit Book Author: Although Before We Were Free and Return to Sender are set in different countries, they have similarities. In Return to Sender, Mari and her family are migrant workers on a Vermont dairy farm. She encounters a mix of acceptance and scorn from her […]

I Lived on Butterfly Hill

Reviewed by: Deborah Menkart Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: While I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosín is beautifully written and exposes the horrors of the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile through the eyes of a young girl, I was shocked to find a casual, uncritical inclusion of Gone with the […]

Under the Royal Palms: A Childhood in Cuba

Reviewed by: Lila Quintero Weaver Review Source: Latinxs in Kid Lit Book Author: Written in clear prose charged with poetic flavor, Under the Royal Palms is a lovely collection of autobiographical stories that paint a rich picture of life for a 20th-century child in the riverside city of Camagüey, Cuba. Located in the interior of the island nation, […]

The Smell of Old Lady Perfume

Reviewed by Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez Review Source: De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children Book Author: Martínez’s debut young adult novel captures the turmoil of a family’s losing its center, and at the same time emphasizes the importance of staying in school. Chela’s parents are immigrants and her father makes clear that his options […]

Dead Girls Society

Reviewed by Cindy Baldwin Review Source: Disability in Kid Lit Book Author: When Hope, who has cystic fibrosis (CF) and is driven to distraction by her mother’s overprotective insistence on keeping Hope at home for the past several months, receives a strange invitation from a group that refers to itself as the Society, she throws caution […]

Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling

Reviewed by Angeline B. Adams Review Source: Disability in Kid Lit Book Author: What happened to Chess was so physically and emotionally distressing that she can’t even bring herself to share it with the reader, but it spurred her hospital admission and diagnosis with Crohn’s disease, a chronic illness affecting her digestive system. Her mum, determinedly […]