Social Justice Books

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

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 […]

A Time to Dance

Reviewed by Jessica Walton Review Source: Disability in Kid Lit Book Author: A Time to Dance is the story of Veda, a teenage dancer injured in a car accident on the way home from a dance competition. She has her right leg amputated below the knee, and is devastated when her dance teacher doesn’t want her in […]

Six of Crows

Reviewed by Natasha Razi Review Source: Disability in Kid Lit Book Author: At its heart, Six of Crows is a classic heist story: a group of interesting, messed-up people facing a seemingly impossible crime — in this case, breaking a prisoner out of a high-security prison. Within this framework, Bardugo weaves together five points of view, […]

The Stars Beneath Our Feet

Reviewed by Megan Schliesman Review Source: Reading While White Book Author: Offering hope, acknowledging hardship. Debut author David Barclay Moore writes with open eyes about the challenges of Lolly’s life as a Black boy in a poor neighborhood on the cusp of young adulthood, and with eyes just as wide he shows the many things Lolly […]

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal

Reviewed by: Deborah Menkart Reviewed Source: Zinn Education Project Book Author: Using her trademark style—multiple voices in free verse to share untold historical events —Margarita Engle introduces young readers to the builders of the Panama Canal. The protagonist is Mateo, a young boy from the Caribbean, lured with promises of good pay and work. Instead, […]