Social Justice Books

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

Those Shoes

Reviewed by Eden Grey Review Source: Reading Is Resistance Book Author:  Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts is a sweet and touching story that addresses issues of social justice, empathy, generosity, and selflessness through the eyes of a young boy named Jeremy and his pursuit of a new pair of shoes. After his sneakers fall apart […]

Love, Violet

Reviewed by Catherine Taunton Review Source: Reading Is Resistance Book Author:  All day long, Violet’s stomach lurched. What if Violet couldn’t give her valentine? What if Mira didn’t want her valentine? What if . . . they never adventured? In Love, Violet by Charlotte Sullivan Wild, we see Violet create, contemplate, and inevitably give her […]

Ten Beautiful Things

Reviewed by Catherine Taunton Review Source: Reading Is Resistance Book Author:  None of this was easy. Maybe it would never be easy. But she belonged with Gram now. She belonged here now. This place wasn’t empty and neither was she. In Ten Beautiful Things by Molly Beth Griffin, the main character, Lily, goes through a […]

The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon

Reviewed Aisha Kiani Review Source: I Dream Library Book Author: The story of Viola Desmond’s act of resistance against segregation in a Nova Scotia theater is one we’ve been teaching and including in lesson plans and book lists since we began our work with teachers in 2019. The book we’ve used is a kidlit picture […]

Just Like Grandma

Reviewed by Amy Buckelew-Foster Review Source: Reading Is Resistance Book Author:  Together they flutter like the most beautiful butterflies Grandpa has ever seen, until the sun dips below the tree line and he calls them in for fried chicken. Just Like Grandma is a beautiful story of a multigenerational Native American family in a contemporary […]

Sebastian’s Apartment Family

Reviewed by Makai Kellogg Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: Sebastian’s Apartment Family was written by three mothers in a Shout Mouse Press workshop. They open the book with a dedication: “We wrote this book for the villages that help to raise our children.”  This colorful and engaging book centers collective caregiving. As a […]