Social Justice Books

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

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People

Reviewed by Jen Forbus Review Source: Shelf Awareness Book Author: Curriculum specialists Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza have adapted Indigenous human rights activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s acclaimed academic text An Indigenous People’s History of the United States for young readers. This history of North America’s native tribal nations rebuts popular cultural beliefs and offers school-aged children a different perspective […]

Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday

Reviewed by Lidwien Kapteijns, Ph.D. Wellesley College Review Source: Africa Access Book Author: This action novel is a page-turner from beginning to end. The story is set in near-contemporary Mogadishu, Somalia, where the armed Islamist movement called Al-Shabaab conducts terrorist attacks on civilian targets, while African peacekeeping troops and U.S. anti-terrorism units try to contain […]

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 […]

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 […]

Pride

Reviewed by Edith Campbell Review Source: Cotton Quilts Book Author: The stunning endpages of Pride set the story by presenting Zuri and Darius facing each other. Each is looking straight ahead, but neither one is looking at the other. You could say they both appear quite prideful. Zuri Benitez and her Haitian-Dominican family live in the Bushwick […]

Unpresidented: A Biography of Donald Trump

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indian’s in Children’s Literature Book Author: I haven’t done a rigorous study of biographies of US presidents. The ones I have looked at over the years are lacking in one way or another. Most leave out Native peoples and nations that presidents interacted with–or the information that is included, […]