Social Justice Books

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

Ban This Book

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Reviewed Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author:  On November 3, 2019, Mike M. submitted this comment to AICL’s post about Lois Lenski’s Indian Captive: I’ve come to Dr. Reese’s review of Indian Captive because of its appearance in Alan Gratz’s 2017 novel Ban this Book. Gratz’s story is about a schoolgirl standing up against […]

Vicki and A Summer of Change! ¡Vicki y un verano de cambio!

Reviewed by Paige Pagan Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: Vicki and a Summer of Change! ¡Vicki y un verano de cambio! is a bilingual picture book that teaches children a history often unacknowledged. While the 1960s in America marked a time of social movements around civil rights, the efforts and strides achieved by the […]

Portraits of Racial Justice: Americans Who Tell the Truth

Reviewed by Rethinking Schools Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: In his preface to Portraits of Racial Justice, Robert Shetterly describes his new volume as “an art book, a history book, a curriculum, a manifesto. It is a community of people unafraid to name the failures of this country and the injustices of power that benefit […]

Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Aslan and Kelly Tudor’s Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock is a non-fiction photo-essay published by EagleSpeaker Publishing. The “about” page tells us that the author, Aslan Tudor, was eight and nine years old during the period depicted in the book, and […]

Celebrate People’s History: The Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution

Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: It’s easy to lose oneself in this rich collection of more than 100 posters edited by Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative member Josh MacPhee. The beautiful posters, representing a range of artists and events in U.S. and world history, were originally posted in public spaces to counter the “endless barrage of […]

Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson

Review Source: Rethinking Schools Book Author: Paul Robeson was a towering figure in the 20th century. A brilliant scholar, athlete, singer, stage and film actor, activist, and revolutionary — and almost entirely erased from the curriculum, with a perfunctory sentence or two in U.S. history textbooks. This new graphic novel about Robeson’s life should be […]