Social Justice Books

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

The Night Before Eid: A Muslim Family Story

Reviewed by Heba F. El-Shazli Reviewed Source: Africa Access Book Author: The holy month of Ramadan is a special time of the year for every Muslim family around the world. The end of Ramadan is joyfully celebrated with a holiday named Eid El Fitr, which celebrates the end of a month of fasting from sunrise […]

Fly High, Lolo

Reviewed by Patricia Kuntz Reviewed Source: Africa Access Book Author: Niki Daly is a well known children’s picture book author/illustrator.  The Children’s Africana Book Award committee has recognized his excellence in several picture books:  Jamela’s Dress (1999), What’s Cooking Jamela (2001) and Once Upon a Time (2003). Fly High, Lolo is Daly’s fourth book about Lolo, a young girl in […]

Bottle Tops: The Art of El Anatsui

Reviewed by Veronika Jenke Reviewed Source: Africa Access Book Author: The picture book Bottle Tops: The Art of El Anatsui introduces El, as he calls himself, and his innovative process of creating massive assemblages that are both textile-like and sculptural. A  living artist born in Ghana, West Africa,  El  lives, teaches and works as an […]

Door of No Return

Reviewed by Elizabeth Abena Osei Reviewed Source: Africa Access Book Author: When I was eight years old, my mother introduced me to slave narratives with Meet Addy, the story of the Black enslaved girl in the American Girl Book Collection. It was one of the first times I read about slavery from the perspective of a […]

Sugar Town Queens

Reviewed by Barbara B. Brown and Rehana Odendaal Reviewed Source: Africa Access Book Author: Sugar Town Queens tells the story of Amandla, a 15-year-old mixed race South African girl, living on the edge of hunger in a Black shantytown, with her white mother. Her mother totters between reality and the life she lost years earlier. The […]

Home is Not a Country

Reviewed by Lidwien Kapteijns Reviewed Source: Africa Access Book Author: This book, a novel in free verse and written for young adult readers, is a story that delights in countless ways. Written by the young Sudanese American writer and poet Safia Elhillo, it tells the story of a teenage, Muslim, first-generation immigrant girl, called Nima […]