Social Justice Books

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

nipêhon/I Wait

Reviewed by Alia Jones Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: nipêhon/I Wait by Caitlin Dale Nicholson and Leona Morin-Neilson is a follow up to their 2008 book Niwechihaw/I Help. This time, instead of a little Cree boy following his grandmother to pick rosehips, we meet a little Cree girl out with her grandmother and mother […]

Bowwow Powwow

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Due out on May 1, of 2018, is an absolutely terrific book, Bowwow Powwow, written by Brenda J. Child (Red Lake Ojibwe). The story she tells was translated into Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain (Lac La Croix First Nation), and Jonathan Thunder (Red Lake Ojibwe) did the extraordinary […]

When We Were Alone

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: When We Were Alone is one of those books that brought forth a lot of emotion as I read it. There were sighs of sadness for what Native people experienced at boarding schools, and sighs of—I don’t know, love, maybe—for our perseverance through it […]

Laura Ingalls is Ruining My Life

Reviewed by Allie Jane Bruce Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: At the outset of Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life, twelve-year-old Charlotte makes it clear that she finds her mom’s obsession with Laura Ingalls irritating. Anytime Mom or Rose (Charlotte’s younger sister) reference the Little House books or Laura Ingalls, Charlotte’s reaction is somewhere in […]

Wild Eggs: A Tale of Arctic Egg Collecting

Reviewed by Jean Mendoza Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Wild Eggs: A Tale of Arctic Egg Collecting opens with a little girl stepping off a bush plane, holding a stuffed polar bear. Akuluk and her mother have come from Yellowknife to a remote part of Nunavut. She is about to meet her maternal grandparents […]

Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection – Volume 2

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Edited by Hope Nicholson, Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 2 has stories from several people who you may know from previous AICL reviews of their work. In particular, I’m thinking of Richard Van Camp. Some of you may recall that he is Tlicho Dene from […]