Social Justice Books

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

We Still Belong

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Author: What I particularly like about Christine Day’s books is that she includes things that I know kids know about. For example, young people are way into video games and gamer culture. More about that later. Early on in her book, we learn that Wesley […]

Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi!

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Look at the cover of Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi! See the purple rectangle on the top right corner that says “Story Telling MATH” in it? This book is a story about math! And I am delighted to share it with AICL’s readers. […]

The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: In 2021, two terrific anthologies were published. First was When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (edited by Joy Harjo). Harjo’s anthology has writers from many different nations. I recommend you get a copy […]

A Letter for Bob

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Several years ago, I was invited to a first grade classroom to talk with the children about Native Americans. One child met me at the school door and was intent on scanning the parking lot. Then he said, “Where’s your horse?” I […]

Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series

Reviewed by: Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: A few years ago, I would do tweet reviews and sometimes, I’d use a platform (Storify) that would gather the tweets into a single document, and then I’d plop that document in a blog post. People liked that tweet-review-turned-into-blog-post a lot. But […]

Remember

Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Look at the book cover. Above the single-word title, Remember, you will see the name of the author — Joy Harjo — and the illustrator — Michaela Goade — and in front of their names you’ll see these words: “U.S. Poet Laureate” and […]