Social Justice and Antiracist Children’s Reading List: Over 250 Home, Library, and Curriculum Recommendations for Kids Aged 0-18

• Most of the authors on this list are BIPOC authors and it focuses on books to help foster antiracism. • While all reads are teachable reads (in one way or another), this list includes a mix of books that could be considered “pleasure reads” and “curricular” books. • This list is intersectional and includes books about race, culture, LGBTQIA+ folx, gender, world religions, disability, bullying, mental health, body positivity, assault, war, civil rights, human rights, and feminism. • This is a small, living document meant to be edited and grow. There are many more amazing books on these topics to explore beyond what’s featured here.

Resources: The Conscious Kid Patreon 1000 Black Girl Books We All Grow Latina authors list Scholastic “10 LGBTQ+ for Every Kid’s Bookshelf” Bookriot: 20 Best Asian American Reads in 2020 American Indians in Children’s Literature American Indian Library Association 44 of the Best Books by Black Authors You Should Read in Your Lifetime Diversity in Graphic Novels NCTE BookToss Dr. Kimberly N. Parker Latinx in Kid Lit I’m Here, I’m Queer, What The Hell Do I Read? Disability in Kid Lit Celebrating Every Body: 25 Body Image Positive Books for Mighty Girls 9 children's books to promote body positivity, from ages 2-12 Multicultural Children’s Book Day National Council of Teachers of English Booklists

One of the better social justice book resources with over 60 different multicultural and social Justice Book Lists: Social Justice Books

Ages 0-5: We Are Different We Are The Same Heather Has Two Mommies And Tango Makes Three The Snowy Day

1 Dream Big, Little One Homemade Love Every Little Thing Pretty Brown Face I Love My Hair Little You My Heart Fills With Happiness Who Will You Be It’s Okay to be Different Pride Colors C is for Consent The Catrina Bee-Bim Bop! What I Like About Me! M is for Melanin (4-6) The King of Kindergarten (4-6) Max and the Tag-Along Moon (3-7) Lovely (3-7) Sweetest Kulu (3-7) You Hold Me Up (3-8) When We are Kind (3-8)

Ages 5-8: Dragonfly Kites (4-7) New Year at the Pier (4-8) Respect (4-8) I Dissent (4-8) We Are Water Protectors (4-8) Birdsong (4-8) The Girl and the Wolf (4-8) Jingle Dancer (4-8) Eyes that Kiss in the Corner (4-8) I am Jazz Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag Paper Kingdom Jubari Jumps Windows Brave Girl Julian in a Mermaid Last Stop on Market Street Your Name is a Song I Am Every Good Thing I Am Enough Hair Love

2 My Hair is a Garden Don’t Touch My Hair The Thing About Bees I Believe I Can Ellington Is Not A Street Firebird Mommy’s Khimar Hidden Figures All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom The Roots of Rap Crown: An Ode to a Fresh Cut This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration Just Like a Mama Sulwe He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands All Because You Matter My People The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family I Too, Am America Mae Among the Stars Sing a Song: How "Lift Every Voice and Sing" Inspired Generations Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane Not Quite Snow White A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks The Undefeated The Day You Begin Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills Coretta Scott Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon Knock Knock: My Dad’s Dream For Me Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis Sugar Hill: Harlem's Historic Neighborhood I Am Perfectly Designed Selena Dreamers Separate is Never Equal It Began With Page Where Are You From We Are Water Protectors Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged

3 I Am Not A Number Ruth and the Green Book When We Were Alone Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga That’s Not Fair: Emma Tenayuca’s Struggle for Justice Alma and how She Got Her Name A Different Pond My Papi Has A Motorcycle Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop Missing Daddy Bedtime Bonnet Just Like Me The Arabic Quilt Dancing Hands Viva Frida EllRay Jakes is Not a Chicken They She He Me: Free to Be! The Gender Wheel Bowwow Powwow When Aidan Became a Brother When We Love Someone Tito Puente Mambo King Tan to Tamarind Lailah's Lunchbox: A Ramadan Story Meet Yasmin! Look Up! The Only Child Before She Was Harriet Midnight Teacher: Lilly Ann Granderson and Her Secret School Mama's Nightingale (4-9) When I Was Eight (6-8) She Was the First!: The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm (5-9) Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X (6-9) Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life (6-10) Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story (6-11) Hiawatha and the Peacemaker (5-10) At the Mountain’s Base (3-8)

Ages 8-12: The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore (7-10) The Whispering Town (7-11) Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Show Me A Sign

4 George Young Gifted and Black: Meet 52 Black Heroes from Past and Present Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas Take A Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee! Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement Wonder A Single Shard Kinda Like Brothers Hidden Figures Young Readers Edition Suger Plum Ballerinas Nikki and Deja The Iron Trial The Carver Chronicles New Kid 1001 Cranes Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky The Season of Styx Malone Merci Suarez, Changes Gears One Crazy Summer Front Desk As Brave as You What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors Clean Getaway Clayton Byrd Goes Underground Dragons in a Bag A Boy Called Bat Indian No More Once Upon and Eid The Witch Boy Hurricane Child Stella Díaz Has Something to Say Jada Jones series Return To Sender The Real Boy El Deafo Genesis Begins Again Prairie Lotus Handbook For Dragon Slayers Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: Young Reader’s Edition Enrique’s Journey: Young Reader’s Edition The Distance Between Us: Young Reader’s Edition Brown Girl Dreaming (10+) The Crossover series (10+) The Stars Beneath our Feet (10+)

5 Ghost series (10+) The Wild Book (10-12) The Skin I’m In (11-13) Marley Dias Gets It Done (10-13) Before the Ever After (10+) Undocumented (8-14+) Code Talkers (8-14+) The Stars Beneath Our Feet (10-13) Standing Up Against Hate: How Black Women in the Army Helped Change the Course of WWII (10-14) American Born Chinese (10-14) Enchanted Air (10-14) Marcelo in the Real World (10-14) The Go-Between (10-14) After Tupac and D Foster (10-14) Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling (10-14)

Ages 12+: Punching the Air The Boy in the Black Suit X: A Novel Children of Blood and Bone Black Enough With Fire on High Dear Martin Say Her Name Dumplin' Miles Morales: Spider-Man Piecing Me Together Flygirl House on Mango Street Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You They Called Us Enemy Patron Saints of Nothing It’s Not Like It’s A Secret Wonder Woman This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work Burn Baby Burn (14+) The Poet X (14+) Everything, Everything (14+) The Sun is Also a Star (14+) Mexican White Boy (14+) Darius The Great Is Not Okay (14+) Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (14+)

6 When Dimple Met Rishi (14+) The Astonishing Color of After (14+) Loveboat, Taipei (14+) The Brooklyn Brujas (14+) Pet (14+) Shadowshaper (14+) You Bring the Distant Near (14+) All the Boys Aren’t Blue (14+) American Street (14+) Clap When You Land (14+) The Hate U Give (14+) Not So Pure and Simple (14+) The Surrender Tree (14+) Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (14+) Will Grayson, Will Grayson (14 +) Six of Crows (14+) Not Otherwise Specified (14+) When Reason Breaks (14+) The Upside of Unrequited (14+) History is all You Left Me (14+) Don’t Touch (14+) Far from You (14+) Hearts Unbroken (14+) From The Notebooks of Melanin Sun (14+) The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali (14+) Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (14+) Persepolis (14+) Speak (14+) March (13-16)

High School Juniors/Seniors (adult audience, complex literary reads, or mature content): Americanah The Dark Fantastic Between The World and Me We Should All Be Feminists The Bluest Eye In Love and Trouble James Baldwin: The Complete Works The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Their Eyes Were Watching God Stamped from the Beginning White Fragility How to be an Antiracist

7 The Selected Works of Audre Lorde Kindred Invisible Man A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni Native Son Salvage the Bones Roots The New Jim Crow Sister Outsider The Yellow House Redefining Realness A Raisin in the Sun Go Tell it on the Mountain Grand Union Sing, Unburied, Sing Hunger The Underground Railroad How We Fight For Our Lives American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese Internment Experience The Namesake Pachinko The Leavers TRICKSTER: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection The Vanishing Half The Joy Luck Club Hamilton: The Revolution

Popular “Classic” Books/Authors to consider avoiding—or reading with carefully planned discussions about their problematic nature and the consent of the young readers so that they aren’t triggered or hurt by these works: The whole Dr. Seuss cannon (blackface and racial caricature) To Kill a Mockingbird (White Savior book) American Dirt (appropriation and caricature) Julie of the Wolves (inaccurate representation) Just Lucky (appropriation, caricature, and trauma glamorization) The Light in the Forest (dated, inaccurate, inappropriate slurs, disdain for women) Little House on the Prairie (racist) Indian in the Cupboard (caricature) Gone with the Wind (nostalgic for a time when people were enslaved)

8 Five Chinese Brothers (dated, caricatures) Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Series (dated) Island of Blue Dolphins (inaccurate representation) JK Rowling—disavows the authenticity of trans people, encouraging violence Sherman Alexi—outed by Me Too movement

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