AGES 4-8 / GRADES K-3

Jacob Lawrence (A and ILT)

List Price: $9.99 (Paperback – African American History / Migration North 1900 – 2007)

A noted African-American artist chronicles the 1916-1919 migration of blacks from the South through a sequence of 60 paintings and accompanying narrative captions. The story begins with the call for new…

Kekla Magoon (A) and Laura Freeman (ILT) 

List Price: $17.99 (Hardcover – First Black Supreme Court Justice – 2022)

A brilliant picture book biography about Thurgood Marshall, who fought for equality during the Civil Rights Movement and served as the first Black justice on the Supreme Court, from Coretta…

Peter Golenbock (A) and Paul Lee (A) and (ILT)

List Price: $7.99 (Paperback – Biography / Sports / Baseball – 2005)

This is a true story about one of baseballs most heroic superstars who is best known for beating Babe Ruth’s record. Later he was admitted into Baseballs elite…

Chris Barton (A) and Don Tate (ILT) 

List Price: $17.99 (Hardcover – Biography / Inventor –  2016)

You know the Super Soaker. It’s one of top twenty toys of all time. And it was invented entirely by accident. Trying to create a new cooling system for refrigerators and air conditioners, impressive inventor Lonnie…

James Ransome (A and ILT) 

List Price: $17.99 (Hardcover – Siblings Escape to Freedom – 2019)

A young slave girl witnesses the heartbreak and hopefulness of her family and their plantation community when her brother escapes for freedom in this brilliantly conceived picture book by Coretta Scott King Award winner James E. Ransome.

…

Ramona Thomas Nickens (A) and Tammy Artis (ILT)

List Price: $12.00 (Softcover – Social Situation / Nutrition – 2011)

Little Kyndle has an ear infection so his Mommy takes him to see the family doctor. At Doctor Wizmagic office she mixes up some magical potion to cure patients and puts it…

Verna Aardema (A), Leo Dillon (ILT), & Diane Dillon (ILT)

List Price: $8.99 (Paperback – Folk Tale / West Africa – 2004)

In this astonishingly beautiful and imaginatively illustrated picture book, Mosquito tells Iguana a tall…

Beautiful Black and Brown boys are the stars in this level 1 Step Into Reading book from the Happy Hair series. It’s a bright, joyful easy reader that will have boys everywhere saying “I am born to be awesome!”

Kids will love seeing strong, happy reflections of themselves in this vibrant, rhyming, level 1 reader…

From New York Times bestselling author Jemar Tisby, I Am the Spirit of Justice uses lyrical text and moving illustrations to take children on a journey through the history of the United States of America, highlighting the ways people have been fighting for justice from the very beginning.

The fight for civil rights in America…

What happens when a community discovers that vegetables have more to teach than just how to fill a plate?

Farmer B has spent a lifetime feeding his town, but when age and loneliness creep in, he wonders: who will carry the harvest forward? Then, a chorus of children, neighbors, and even the veggies themselves step…

Peter H. Reynolds (A) and (ILT)

List Price: $17.99 (Hardcover – Family Dinner Table – 2021) 

Creative visionary of The Word Collector, Happy Dreamer, and The Dot, #1 New York Times bestseller Peter H. Reynolds creates a tender, lyrical story of multigenerational love, tradition, and family coming together with gratitude…

Tonya Bolden (A) and Don Tate (ILT)

List Price: $18.39 (Hardcover – Farmer / Potato King – 2018)

Discover the incredible true story of how one of history’s most successful potato farmers began life as a slave and worked until he was named the “Potato King of the World”!

Junius G. Groves came from humble…

Brenda C. Roberts (A), Frank Morrison (A) and (ILT)

List Price: $16.99 (Hardcover – Dancing / Friends – 2004)

Jazzy Miz Mozetta is the winner of the 2005 Coretta Scott King – John Steptoe New Talent Award

One fine evening, Miz Mozetta puts on her firecracker-red dress and heads outside to enjoy the…

Misty Copeland (A) and Christopher Myers (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – Biography / Ballerina – 2014)

In her debut picture book, Misty Copeland tells the story of a young girl–an every girl–whose confidence is fragile and who is questioning her own ability to reach the heights that Misty has reached. Misty encourages this young…

Kebir Sehgal (A) and Surishtha Sehgal (A) and Zara Gonzalez Hoang (ILT) 

List Price: $18.84 (Hardcover – East India / Siblings – 2018)

Three siblings enjoy the Indian festival of Raksha Bandhan—a celebration of the special relationship between brothers and sisters—in this vibrant reinterpretation of the classic song Frère Jacques (Are You Sleeping) from New York Times bestselling mother/son…

Kathryn Erksine (A) and Charly Parker (ILT)

List Price: $22.50 (Hardcover – South Africa / Singer / Activist – 2017)

Miriam Makeba, a Grammy Award–winning South African singer, rose to fame in the hearts of her people at the pinnacle of apartheid―a brutal system of segregation similar to American Jim Crow laws. Mama…

The New York Times bestselling team behind Parker Looks Up returns with this Level 1 Ready-to-Read about trying to make a good day out of a bad one.

Parker is not having a good day.  All she wants is some time alone to read her book, but her brother and sister will not stop following…

Black Hair Styles, Love and Black History 

A young girl learns to appreciate her curly, coarse hair by learning about the rich heritage of African and African American hairstyles from her grandmother.

Ellen Levin (A) and Kadir Nelson (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – African American History /Escape to Freedom – 2007)

A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist.

Henry Brown doesn’t know how old he…

In this timely follow-up to the best-selling, genre-defining Young, Gifted and Black, you can meet 52 more Black icons from around the world – this time spanning even more countries and including inspiring figures from as far back as the 1500s right up to present-day heroes.

Featuring the stories of recent changemakers such…

Taye Diggs (A) Shane Evans (ILT)

List Price: $8.99 (Paperback – Identity / Skin Color / Self Acceptance / Self-Esteem / Teasing – 2011)

The boy is teased for looking different than the other kids. His skin is darker, his hair curlier. He tells his mother he wishes he could be more like…

Angela Dalton (A)  Jestenia Southerland (ILT)

List Price: $19.99 (Hardcover – Family Dinner Story – 2021

On Here Wee Read’s 2021 Ultimate List of Diverse Children’s Books! 

Publisher Weekly Starred Review! “Warm digital art by Southerland makes excellent use of…

Deborah Hopkinson (A) and James E. Ransome (ILT)

List Price: $7.99 (Paperback – Historical / Underground Railroad – 2004)

Under the quilt of night a young slave girl leads her loved ones away from the slave master who worked them: hoeing and picking, / mending and sewing, / till…

Bryan Collier (A and ILT)

List Price: $8.99 (Paperback – Fiction / Reflecting the Culture / Harlem – 2004)

Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator Bryan Collier discovers the vibrant world of Harlem, New York, as seen through the eyes of a little boy

Uptown . . .

Harlem, New York.

Chicken and waffles.

…

Lelly DiPucchio (A) and LeUyen Pham (ILT) 

Tony and Lauren Dungy (A) and Vanessa Brantley Newton (ILT) 

List Price: $17.45 (Hardcover – Family Support – 2013)

Justin feels overshadowed when the Dungy family cheers for Jade at her track meet in this inspirational Ready-to-Ready story. 

Jade is running in a track meet, and the entire family goes to watch and…

Carmen T. Bernier-Grad (A) & Alyssa Bermudez

List Price: $17.99 (Hardcover – Multicultural / Similarities – 2021)

Six kids are ready to play: three speak English. Y tres hablan español [and three speak Spanish]. But all of them laugh alike and together! This clever playground adventure weaves together bilingual Spanish and English conversations, so…

Ntozake Shange (A) and Rod Brown (ILT)

List Price: $16.99 (Hardcover – History / Slavery / Underground Railroad / Freedom Stories – 2012)

Award-winning poet Ntozake Shange and artist Rod Brown reimagine the journeys of the brave men and women who made their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
Fleeing on the…

Collected by Zora Neal Neal Hurston and Adapted by Christopher Myers (ILT)

List Price: $7.99 (Paperback – Folk Lore – 2015)

Back in the day, there were liars who could lie so good, you didn’t even want to know the truth. And we have Zora Neale Hurston to thank for collecting…

Jacqueline Woodson (A) and Leo Espinosa (ILT) 

List Price $18.99 (Hardcover – Brooklyn Kids at Play In The Streets – 2022)

Two children’s book superstars—#1 New York Times bestseller Jacqueline Woodson, the author of The Day You Begin, and Leo Espinosa,…

Before John Was A Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane

Young John Coltrane was all ears. And there was a lot to hear growing up in the South in the 1930s: preachers praying, music on the radio, the bustling of the household. These vivid noises shaped John’s own sound as a musician. Carole Boston…

From Daniel Bernstrom, the acclaimed author of One Day in the Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus Tree, comes a charming and irresistibly fun picture book about a young blind girl and her grandmother who experience the vibrant everyday music of their busy city.

A young girl, filled with the…

Anna McQuinn (A) and Rosalind Beardshaw (ILT)

List Price $16.99 (Hardcover / Lola Series / Big Sister Reads – 2012)

We all know how much Lola loves books. In this third book in the Lola series (LOLA AT THE LIBRARY and LOLA LOVES STORIES), Lola has a new baby brother and she can’t…

In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillion-copy best-selling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the life of Martin Luther King Jr., the inspiring minister and civil rights activist.

Little Martin grew up in a family of preachers: his dad was a preacher, his uncle was a preacher, his grandfather was a preacher…so maybe…

Rob Sanders (A) and Jared Andrew Schorr (ILT) 

 List Price: $19.99 (Hardcover – Civil Rights  – 2018)  

A primer for peaceful protest, resistance, and activism from the author of Rodzilla and Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag.

Protesting. Standing up for what’s right. Uniting around the common good—kids have questions about all of these…

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Eloise Greenfield (A) and Leo and Diane Dillon (ILT)

List Price: $7.99 (Paperback – Poetry – 1986)

Love don’t mean all that kissing
Like on television
Love Means Daddy
Saying keep your mama company till I get back
And me doing it

Sixteen poems tell of love and…

Kadir Nelson (A and ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – Biography / African American Leader – 2014)

A Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book

From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s daughter, Dr. Bernice A. King: My father’s dream continues to live on from generation to generation, and this beautiful and powerful illustrated edition…

Tamara Pizzoli (A) and Federico Fabiani (ILT)

List Price: $19.99 (Hardcover – Tooth Fairy Life  – 2019) 

Handpicked by Amazon kids’ books editor, Seira Wilson, for Prime Book Box – a children’s…

Thea Feldman (A) and Alyssa Petersen (ILT)

List Price: $5.99 (Paperback  – Biography / Mathematician  – 2017)

Get to know the woman who made many of NASA’s early missions possible in this fascinating, nonfiction Level 3 Ready-to-Read, part of a series of biographies about people “you should meet!”

Meet Katherine Johnson, a brilliant…

Lora McClain-Muhammad (A) and Asia Lewis Ross (ILT) 

List Price: $10.00  (Paperback – Activity Book for Black Girls- 2019)

A children’s coloring book filled with all things Black Girl Magic from A to Z! The “I Need You To Know…” series depicts our children beautifully from their skin complexion to their hair type. The book…

“The love that binds this family together is as warm as the summer sun.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

An extended family enjoys a day at the beach in this intergenerational tribute to family, friendship, new experiences, and summertime fun by the acclaimed author-artist Nina Crews. A fresh take on Cynthia Rylant’s…

Derrick Barnes (A) and Shawn Martinbrough (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – Super Powers / Emotion / Self-Control – 2024)

All it takes is a loving teacher to help a boy get control of his sizzling superpowers, in this vibrant picture book by bestselling author Derrick Barnes.

Bobby Beacon’s…

Daphne Muse (A), Charlotte Riley-Webb (ILT), and Charlotte Riley-Webb (ILT)

List Price: $16.95 (Hardcover – Poetry / Harlem Renaissance – 2005)

A remarkable and much-needed collection for the youngest lovers of poetry, Entrance Place of Wonders: Poems of the Harlem Renaissance features poems from the leaders of this cultural movement…

When happy things come to you, hold them close and never let go.

From celebrated author of Your Name Is a Song Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, fine artist Patrick Dougher, and photographer Jamel Shabazz, Hold Them Close is a picture book celebration of Black past, present, and future—a joyful…

Kya J. Johnson (A) and The Intellify (CONT)

List Price: $22.99 (Hardcover – ABC’S and African Folklore with Digital Effects – 2020)

O is for Oshun is the FIRST augmented reality (AR) children’s book to feature diverse fairytale and folklore characters of color from around the world. Enjoy the poetic alphabetical introduction…