With this weekend’s milestone of 250 years as the United States of America, there is much to celebrate and reflect on. Moments like this have many, including ourselves, asking who we are? Who have we been? Who are we becoming? What have we learned? And importantly, not only where are we going, but where do we want to go and how will we get there?
Unfortunately, at a time of so many important questions, there is a great collective narrowing of our ability to ask and answer such questions, especially publicly and in dialogue with each other. Discourse is limited. Dissent is restricted. History is removed from public buildings and national parks. Books are banned from schools and removed from public libraries. Art that teaches is replaced with art that dictates. The list goes on.
In a time of narrowing, honest and critical histories can broaden our knowledge, offer diverse perspectives, and reveal the spaces between the history we know, what we’ve been taught and what has been shared, and the history we don’t know or haven’t examined. In order to be proactive about our present and future, we need to understand the full story of how we got to now, both the stories that inspire us, and the truths that challenge us. With these questions and issues in mind, we offer this booklist of critical, diverse and honest histories to help us understand ourselves and create an informed empowered deliberate future.
All these titles, and hundreds more (search “history”), are available for no cost loan to library patrons of our free community lending library. Click “Borrow A Book” to learn how you can bring these and other books home. See also our Hours and Location. If you’re not local to our lending program, please refer to these suggestions when looking for honest, diverse and critical history books for all ages. To learn how to support our efforts to provide these and other critical books for understanding who we are and where we can go, visit Get Involved at www.cdjlibrary.org.
*Titles not currently available in the Knox County Public Library system.
Board Books
*The Life of / La Vida de Delores (Lil’ Libros), Patty Roríguez and Ariana Stein
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History, Vashti Harrison
Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History, Vashti Harrison
*A Is for Awesome!: 23 Iconic Women Who Changed the World, Evan Chen and Derek Desierto
Picture Books
The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Renée Watson and Nikkolas Smith
*Before I Lived Here, Stacy S. Jensen and Victo Ngai
My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story, George Takei and Michelle Lee
*Main Street: A Community Story About Redlining, Britt Hawthorne, Tiffany Jewell and David Wilkerson
The History of We, Nikkolas Smith
*My History, My Gender, Me; Cassandra Jules Corrigan
*Be Amazing: A History of Pride, Desmond Napoles and Dylan Glynn
A to Z Black History Knoxville, Kharmon Anderson, Dream2Design.org
We Want to Go to School: The Fight for Disability Rights, Maryann Cocca-Leffler and Janine Leffler
Pura’s Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories, Annette Bay Pimentel and Magaly Morales
I’m an American, Darshana Khiani and Laura Freeman
Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation, Duncan Tonatiuh
Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World, Cynthia Chin-Lee
Equality’s Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America, Devorah Diesen and Magdalena Mora
*Stronger Than, Nikki Grimes, Stacy Well, E.B. Lewis
*The Rabbi and the Reverend: Joachim Prinz, Martin Luther King Jr., and Their Fight Against Silence, Audrey Ades, Chiara Fedele
Juvenile
Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, Carole Boston Weatherford and Floyd Cooper
Evicted!: The Struggle for the Right to Vote, Alice Faye Duncan
Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies, Cokie Roberts and Diane Goode
*Black Heroes: A Black History Book for Kids: 51 Inspiring People from Ancient Africa to Modern-Day U.S.A., Arisha Norwood
*A Child's Introduction to Pride: The Inspirational History and Culture of the LGBTQIA+ Community, Sarah Prager, Caitlin O’Dwyer
We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know, Traci Sorell and Frané Lessac
*Hear My Voice / Escucha mi voz: The Testimonies of Children Detained at the Southern Border of the United States, Warren Binford and Michael Garcia Bochenek
*I Am Not a Label: 34 artists, thinkers, athletes and activist with disabilities from past and present, Cerrie Burnell and Laruen Mark Baldo
*Amazing: Asian American and Pacific Islanders Who Inspire Us All, Maia Shibutani, Alex Shibutani, Dane Liu and Aaliya Jaleel
Middle Grades
Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism and You, Jason Reynolds, Sonja Cherry-Paul, Rachelle Baker, Ibram X. Kendi
History Smashers: The Mayflower, Kate Messner and Dylan Meconis
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation, Paul Peart Smith
*What Was Stonewall? Nico Medina, Jake Murray, Who HQ
Betty Before X, Ilyasah Shabazz and Renée Watson
*Fred Korematsu Speaks Up, Laura Atkins, Stan Yogi, Yutaka Houlette
*Pride: An Inspirational History of the LGBTQ+ Movement, Stella Caldwell
*Rad American Women A - Z: Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries who Shaped Our History . . . and Our Future!, Kate Schatz
Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box, Evette Dionne
Finish the Fight!: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote, Veronica Chambers, the staff of the New York Times
Teen
*Queer History of the United States for Young People, Michael Bronski, Richie Chevat
*Caste (Adapted for Young Adults) by Isabel Wilkerson
Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Brandy Colbert
Trans History: A Graphic Novel: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, Alex L. Combs, Andrew Eakett
*Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi, Joel Christian Gill
They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group, Susan Campbell Bartoletti
*Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition: Everything American History Textbooks Get Wrong, James W. Loewen, Rebecca Stefoff
*Lies My Teacher Told Me: A Graphic Adaptation, James W. Loewen, Nate Powell
*One Person, No Vote (YA Edition): How Not All Voters are Treated Equally, Carol Anderson, Tonya Bolden
Call and Response, the story of Black Lives Matter, Veronica Chambers
An Indigenous People's History of the United States for Young People, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Debbie Reese, Jean Mendoza
*We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration, Frank Abe, Matt Sasaki, Tamiko Nimura, Ross Ishikawa
*Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women's Fights for Their Rights, Mikki Kendall, A. D’Amico
Modern HERstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History, Blair Imani
Adult
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W Loewen
*Blunt Instruments: Recognizing Racist Cultural Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums and Patriotic Practices, Kristin Hass
Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi
A Queer History of the United States (revisioning history), Michael Bronski
*https://www.librarycat.org/lib/CDJLibrary/item/241879547, Kim E. Nielsen
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ilena Silverman, Jake Silverstein, The New York Times Magazine, Cailin Roper
*Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender, Dr. Kit Heyam
Brown: The Last Discovery of America, Richard Rodriguez
*People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present, Dara Horn
A Black Women's History of the United States, Daina Ramey Berry, Kali Nicole Gross
An Indigenous People's History of the United States (10th Anniversary Edition), Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority, Ellen D. Wu
*A Protest History of the United States, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall
An African American and Latinx History of the United States, Paul Ortiz
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, Rebecca Hall, Hugo Martinez
The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, Joan Jacobs Brumberg
The Heat of a red Summer: Race Mixing, Race Rioting in 1919 Knoxville, Robert J. Booker