In response to state lawmakers passing bills asking teachers to remain silent or lie about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression through US history, last week, we, along with our partners Center for Children's and Young Adult Literature, thebottomknox, Tennessee Association of School Librarians, participated in the ZinnEducationProject's "Days of Action" to "Teach the Truth" campaign August 27 - 29, 2021. Visit TeachTruthPledge.org to learn more.
We invited teachers, educators, parents and others to share titles that have helped them, or the young readers’ in their lives, understand our nation's full history particularly from the perspective(s) of minoritized fictional or real-life people. With thanks to all who submitted titles of books and other resources, we’ve curated the following list of our favorite suggestions. All the books on this list can be borrowed from the CDJLibrary by following the directions on our Borrow A Book page except those marked with an asterisk*. Asterisked* books are not yet available in our collection and can be donated. Visit our Get Involved page to learn how.
We hope these suggestions and the words contributor’s shared about their impact in their lives, shared on the CDJL facebook page, help you continue to #TeachTruth, read truth, learn truth and share truth.
Picture Books
Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins, by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Jerome Legarrigue Legarrigue
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade
*The Teachers March!: How Selma’s Teachers Changed History by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace, illustrated by Charly Palmer
Juvenile
Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad by Ellen Levine
Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper
Front Desk, by Kelly Yang
*Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968, by Alice Faye Duncan, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
*As Good as Anybody: Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom, by Richard Michelson, illustrated by Raul Colon.
Middle Grades
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, adapted by Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza
This Book is Anti-racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work, by Tiffany Jewell, illustrations by Aurelia Durand.
*I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World (Young Readers Edition) by Malala Yousafzai with Patricia McCormick
*Stamped (for kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, illustrated by Rachelle Baker, and adapted by Sonja Cherry-Paul
Teen
March, Books One - Three, by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell. All three books are owned and loaned by the Children’s Diversity & Justice Library, only book one is listed here.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei, illustrated by Harmony Becker
Beyond the Gender Binary, by Alok Vaid-Menon
adults
We Want to do More than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom, by Bettina Love
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, by James W. Loewen
Caste: The Origins of our Discontent, by Isabel Wilkerson
How to be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
*Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, by Cathy Park Hong
*Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz
*There There, by Tommy Orange
*The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
*The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein
*A Little Devil in America: notes in Praise of Black Performance, by Hanif Addurraquib
*A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
*A Raisin in the Sun (a play) by Lorraine Hansberry
*all about love: New Visions by bell hooks
*Beloved, by Toni Morrison
*Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
*Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown
*We Will Not Cancel Us by Adrienne Maree Brown
*Faces at the Bottom of the Well, by Derrick Bell
*Heads of the Colored People, by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Other Media
In addition to the titles above, several people recommended additional media sources including,
Roots Miniseries by Alex Haley
I am Not Your Negro (documentary) directed by Raoul Peck and based on the writings of James Baldwin
Legacy of Exiled NDNZ, a short film by Navajo filmmaker Pamela J. Peters
Seeing White Scene on Radio podcast by John Biewan
The 1619 Project (New York Times)
When They See Us (a film in four parts), 13th, and other films by Ava DuVernay
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