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Title: The Rough Face Girl
Author: Rafe Martin
Illustrator: David Shannon
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Date: 4/13/1998
#of pages: 32
Grade Level: 3+
Genre: Fantasy Tales
Themes: Nature, honesty, beauty within
Summary: In the Adelita: A Mexican Cinderella Story, the old mother figure is her fairy godmother, and there is no animals helping her make her dress. She still went to the ball, had ugly step sisters, and lost her glass slipper, but you can learn a lot through these cultural spins on the story by seeing the cultures language embedded within. I think choosing two to narrow down on and show the class both tales would be a great activity to compare and contrast to the original.

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Author: Tomie dePaola
Illustrator: Tomie dePaola
Publisher: Puffin Books
Publication Date: August 3, 2004
# of Pages: 40
Visual Elements: Wonderful and vibrant illustrations
Grade Level: Preschool- 3rd grade
Genre: Mexican culture fairytale,
Themes: Family, fairness and equality
Summary: I love how each culture has put a spin on the original Cinderella story to make it their own. Reading these two tales I found many similarities to each other, and little to the original story. In the Rough Face Girl, the goal was getting married to an invisible man, and you can only marry him if you can see him yourself, is the comparison to the original of fitting into the glass slipper.

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Authors: Margaret Read MacDonald and Nadia Jameel Taibah

Illustrator: Carol Liddiment
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
Date: March 1, 2012
# of Pages: 32
Grade Level: Preschool -  3rd
Genre: Fiction
Theme: Counting, Problem-solving
Summary: There is a man who is attempting to count his donkeys, but he gets confused while counting. He keeps getting confused but eventually he figures out how to count to 10

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Author: Chen Jiang Hong
Illustrator: Chen Jiang Hong
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Publication Date: October 1, 2006
# of Pages: 38
Visual Elements: Beautiful illustrations, modeled after real paintings from Han Gan
Grade Level: Preschool- 3rd Grade
Genre: Traditional Chinese literature, legend
Themes: Opportunity, appreciation of the arts
Summary: Han Gan is an artist that begins with little to no materials to show his wonderful artwork. He soon gets discovered by a famous painter from making his art in the dirt. The Tang Dynasty artist asks him to create a real life horse from his paining so fight in the war. When his horse fights some battles, he soon grows tired of blood and death and deicides to return back to the paining.

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Author: Adia Salazar
Illustrator: Joe Cepada
Publisher: ‎Arthur A. Levine Books
Date: May 5, 2019
#of pages: 240
Grade Level: 3-7
Genre: Fiction
Summary: . Although there is a lot of talk about mensuration and gender fluidity, when written in a book like this, this topic becomes easier to read/talk about. I love how Celi goes through the importance of appreciating her body, finding hobbies she enjoys, and ultimately deciding who she wants to be and who she wants to surround herself by.

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Author: Kelly Barnhill
Illustrator: Yuta Onoda

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Date: 9 August 2016
#of pages: 386
Grade Level: 5th
Genre: Fantasy Fiction

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Author: Ali Benjamin
Publisher: Little Brown Books For Young Readers
Date: September 22, 2015
Pages: 352
Age Range: 5th grade and up
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Themes: Friendship, grief and loss, coming of age

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Author: Jerry Craft

Illustrator: Jerry Craft

Publisher: Harper Collins

Date: February 5, 2015

# of Pages: 259

Grade Level: 5th - 8th grade

Genre: Graphic novel, fiction

Themes: racial prejudice, friendship, bullying

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Title: Grandfather's Journey
Author: Allen Say
Illustrator: Allen Say
Date: 1993
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Genre: Picture Book, Fiction
Pages: 32
Grade Level: K-5
Multicultural
Summary: Allen Say describes his grandfathers journey to the United States and what new people and places he's seen. He eventually goes back home to Japan and marries. When he's in Japan he misses the sights he's seen in California, and when he takes his wife to California, he misses Japan. Allen Say visits California when his Grandpa passes and learns to love it as much as he did. The theme being all cultures are very different but can be appreciated for different beauties and qualities.

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Author - Katherine A. Applegate
Publisher -  HarperCollins
Date - January 6, 2015
# of pages - 336
Grade level - 3rd-7th
Genre - Animal Fiction
Themes: Hope, Friendship

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Title: Henry's Freedom Box
Author: Ellen Levine
Illustrator: Kadir Nelson
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Date: January 1, 2007
#of pages: 40
Grade Level: 4th
Genre: Historical Ficton
Summary: The author did a great job of connecting these themes to the historical time period because the plot was incredibly sad and encompassed what a life for a slave looked like. These connections are very authentic and are true stories about these families being torn apart just to work for rich families. The way the author made the family the center of Henry's hope and then have it constantly torn away, the theme of loss and discouragement comes into play. Henry didn't give up, he made connections in order to leave the awful hospitality given, and escaped.

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Title: The 1619 Project: Born on the Water
Award: Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award
Poets & Illustrator: Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson Illustrated by Nikkolas Smith
Published By: Kokila (Penguin)
Publication Date: November 16, 2021
# of Pages: 48 pages
Grade Level: 2 - 5
Genre: Nonfiction
Theme: History, Slavery, Activism, Resilience, Diversity, Perseverance

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Title: The Crossover
Author: Kwame Alexander
Illustrator: Dawud Anyabwile
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date: 03/05/2019
# of Pages: 256
Grade Level: 11-13 year-olds
Genre: Fiction Novel
Theme: Family, loss, sports

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Author: Christain Robinson
Illustrator: Christain Robinson
Publisher: Atheneum books for young readers
Publishing date: June 2nd, 2020
Pages: 40 pages
Grade level: 2-6 years old ( Preschool- 3rd)
Genre: Children's Literature
Theme: Love, community

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Author: Sophie Blackall
Illustrator: Sophie Blackall
Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company
Publication Date: April 10, 2018
# of Pages: 48
Grade Level: Prek-5th
Genre: Picture Book, Historical Fiction
Themes: Hope, change, passing of time
Summary: This book is about a lighthouse keeper that manages all aspects of the lighthouse. He consistently warns ships of danger, refills the light with oil to keep lit, as well as saving shipwrecked sailors. He always writes letters to his wife who is still on the mainland. She visits him at the lighthouse will supplies, when he falls sick, she takes care of him until he is fully healed, and takes care of the lighthouse. As soon as things get better for the keeper, she is pregnant and they are to have a baby! The lighthouse keeper takes good care of her now, until they get a light from mainland. Eventually, he loses his job to a mechanical light, with no need for his services anymore. The couple and their child can still see the light from the lighthouse outside their house together.
My personal connections: This picture book was awarded the Caldecott Medal because of how fantastic Sophie Blackall does her illustrations. I connected with her drawings as I felt tied to every page and scene. I also enjoyed how well this lighthouse keeper tended to his duties of keeping those out on the water safe, and how his wife cared for him when he was unwell. I wonder if the lighthouse keeper missed his job when the mechanical light replaced him, or if he is happier now on the mainland with his family.

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Author: Gary Soto
Illustrator: Ed Martinez
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Date : 1996
Number of pages: 32
Visual elements: Realistic oil painting, picture book, rich colors
Grade level: PreK - 3rd
Genre: Fiction/Realistic Fiction
Summary: This story takes place with a young girl named Maria. Her families tradition every year for Christmas is to make tamales. Her favorite cousins always got to come over to help. When her mother leaves the kitchen for a moment, Maria takes that moment to try on her diamond ring. Moments later she realizes the ring is gone and must have fallen into a tamale. With the help of her cousins, they decide that the only solution is to eat all of the tamales that were made in search of the ring. After finishing all of the tamales with no sign of the ring, Maria decides that she has to come clean and confess to her mother that she tried on the ring and lost it. To Maria's surprise her mother had the ring the whole time! Her entire family steps in to help make fresh batches of tamales to replace the ones eaten just in time for Christmas.

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Author: Jacqueline Woodson

Illustrator: Rafael Lopez

Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books

Date/ Number of Pages: August 28th, 2018. 32 Pages.

Visual Elements: The illustrations are all cartoon drawings and they look like painting or watercolor. The pictures are all very vibrant and fun. This is a hardcopy picture-book also available as an ebook.

Grade Level: K-3rd

Genre: Contemporary realistic fiction

Themes: Differences should be celebrated, sense of belonging

Setting: School Classroom

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Author: Cece Bell
Illustrator: Cece Bell
Publisher: Amulet Books
Date: September 2, 2014
# of Pages: 248
Visual Elements: cartoon, graphic novel, digital art
Grade Level: Fourth - Sixth
Genre: Autobiography fiction

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Author: Beth Ferry
Illustrator: Molly Idle
Publisher: Roaring book press
Date: 10/27/2020
Number of Pages: 32
Visual Elements: picture book, bright pages, simple artwork
Grade Level: 4–6-year-olds
Genre: fiction
Themes: believing in yourself, encouragement
Settings: Safari, ocean, Grasslands

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Author: Andrea Wang

Illustrator: Jason Chin

Publisher: Neal Porter Books

Date/ Number of Pages: March 30th, 2021. 32 Pages

Visual Elements: This is a hardcover picture book. The illustrations in this book are animated yet very realistic. The illustrations show memories of old Chinese tradition.

Grade Level: Pre K-3rd

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Themes: family heritage, be thankful for what you have, be thankful for your family.

Setting: Ohio