Publisher/Year: I Heart Radio/2022-2023

Minutes: 15-30 minutes long 

Suggested Age: 8-12
Awards: N/A

Genre: Biography/Comedy/Quiz Show

Theme: We can learn a lot from the struggles and triumphs of important pioneers in history.

Reactions: This podcast is a great way for middle grade learners to learn about famous figures in history in a fun, comedic, quiz-show format. Each episode features 2 figures from history and quizzes game show contestants (kids ages 8-12) on facts from their lives. This podcast features diverse historical figures. However, some episodes feature more fun game-show elements than facts about the famous figures. It can be paired with Who Was? books, a Roblox game, and a Netflix series!

Author & Illustrator: Traci N. Todd & Christian Robinson

Publisher/Year: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2021

Pages: 56 

Suggested Age: 4-8 years

Awards: 2022 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Nominee, 2022 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award Winner for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children 

Genre: Biography

Theme: Individuals have the power to use their talents to inspire, defy, and protest injustice.

Reactions: Todd and Robinson masterfully weave lyrical text and colorful imagery to tell the story of Nina Simone's life, career, and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, in a way that young readers can approach and understand. Todd tells the story of injustices Nina faced as a young child in the 1930s Jim Crow South, teaching readers about segregation and lack of access and opportunity for Black people in the United States. Todd weaves the story of Nina's ambitions and passions for music, while illustrator Robinson interweaves the events of the Civil Rights Movement with Nina's career accomplishments. This book is a must read and beautifully tells the story of a Civil Rights Icon whose music is still beloved today. A great pairing with this would be playing Nina's famous "Young, Gifted, and Black" for readers to listen to after reading.

Author: Barbara O'Connor

Publisher/Year: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/2016

Pages: 240

Suggested Ages: 8-11 years

Awards: n/a

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Themes: The true meaning of family and home can come from the most unexpecting people and places. What you need is not always what you wish for. 

Reactions: Barbara O'Connor does an amazing job of portraying a character that many middle-grade readers can relate to. Wish tells the story of Charlie, an eleven-year old daughter of an incarcerated dad and a mom who suffers from severe depression and anxiety. She secretly makes wishes, in a million different ways, every single day. When her family gets broken up, she gets sent to live with two family members she barely knows, in a rural mountain town she is unfamiliar with and uncomfortable in, and it seems like her wish will never come true. When she meets a stray dog and a kind companion, she begins to learn the true meaning of friendship, hope, and love. This book could provide an excellent mirror for young readers who might identify with some of Charlie's identities and challenges: children with incarcerated parents, children who suffer from anxiety or have family members who struggle with mental health challenges, children who have been displaced from their home or family, and children who live in a rural area. O'Connor works to dismantle stereotypes of people who live in rural areas and portrays characters with positive character traits. 

Author: Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, Dawud Anyabwile

Publisher/Year: Norton Young Readers/2022

Pages: 208

Suggested Age: 11+ years

Awards: 2023 YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award

Genre: Graphic Nonfiction Memoir

Theme: Athletes have the power to influence social change and speak out against unfairness.

Reactions: This is an excellent introduction to a narrative memoir, and would be appealing to young readers who may be reluctant to traditional formats. The story is suitable for middle school readers, and is written in a graphic novel format. It tells the story of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the Black track athletes and gold and bronze medalists in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Smith and Carlos protested racial injustice in the United States by wearing black socks and gloves and raising their fists, which resulted in both men being sent home from the Olympics, and receiving death threats and economic hardships when they returned home. Smith, Barnes, and Anyabwile do an excellent job of telling the story of Smith's life with kid-friendly vocabulary, while also weaving in the history of segregation, sharecropping, and racial discrimination in the 1930s-1970s. The illustrations and graphic novel format will resonate with many readers. This book should be read with some sensitivity, as it does portray some lynchings and contains some racial slurs. 

Author/Illustrator: Margarita Engle/Rafael Lopez

Publisher/Year: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/2015

Pages: 48

Suggested Age: 3-8 years

Awards: n/a

Genre: Historical Fiction/Poetry

Theme: Big dreams can support us in persevering even through the hardest, most unfair, and most trying times. 

Reactions: This historical fiction story is inspired by the childhood of a Chinese-African-Cuban girl named Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, who broke Cuban taboo against female drummers at the age of 10 in the 1930s. This is a fictional account of the dreams and imagination of the young drummer girl. This story is both visually and lyrically beautiful, as it tells the story in poetic form, and includes colorful illustrations meant to evoke the colors of Cuba and the imagination of the main character. This story also exposes young readers to a character who is multi-racial and perseveres through unfair gender laws. This poem could do more to describe the actual history of the time to better situate the book within the time period, but it is a beautiful introduction.

Author/Illustrator: Jordan Scott/Sydney Smith

Publisher/Year: Neal Porter Books

Pages: 40 

Suggested Ages: 4-8 years

Awards: Schneider Family Book Award for Excellent Portrayal of the Disability Experience

Genre: Fiction

Theme: Differences make us unique; finding your voice doesn't look the same for each person.

Reactions: This is a fictional poem written by an author reflecting on his own experience with speech dysfluency and a stutter. The main character in this story suffers from a stutter and struggles to fully express all the words in his mind and in his world. This book allows readers to see the perspective of a child with a speech disability, to see the perseverance a child to find their voice, and to see the effects of teasing and bullying on people with disabilities.

Author/Illustrator: Derrick Barnes/Gordon C. James

Publisher/Year: Bolden Books/2017

Pages: 32

Suggested Age: 4-8 years

Awards: 2018 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers, Newberry Honor Book, Caldecott Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Book, Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Theme: A person's self esteem and sense of self affects how they act, feel, and present themselves to everyone around them. 

Reactions: This book is a beautiful mirror into the central importance of the barber shop in the Black community, and the role of positive messaging to self-worth. The book follows a young Black boy getting a "fresh cut", and details the ways a fresh cut can make a boy feel proud, and seen, handsome. This book also details the important conversations and company customers are exposed to in a barber shop, and portrays hardworking Black men in different careers. Barnes also does an excellent job of weaving descriptive language and advanced vocabulary throughout the text (intellectual, majestic, subtle, flawless, complexion). 

Publisher/Year: WBUR/2017-2023

Minutes: 10-20 minutes long 

Suggested Age: 4-10 years
Awards: Parents' Choice Gold Award

Genre: Folktales

Theme: Each episode features a folk tale that dives into different motifs including friendship, persistence, creativity, and generosity.

Reactions: This is a storytelling podcast, written by parents of young children, that adapts traditional folktales from around the world into sound and music-rich stories. Each folktale features a motif such as friendship, persistence, creativity, and generosity. This podcast supports young children in visualizing stories and in understanding idioms and figurative language. The podcast creators also insert opportunities for discussion and making predictions throughout episodes, and conclude each episode with suggested hands-on extensions for listeners. 

Author/Illustrator: Derrick Barnes/Gordon C. James

Publisher/Year: Nancy Paulsen Books/2020

Pages: 32

Suggested Age: 3-8 years

Awards: NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction

Genre: Realistic Fiction/Poetic Freeverse

Theme: Every child has strength, character, and worth. 

Reactions: This book is another collaboration between Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James, highlighting the worth and importance of Black children, who are often underrepresented or portrayed negatively in mainstream media. Barnes writes this text in poetic free verse, utilizing the repetition of the line "I am" to describe all of the "good things" the narrator and main character is. This book would be a great way to introduce poetry and free verse and descriptive language ("I am like gravity, or the glow of moonbeams over a field of brand-new snow"). It would also be a great compliment to any social-emotional instruction around confidence and positive affirmations. 

Author/Illustrator: Matt de la Peña/Christian Robinson 

Publisher/Year: G.P. Putnam's Sons/2015

Pages: 32 pages

Suggested Age: 4-8 years

Awards: 2016 Newbery Medal

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Theme: Beauty can be found in unexpecting places, and with unexpecting people. 

Reactions: This story depicts a long weekly journey that a young Latino boy, named CJ, takes with his grandmother, down a bus line to a soup kitchen to support others in his local community. CJ grapples with why he is not like other kids, including why he doesn't have a car and has to take the bus, why others have disabilities, and why he lives and volunteers in a community with "crumbling sidewalks, broken-down doors, graffiti-tagged windows, and boarded-up stores". Through its descriptive language and accompanying illustrations, de la Peña and Robinson teach CJ, and readers, about the beauty that can be found in acts of service. This book portrays many underrepresented identities in a positive light--children raised by grandparents, children living in urban communities, Latino families, people with disabilities, and those in financial need. 

Author/Illustrator: Andrew Wang/Jason Chin

Publisher/Year: Neal Porter Books/2021

Pages: 32 pages

Suggested Age: 4-8 years

Awards: Caldecott Medal 

Genre: Memoir

Theme: "Memories have the power to inform, to inspire, and to heal." (Wang, 2021). 

Reactions: This is a beautifully told memoir of the daughter of Chinese immigrants in a mostly white, rural Ohio town. The author tells of her experience picking watercress on the side of the road in Ohio, and the important connection her parents made with this experience and their hardships in China. This story explores the experience of searching for belonging when those around you share different experiences and identities. It also explores the importance of sharing family history and memories, and discussing hardships and hard memories with children. This book would serve as a mirror for any children of immigrants and children whose identities may be different from many of their peers. It also could serve as a window text for other identities while learning about family history or crafting memoirs. 

Producer/Year: American Public Media/2013-2023

Minutes: 20-30 minutes

Suggested Age: 4+

Awards: Webby Award, National Science Foundation Award

Genre: Nonfiction/Informational

Theme: There's no limit on curiosity!

Reactions: This is an excellent informational science podcast for curious children (and adults!) Each week, the show is co-hosted with a kid who asks a question they are curious to explore. The podcast hosts bring in experts in the different fields related to the curiosity, and the experts break down scientific information in kid-friendly terms. The kid hosts also do some of their own research and presenting on the topic themselves. This podcast makes great use of sounds to amplify the learning (for example, analyzing different bird calls), which supports students in staying engaged and deepening understanding when there are not pictures or text in front of them. There are episodes on many different topics, so episodes could easily compliment different science topics in the classroom. Students could also use this podcast as a mentor in project creation; students could ask questions, do research, and create their own podcast reporting their learning, combining practice in research, reading, writing, and speaking.

Author/Illustrator: Derrick Barnes/Aaron Boyd

Publisher/Year: Scholastic/2004

Pages: 32 pages

Suggested Age: 4-7 years

Awards: n/a

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Theme: A positive attitude can change how you look at a bad day.

Reactions: This is an easy reader meant to support primary learners in practicing decoding and reading fluency. This is one book in a series of easy reader books, all featuring Black protagonists, who are often not featured in early readers. Although this book has simple language and vocabulary, it does attempt to relate to readers who may have things go wrong, and gives tangible strategies for changing mood or attitude. This would be a good easy reader for readers in grades K-2. 

Author/Illustrator: J.R. Ford & Vanessa Ford/Kayla Harren

Publisher/Year: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers/2021

Pages: 32 pages

Suggested Age: 4-8 years

Awards: ALA Rainbow List Top 10 Winner 

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Theme: It's important to accept others for who they are.

Reactions: This book is a great book to introduce the transgender identity to young learners who may not have any prior knowledge. It's also a great way to provide a window for students who may identify as transgender or queer. This story was inspired by the story of the authors' transgender son, and the ways that their son's affirming community supported him through changing his gender identity. 

Author/Illustrator: Sharice Davids & Nancy K. Mays/Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley

Publisher/Year: Harper Collins/2021

Pages: 40 pages

Suggested Age: 6-10 years

Awards: n/a

Genre: Autobiography

Theme: Everyone has the power to use their voice for positive change.

Reactions: This is a very inspiring story of how Sharice Davids became one of the first Native American women elected to U.S. Congress. The story dives into the personal history of Sharice's life, in how she became a mixed-martial-artist and attorney and later a US representative amidst those who doubted her. This would be a great text to teach about perseverance and setting big dreams. This story also teaches readers about who Native Americans are, and some challenges Native Americans have faced throughout U.S. History. This text is on the longer end for young readers; they may need to read or listen to this text in 2 sittings.

Author/Illustrator: Margaret Peot

Publisher/Year: Holiday House/2022

Pages: 40 pages

Suggested Age: 4-7 years

Awards: Orbis Pictus Honor Book for Outstanding Nonfiction

Genre: Nonfiction-Science

Reactions: This beautifully written and illustrated science text is intended to allow young readers to explore what creates light. It has very few words on each page, but is accompanied with detailed pictures, some of which glow in the dark! Peot introduces different natural and man-made objects that shine, flash, and glow, and introduces some vocabulary young learners may not be familiar with (aurora borealis, bioluminescence, mycena singeri). It includes a glossary, index, and links to sources kids may use for further inquiry. This book would be a great addition to a science unit or study of light.

Author/Illustrator: Kara West/Leeza Hernandez

Publisher/Year: Little Simon/2018

Pages: 128 pages

Suggested Age: 6-9 years

Awards: n/a

Genre: Fantasy

Theme: Everyone has the ability to find strength in their weaknesses.

Reactions: This is the first book in a series of fun fantasy books perfect for early chapter book readers. Mia is a regular eight-year-old girl who finds out she is really a superhero! This first book in the series tells the story of how Mia discovered her powers and her initial training in superhero school. The easy-to-read language and graphic illustrations will be appealing to early readers, and this book features a Black protagonist in a genre that traditionally underrepresents characters of color. This text does have very short chapters and a long lead up to a short chain of events, which builds suspense and interest in the following book of the series, but leaves less room for discussion of the plot, conflict, and events.

Author/Illustrator: Adam Gidwitz/Hatem Aly

Publisher/Year: Puffin Books/2019

Pages: 192 pages

Suggested Age: 8-12 years

Awards: Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year
Genre: Fantasy

Reactions: This is a great introduction to the fantasy genre The Creature of the Pines is the first book in a series called The Unicorn Rescue Society, which tells the story of a secret society of adventurers whose goal is to protect the world’s mythical creatures. This is an example of a quest story, where the protagonists find themselves in an imagined alternative world that begins in reality, but moves beyond with mythical creatures. This book is highly suspenseful and entertaining, and will hook many readers who are ready to read the next books in the series. Gidwitz also does a great job of weaving in racially diverse characters into a fantasy text, which is a genre where diverse characters are often left out. 

Author/Illustrator: Derrick Barnes/Vanessa Brantley Newton

Publisher/Year: Scholastic/2008

Pages: 131

Suggested Age: 6-9 years

Awards: n/a

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Theme: Everyone has unique talents to share.

Reactions: This is a great book for young readers who are beginning to read simple chapter books. It details the story of Ruby, a third grade Black girl, who is beginning school at a new school, where all of her older brothers go. She experiences some nerves going to a brand new school, especially where her brothers have already made a name for herself. This story tells how she makes her own name for herself. This book does a great job of portraying a Black family in a light that many readers can relate to--the author uses AAVE in much of the dialogue. It also explores the feelings students might have when they are in a new and unfamiliar space. This book does not, however, have a central conflict, which makes the plot slightly difficult to follow. However, it would still be a great book to add to a library with new chapter book readers!

Author/Illustrator: Andrew Wang/John John Bajet

Publisher/Year: Workman Publishing Company/2020

Pages: 176 pages

Suggested Age: 8-12 years

Awards: n/a

Genre: Nonfiction/Biography

Theme: There are many unsung heroes and pioneers history books don't always teach us about! 

Reactions: Barnes' Who Got Game? Baseball is a collection of short biographies of lesser known baseball heroes and pioneers that contributed much to the sport. Barnes includes legends from many different demographic groups, including players from the Negro League, immigrant players from the Dominican Republic, women, Jewish immigrants who also fought Hitler in WWII, coaches, and doctors. There are also bright, graphic images with each page, and fun fact boxes about records, stats, and game rules. This book would be a great book for any sports lover, and those who want to learn about lesser known figures in the sport and the contributions they made.