Our collection of children's picture books featuring Black and Indigenous people and People of Color (BIPOC) is available to the public. You can use the Search Tool below to find titles. *Inclusion of a title in the collection DOES NOT EQUAL recommendation.* See our related readings page for suggested tools for evaluating books.
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God bless the child
A swing spiritual based on the proverb "God blessed the child that's got his own."
The people could fly
Resplendent, powerful paintings by these two-time Caldecott-winning artists bring new life to the title story from the late Hamilton's 1985 collection, The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales . Making dramatic use of shadow and light, Leo and Diane Dillon (whose half-tone illustrations also graced the original volume) ably convey the tale's simultaneous messages of oppression and freedom, of sadness and hope. "They say the people could fly. Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic," opens the narrative, as the full-color artwork reveals elegant, beautifully clothed individuals with feathered wings serenely ascending into the sky. On the following spread, images of the Middle Passage set a fittingly somber tone, depicting Africans who "were captured for Slavery. The ones that could fly shed their wings. They couldn't take their wings across the water on the slave ships. Too crowded, don't you know." The picture-book format allows room for the relationship to develop between Sarah, who labors in the cotton fields with an infant strapped to her back, and Toby, the "old man," who utters the magic African words that give her flight. Toby helps others take flight as well (a stunning image shows seemingly hundreds linking hands and taking to the skies)- and eventually does so himself, sadly leaving some of the captives "who could not fly" behind to "wait for a chance to run." Art and language that are each, in turn, lyrical and hard-hitting make an ideal pairing in this elegant volume that gracefully showcases the talent of its creators. All ages
In plain sight
An ailing grandfather and his helpful granddaughter play a unique game of seek and find.--Provided by publisher
Memphis, Martin, and the mountaintop
This historical fiction picture book presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson through prose and poetry. In 1968 she witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final stand for justice before his assassination--when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest.
Nelson Mandela
Presents a biography of the former South African president best known for his political activism and fight to end apartheid.
Let the children march
Under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, children and teenagers march against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.
Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut
Celebrates the magnificent feeling that comes from walking out of a barber shop with newly-cut hair.
Freedom in Congo Square
Six days a week, slaves labor from sunup to sundown and beyond, but on Sunday afternoons, they gather with free blacks at Congo Square outside New Orleans, free from oppression. Includes foreword about Congo Square by Freddi Williams Evans, glossary, and author's historical note