Our comprehensive 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. *Note: Inclusion of a title in the collection DOES NOT EQUAL recommendation. See our related readings page for suggested tools for evaluating books.
You can find titles by typing a keyword into the search bar below (e.g. adoption, birthday, holidays, princess, dinosaur, etc.), or by selecting one or a combo of filters on the left.
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The girl who saved Yesterday
Silence, sent on a mysterious mission by the ancient trees that raised her after she was sent away from her village, reconnects the villagers with their forgotten ancestors.
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
From the heart of Africa
A collection of African wisdom gorgeously illustrated by artists from Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Canada, the United States and more.
We
"Describes the emergence of humankind out of Africa, charting the course of human development from 7 million years ago to today, highlighting the development of diversity among peoples and our ability to invent and discover"--Provided by publisher
The fire children: A west African folk tale
A retelling of the West African folk tale about the creation of the world and all its different peoples.
The twelve dancing princesses
The mystery of how the king's beautiful daughters manage to get out of their locked room and somehow wear holes in their shoes every night is one of the Brothers Grimm's most enchanting tales
Double trouble for Anna Hibiscus!
Anna Hibiscus lives in Africa, amazing Africa--and now she has new baby brothers! Her cousins warn her that boys are Big Trouble. But could Anna's brothers really be Double Trouble?--Back cover
The water princess
"The story of one young girl's quest to bring clean drinking water to her African village"--|cProvided by publisher
Beautiful bananas
On her way to her grandfather's house with a bunch of bananas, Beatrice has a series of mishaps with jungle animals who each substitute something new for what she is carrying
Yatandou
Yatandou lives in a Mali village with her family and neighbors. And though she is only eight years old and would much rather play with her pet goat, she must sit with the women and pound millet kernels. To grind enough millet for one day's food, the women must pound the kernels with their pounding sticks for three hours. It is hard work, especially when one is eight years old. But as they work, the women dream of a machine that can grind the millet and free them from their pounding sticks. But the machine will only come when the women have raised enough money to buy it. Yatandou must help raise the money, even if it means parting with something she holds dear.-- Publisher description