Our collection of picture books featuring Black and Indigenous Peoples and People of Color (BIPOC) is available to the public.
*Inclusion of a title in the collection DOES NOT EQUAL a recommendation.*
Click here for more on book evaluation.
Find titles using a keyword search below (e.g. adoption, birthday, holidays, etc.), or by selecting one or a combination of filters on the left-hand sidebar below.
11 matching books
Show Filters- 1
- 2
Yellow Dog Blues
“One morning Bo Willie finds the doghouse empty and the gate wide open! Farmer Fred says Yellow Dog hit Highway 61 and started running. Aunt Jessie picks up Bo Willie in her pink Cadillac, and together they look for his missing puppy love. Their search leads them from juke joints to tamale stands to streets ringing with the music of B.B. King and Muddy Waters. Where, where did that Yellow Dog go?”–publisher
Beautiful Jim
“Told in the first person as if written by Beautiful Jim himself, this is the story of the sensation in the late 1800s and early 1900s: a horse whose owner, Doc Key, a formerly enslaved man who loved animals, taught to read, write, and do math. Reading Jim’s diary and the story, we learn how, together with Doc Key, Jim performed all over the United States, even for two presidents, while promoting kindness to animals.” — publisher
Liberty’s Civil Rights Road Trip
“Based on a real-life trip, Liberty and her friend Abdullah visit significant places from the civil rights movement, inspiring them to come together with others to create a better world. Time to board the bus! Liberty and her friend Abdullah, with their families and a diverse group of passengers, head off to their first stop: Jackson, Mississippi. Next on their map are Glendora, Memphis, Birmingham, Montgomery, and finally Selma, for a march across the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge. As told through the innocent view of a child, Liberty’s Civil Rights Road Trip serves as an early introduction to places, people, and events that transformed history. The story is inspired by an actual journey led by author Michael W. Waters, bringing together a multigenerational group to witness key locations from the civil rights movement. An author’s note and more information about each stop on Liberty’s trip offer ways for adults to expand the conversation with young readers. A portion of the publisher’s sales proceeds will be donated to Foot Soldiers Park in Selma, Alabama, a nonprofit dedicated to honoring the history and continued relevance of the Selma movement.” — publisher
Northbound: A Train Ride Out of Segregation
“On his first train ride, Michael meets a new friend from the “whites only” car—but finds they can hang together for only part of the trip—in the last story in a trilogy about the author’s life growing up in the segregated South. Michael and his granddaddy always stop working to watch the trains as they rush by their Alabama farm on the way to distant places. One day Michael gets what he’s always dreamed of: his first train journey, to visit cousins in Ohio! Boarding the train in the bustling station, Michael and his grandma follow the conductor to the car with the “colored only” sign. But when the train pulls out of Atlanta, the signs come down, and a boy from the next car runs up to Michael, inviting him to explore. The two new friends happily scour the train together and play in Bobby Ray’s car—until the conductor calls out “Chattanooga!” and abruptly ushers Michael back to his grandma for the rest of the ride. How could the rules be so changeable from state to state—and so unfair? Based on author Michael Bandy’s own recollections of taking the train as a boy during the segregation era, this story of a child’s magical first experience is intercut with a sense of baffling injustice, offering both a hopeful tale of friendship and a window into a dark period of history that still resonates today.” — publisher
A band of angels
The daughter of a slave forms a gospel singing group and goes on tour to raise money to save Fisk University. — publisher
The quickest kid in Clarksville
Growing up in the segregated town of Clarksville, Tennessee, in the 1960s, Alta’s family cannot afford to buy her new sneakers–but she still plans to attend the parade celebrating her hero Wilma Rudolph’s three Olympic gold medals.
Lorraine
Pa Paw and Lorraine always lift their spirits by playing music together, but their instruments are missing when a fearsome storm hits the Tennessee hills.
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.
Make a change
"During the civil rights movement, little Marvin doesn’t want to be left out of a protest being held at a store that only allows whites at its lunch counter. When a young white man approaches the scene, the child is unsure what to expect"–|cProvided by publisher
When Grandmama sings
An eight-year-old girl accompanies her grandmother on a singing tour of the segregated South, both of them knowing that Grandmama’s songs have the power to bring people together
- 1
- 2
