Our collection of picture books featuring Black and Indigenous people 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.
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16 matching books
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Libba
Elizabeth Cotten was only a little girl when she picked up a guitar for the first time. It wasn't hers (it was her big brother's), and it wasn't strung right for her (she was left-handed). But she flipped that guitar upside down and backwards and taught herself how to play it anyway. By age eleven, she'd written "Freight Train," one of the most famous folk songs of the twentieth century. And by the end of her life, people everywhere from the sunny beaches of California to the rolling hills of England knew her music.
An invisible thread
This heartfelt story tells the true but unlikely tale of a young woman working in the city and a young boy in desperate need of friendship and guidance. In the short time after they meet, Laura realizes Maurice has never celebrated Christmas, so she opens her heart and her home and sets out to show him how wondrous the holiday is. What she finds through his glowing eyes is that the meaning of the holiday is truly about giving, not getting, as they each discover the magic of Christmas and how one small random act of kindness can truly change a life.--Jacket flap
Angel City
Illustrated by a Caldecott Honor artist, this moving tribute to the strength of family--no matter what its form--is the story of old Joseph, who finds a Mexican baby abandoned on a lonely L.A. street and vows to raise the child as his own. --from publisher
Strange fruit
"The audience was completely silent the first time Billie Holiday performed a song called “Strange Fruit.” In the 1930s, Billie was known as a performer of jazz and blues music, but this song wasn’t either of those things. It was a song about injustice, and it would change her life forever. Discover how two outsiders—Billie Holiday, a young black woman raised in poverty, and Abel Meeropol, the son of Jewish immigrants—combined their talents to create a song that challenged racism and paved the way for the Civil Rights movement." -- publisher
Ryan and Jimmy
A story of one little boy's dream to provide clean drinking water to the people of Africa
Mississippi morning
Amidst the economic depression and the racial tension of the 1930s, a boy discovers a horrible secret of his father's involvement in the Ku Klux Klan. It was 1933 and life was good for James William. Piece by piece, however, his comfortable life begins to unravel. First he learns that the burning of a black man's house was not accidental. Then his fishing buddy LeRoy tells him about the hanging tree and the Klan. Though he accepts that blacks and whites can't drink from the same fountains because "that's the way it is," James William can't believe that racial hatred exists in his own community until he comes face to face with a Klan member. A thought- provoking story of one boy's loss of naivete in the face of harsh historical realities, Mississippi Morning will challenge young readers to question their own assumptions and confront personal decisions
Those shoes
Jeremy, who longs to have the black high tops that everyone at school seems to have but his grandmother cannot afford, is excited when he sees them for sale in a thrift shop and decides to buy them even though they are the wrong size
Wash day
A young girl describes wash day, her favorite day of the week, when Miss Ett the washerwoman comes with her grandson Sherman and Grandpa tells stories and teaches Sherman to play music. On wash day, while Miss Ett does the laundry, Grandpa entertains the children by telling stories from his army days and playing his trumpet. This story shows how friendship can bridge the barriers of age and race
Ava’s adventure
"Disappointed that she can't go on a snowboarding trip with her friend, Ava escapes to her room, where she finds that the power of imagination and her own creativity take her farther than any snowboard could. At the same time, she learns that life's tradeoffs aren't always bad"-- |cProvided by publisher
Ben and the Emancipation Proclamation
Young Benjamin Holmes, a slave in Charleston who has taught himself to read, reads Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to his fellow slaves in prison
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