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9 Diverse Picture Books to Celebrate National Children’s Book Month

November is National Children’s Book Month, a perfect opportunity to highlight a selection of beautiful recent picture books featuring people of color and Indigenous people. 

It’s also a chance to explore the Diverse BookFinder’s tools for examining not just who is represented but how. Each title below is a strong example of one (or more) of our nine categories, and portrays one (or more) of our designated racial groups. Read more about our work on representation here.

Category: Beautiful Life: A Focus on Culture

Racial/Cultural Group: Asian/Pacific Islander/Asian American

Bravo!

2017

by Margarita Engle and Rafael López

Musician, botanist, baseball player, pilot—the Latinos featured in this collection come from many different countries and from many different backgrounds. Celebrate their accomplishments and their contributions to a collective history and a community that continues to evolve and thrive today! Bold, graphic portraits and beautiful poems present famous and lesser-known Latinos from varied backgrounds who have faced life's challenges in creative ways. -- Provided by publisher

Biography

Category - Biography: Real People, Real Lives

Racial/Cultural Group - Latinx/Hispanic/Latin American

Category - Race/Culture Concepts: Examining Difference and Commonalities

Racial/Cultural Group - Middle Eastern/North African/Arab

Category - Incidental: Ensemble or Background Characters of Color

Racial/Cultural Group - Multi-Racial Cast of Characters

I am Josephine

2016

by Jan Thornhill and Jacqui Lee

"Meet Josephine: a spirited and curious girl, a big sister, and a human being. She's also a mammal, an animal, and a living thing--all identities she explores with readers in this simple informational picture book. Josephine presents her family (and herself) as examples of human beings, and then familiar creatures like her dog and her mom (and herself) as mammals. Next, she adds whales, lobsters, hummingbirds, and elephants (and herself) as examples of animals. Finally, she shares examples of living things, including moose, foxes, butterflies, flowers, and bugs ... and, of course, herself!"--Amazon

Any Child Informational

Category - Any Child

Racial/Cultural Group - Race Unclear

The people shall continue

2017

by Simon J. Ortiz and Sharol Graves

"The People Shall Continue was originally published in 1977. It is a story of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, specifically in the U.S., as they endeavor to live on lands they have known to be their traditional homelands from time immemorial. Even though the prairies, mountains, valleys, deserts, river bottomlands, forests, coastal regions, swamps and other wetlands across the nation are not as vast as they used to be, all of the land is still considered to be the homeland of the people"--Foreword

Cross Group Oppression & Resilience

Category - Oppression: Struggle, Resistance, and Triumph

Racial/Cultural Group - First/Native Nations/American Indian/Indigenous

Category - Cross-group: Interactions Across Race and Culture

Racial/Cultural Group - Black/African/AfricanAmerican; Asian/Pacific Islander/Asian American

Category - Folklore: Myths, Legends and Traditional Stories

Racial/Cultural Group - Black/African/AfricanAmerican; Latinx/Hispanic/Latin American

Category - Informational: Factual Content Unrelated to Race or Culture

Racial/Cultural Group - Bi/Multiracial

For more titles, search our collection of more than 2000 picture books using our categories, racial/cultural groups, and more at Diversebookfinder.org/books

Many of the cover images on this site are from Google Books.
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