The recent protests, social media posts, news articles and conversations lately around Black Lives Matter have helped me realize that I need to make sure my children’s home library contains books that include black characters. We have monsters, cats with hats, bears, caterpillars, etc., but those with people are inadvertently predominantly white.
So when friends posted books on Facebook, I added them to my Amazon cart and came up with a long wishlist of books. These are a few of my favorites from what we’ve bought:
- “I Had a Favorite Dress“ by Boni Ashburn
- “I Am Enough“ by Grace Byers
- “Come On, Rain!“ by Karen Hesse
- “Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.“ by Doreen Rappaport
- “When I Pray For You“ by Matthew Paul Turner
- “A Girl Named Misty: The True Story of Misty Copeland“ by Kelly Starling Lyons
- “Who is Oprah Winfrey?“ by Barbara Kramer
- “Who is Michael Jordan?“ by Kirsten Anderson
- “Who Was Rosa Parks?“ by Yona Zeldis McDonough
- “Who Was Jackie Robinson?“ by Gail Herman
I really had to hold back from buying too many of the “Who Was” series books, but I am really excited to share my love of Oprah with my kiddos 🙂 And my daughter has had me read “I Had a Favorite Dress” to her literally every night since it arrived.
If you’re looking for children’s books addressing racism, a friend sent me this link with a ton of great options: “A Teacher Tweeted Her Favorite Children’s Books on Racism and It Went Viral.”
After we get through all of these, we’ll continue to utilize our local public library for more. 🙂 Happy reading!
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