Building Inclusive Learning With Brave and Brilliant Books
Originally Published in the 2021 School Supply Supplement
Freedom with all the oxygen and hope it gives us, alongside our health and
safety, is there anything more precious to us? As a third culture kid back in the 1970’s, the school I attended was a frequent target of bomb threats from a group seeking their
freedom. While my young mind couldn’t yet comprehend everything that was going on, these experiences were serious steps in awakening my realization that not everyone
on Earth was or is free. And I began to wonder more about whether the freedom I was given and experienced was promoting the freedom and safety of other people near and far from me and my family. Growing students’ thinking and understanding about freedom, inclusion, justice and equity energize so much of my work as an educator. From our professional learning collaborations and conversations over the last years, I know this is true for you, too.
But knowing how to engage students in these vital and edifying lessons is often daunting and humbling, too. Where do we start? What do we say? What does inclusive curriculum sound like and look like? How can we invite our students’ voices and experiences into our curriculum development and lesson planning? As I have shared in many pieces over the
years, books are constantly my answer to so many of my own teaching challenges and decisions. Through great books and brave stories, we can talk with students about subjects which cultivate and expand inclusion and strengthen our collective resolve to work for freedom for all people. With my kindred ISS colleagues and as a non-profit serving international schools around the world in every time zone and region, a vast part of our antiracism work and resourcing support focuses on putting books into students’ hands to grow their hearts as well as their heads. On the following pages, find a collection of some of the books and literary resources we recommend to help your students gain and grow their antiracism lenses.
Talking to Students about Race and Racism
The Day You Begin
By Jacqueline Woodson
Dreamers
By Yuyi Morales
Gordon Parks: How the photographer captured black and white America
By Carole Boston Weatherford
Harlem’s Little Blackbird
By Renee Watson
How to Be an Antiracist
By Ibram X. Kendi
I Am Not a Number
By Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer
The Legendary Miss Lena Horne
By Carole Boston Weatherford
Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X
By Ilyasah Shabazz
My Hair is a Garden
By Cozbi A. Cabrera
Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of John Lewis
By Jabari Asim
Ruth and the Green Book
By Calvin Alexander Ramsey
Schomburg: The man who built a library
By Carole Boston Weatherford
The School is Not White! A true story of the civil rights movement
By Doreen Rappaport
Separate Is Never Equal
By Sylvia Mendez
The Skin You Live In
By Michael Tyler
Something Happened in Our Town: A child’s story about racial injustice
By Marianne Celano, Mariette Collins, and Ann Hazzard
A Sweet Smell of Roses
By Angela Johnson
The Undefeated
By Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson
Unstoppable
By Art Coulson
Voice of Freedom Fannie Lou Hamer: Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement
By Carole Boston Weatherford
Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged
By Jody Nyasha Warner and Richard Rudnicki
We are Grateful, Otsaliheliga
By Traci Sorrel
When We Were Alone
By David Robertson
The Word Collector
By Peter H. Reynolds
Teaching for Black Lives
Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, and Wayne
Au (anthology to choose select pieces to share with students and colleagues)
Picture Books
Let’s Talk About Race
By Julius Lester
The Color of Us
By Karen Katz
Am I a Color Too?
By Heidi Cole & Nancy Vog
Is There a Human Race?
By Jamie Lee Curti
The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family
By Ibtihaj
My People
By Langston Hughes and Charles R. Smith Jr.
Keep Climbing, Girls
By Beah Richard
One Green Apple
By Eve Buntin
How Much? Visiting Markets Around the World
By Ted Lewi
I Am Too Absolutely Small for School
By Lauren Chil
The Dot and Ish
By Peter Reynold
Wild About Books
By Judy Sierra, illustrations by Marc Brow
The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq
By Jeanette Winte
My Librarian Is a Camel
By Margriet Ruur
Knock on Wood: Poems about Superstitions
By Janet S. Won
In The Leaves
By Huy Voun Lee
Historical Fictions and Biographies
Leonardo: Beautiful Dreamer
By Robert Byrd
Hallelujah Handel
By Edouglas Cowling, illustrated By Jason Walker
Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson
Changed America
By Sharon Robinson
John’s Secret Dreams By Doreen
Rappaport, illustrated
By Bryan Collier illustrated By Bryan Collier
Rosa
By Nikki Giovanni, illustrated by Bryan Collier
Show Way
By Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated By Hudson Talbott
Novels
The Worry Web Site
By Jacqueline Wilson
The Cheat
By Amy Goldman Koss
Lunch Money and The Last Holiday Concert
By Andrew Clements
King and the Dragonflies
By Kacen Callendar
Story Time
By Edward Bloor
Sahara Special
By Esme Raji Codell
The Teacher’s Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts
By Richard Peck
Granny Torrelli Makes Soup
By Sharon Creech
Becoming Naomi León
By Pam Muñoz Ryan
Here Today
By Ann Martin
Bindi Babes and Bollywood Babes
By Narinder Dhami
Al Capone Does My Shirts
By Gennifer Choldenko (Newbery Honor 2004)
Jackie’s Wild Seattle and Leaving Protection
By Will Hobbs
Brian’s Hunt
By Gary Paulsen
How Angel Peterson Got His Name
By Gary Paulsen
Chasing Vermeer
By Blue Balliett
Pirates!
By Celia Rees
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
By E. L. Konigsburg
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
By Gary Schmidt (Newbery Honor 2004)
Scrib
By David Ives
The Misadventures of Maude March
By Audrey Couloumbis
Project Mulberry
By Linda Sue Park
Replay
By Sharon Creech
Peter and the Starcatchers
By Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Silverfin
By Charlie Higson
Small Steps
By Louis Sachar
Each Little Bird That Sings
By Deborah Wiles
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
By Kate DiCamillo
Untold Tales
Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist
By Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrations By James
Ransome
A Voice of Her Own: The Story of Phillis
Wheatley, Slave Poet
By Kathryn Lasky
If the Walls Could Talk
By Jane O’Connor, illustrated By Gary Hovland
The Darling Nellie Bly: America’s Star
Reporter
By Bonnie Christensen
The Man Who Walked Between the
Towers
By Mordicai Gerstein
Luba, The Angel of Bergen-Belsen, told to
Michelle McCann
By Luba Tryszynska-Frederick
Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan
By Mary Williams
Tsunami: Helping Each Other
By Ann Morris and Heidi Larson
Owen and Mzee
By Isabella Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff and Paula Kabuke
The Milestone Project, photographs
By Richard Steckel and Michele Stecke
Poetry
Wonderful Words
By Lee Bennett Hopkins
In the Land of Words
By Eloise Greenfield
Ordinary Things: Poems from a Walk in
Early Spring
By Ralph Fletcher
A Writing Kind of Day: Poems for Young
Poets
By Ralph Fletcher
Least Things: Poems About Small Natures
By Jane Yolen
Definitions
By Sara Holbrook
Heartbeat
By Sharon Creech
Locomotion
By Jacqueline Woodson (Coretta Scott King Honor)
A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to
Poetic Forms selected
By Paul Janeczko
Fold Me a Poem
By Kristine O’Connell George, illustrated by Lauren Stringer