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For Parents / Educators

1997-present

"AALBC.com is the oldest, largest, and most frequently visited web site dedicated to books by, or about, people of African descent. Started in 1997, AALBC.com is a widely recognized source of information about Black authors." 

by Debbie Reese
2006-present

In the words of blog author and educator Debbie Reese, "... A primary purpose of American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) is to help you know who we are. Knowing who we are can help you understand why we strenuously object to being misrepresented. Though I am certain that no author ever sets out to deliberately misrepresent who we are in his or her writing, it happens over and over again.... On American Indians in Children's Literature, I publish analyses of children's books, lesson plans, films, and other items related to the topic of American Indians and/or how we this topic is taught in school."

Cover of Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
9780812993547
2015

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Recommended by YWCA Madison

Brown Bookshelf logo
created by Don Tate, Kelly Starling Lyons, Tameka Fryer Brown, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Gwendolyn Hooks, Crystal Allen, Varian Johnson, Tracey Baptiste, Jerry Craft, and Paula Chase-Hyman
2007-present

The Brown Bookshelf is designed to push awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers. Their flagship initiative is 28 Days Later, a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by African Americans.

Cover of The day you begin
by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael López
9780399246531
2018

National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson and two-time Pura Belpré Illustrator Award winner Rafael López have teamed up to create a poignant, yet heartening book about finding courage to connect, even when you feel scared and alone.

Defending Black Girlhood podcast logo
by Lilada Gee
2020

A dynamic voice on behalf of Black girls and women throughout the African Diaspora who carry the heavy burden of generations of sexual trauma, as well as their own—Madison native Lilada Gee has committed her life to the defense of Black girlhood and the healing of Black women. The first season of her powerful podcast explores the complex family, school, and community relationships that can either support or fail Black Girls. (for mature audiences)

Cover of A Different Mirror for You
by Rebecca Stefoff and Ronald T. Takaki
1609804848
2012

A Different Mirror for Young People brings ethnic history alive through primary sources, the words of people, including teenagers, who recorded their experiences in letters, diaries, and poems.

EmbraceRace: Raising a Brave Generation
Melissa Giraud and Andrew Grant Thomas, CoFounders
2016-present

EmbraceRace is a multiracial community of parents, teachers, experts, and other caring adults who support each other to meet the challenges that race poses to our children, families, and communities.

Cover of For White Folks Who Teach
by Christopher Emdin
9780807006405
2016

Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, a prominent scholar offers a new approach to teaching and learning for every stakeholder in urban education. Drawing on his own experience of feeling undervalued and invisible in science classrooms as a young man of color, Christopher Emdin offers a new lens on and approach to teaching in urban schools.

Cover of How to be an antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi
9780525509288
2019

In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism.
Recommended by YWCA Madison

Cover of Indian Nations of Wisconsi
by Patty Loew
9780870205033
2013

From origin stories to contemporary struggles over treaty rights and sovereignty issues, Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal explores Wisconsin’s rich Native tradition. Each chapter is a compact tribal history of one of the state’s Indian nations—Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Oneida, Menominee, Mohican and Brothertown, and Ho-Chunk—and the book relies on the historical perspectives of Native people.

Jane Addams logo
Jane Addams Peace Association
yearly

The Jane Addams Children's Book Awards are given annually to the children's books published the preceding year that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races as well as meeting conventional standards for excellence.

Learning for Justice Logo
a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center
1991-present

Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school.

Chana Joffe-Walt, Serial Productions, a New York Times Company
2020

If you want to understand what’s wrong with our public schools, you have to look at what is arguably the most powerful force in shaping them: white parents. (5-episode podcast.)

Cover of Sister outsider: essays an
by Audre Lorde
9781580911863
1984

In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope

Cover of So you want to talk about
Ijeoma Oluo
9781580056779
2018

Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. An exceptional writer with a rare ability to be straightforward, funny, and effective in her coverage of sensitive, hyper-charged issues in America, Oluo answers the questions readers don't dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude white Americans.
Recommended by YWCA Madison

Teaching for Change logo
Teaching for Change
1989-present

At Teaching for Change, we are proud of our carefully selected booklists that highlight titles by and about people of color as well as social justice themes. Teaching for Change is proud to offer a diverse selection of titles that encourage children and adults to question, challenge, and re-think the world beyond the headlines.

Cover of The Undefeated
by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson
9781328780966
2020

A poem and love letter to black life in the United States, The Undefeated won the 2020 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, the 2020 Caldecott Medal, and is a 2020 Newbery Honor Book.

We Are Kid Lit Collective
Thaddeus Andracki, Edith Campbell, Sarah Park Dahlen, Sujei Lugo, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Nathalie Mvondo, Debbie Reese, Ed Spicer, The We Are Kidlit Collective
2015-present

"The We Are Kidlit Collective works to create materials and opportunities to recognize the humanity of Indigenous and People of Color (IPOC) in youth literature. Our work is premised upon the principles of social justice, equity, and inclusion and centers IPOC voices in children’s literature in order to identify, challenge and dismantle white supremacy and both internalized and systematic racism."  

Cover of We Rise, We Resist, We Rai
Cheryl Willis Hudson, Wade Hudson, Ashley Bryan
9780525580423
2018

What do we tell our children when the world seems bleak, and prejudice and racism run rampant? With 96 lavishly designed pages of original art and prose, fifty diverse creators lend voice to young activists.

Cover of We want to do more than su
by Dr. Bettina Love
9780807069158
2019

Drawing on her life's work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Dr. Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements.

Cover of White fragility: why it's
by Robin DiAngelo
9780807047415
2018

Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
Recommended by YWCA Madison

NPR Life Kit Logo
by Cory Turner, NPR and Sesame Workshop
2019

NPR and Sesame Workshop collaborated to offer this segment on the importance of talking about race and other social categories with kids, and provide parents with some helpful strategies.

Cover of Young, Gifted and Black: m
by Jamia Wilson, illustrated by Andrea Pippins
9781786031587
2018

Join us on a journey across borders, through time and even through space to meet 52 icons of color from the past and present in a celebration of achievement.