Ages 4-8; PrK-Gr.3; Caldecott honor, 2025.
Junko Tabei dreamed of a life climbing mountains. But men refused to climb with her. Sponsors told her to stay home. And gloves were not made to fit her hands. Junko, eager and unstoppable, wouldn't let these obstacles get in her way. Instead, she planned an expedition to summit Mount Everest with an all-women team. Battling icy peaks, deep crevasses, and even an avalanche, Junko refused to give up. She climbed step by step . . . up, up, ever up! After summiting the world's tallest peak, Junko took on a new challenge: protecting the wild spaces she loved for future generations.

Ages 4-8; PrK-Gr.3.
A celebration of one of Iran's most iconic musical artists. The legendary Iranian singer and actress Googoosh (born Faegheh Atashin) made her stage debut at age two while performing alongside her acrobat father. By the time she reached adulthood, she was widely considered to be Iran's first superstar. Googoosh was in the prime of her career and on the brink of international stardom, but after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, she was silenced and disappeared from public life for over twenty years.

Ages 4-8; Gr.1-3: Coretta Scott King award honor, 2025.
Celebrate the life of the extraordinary civil and human rights activist Coretta Scott King with this picture book adaptation of her critically acclaimed adult memoir. Learn about how a girl born in the segregated deep south became a global leader at the forefront of the peace movement and an unforgettable champion of social change.

Lexile measure AD660L; Ages 4-8; PrK-Gr.3.
Discover the inspiring story of Augustus Jackson, an African American entrepreneur who is known as "the father of ice cream," in this beautifully illustrated picture-book biography. Augustus Jackson was born in 1808 in Philadelphia. While most African Americans were enslaved at that time, in Pennsylvania, slavery was against the law. But while Augustus and his family were free, they were poor, and they depended on their garden and their chickens for food.

Lexile measure 570; Ages 7-10; Gr.2-5.
A child of the Harlem Renaissance and an artistic collaborator of Langston Hughes, Roy DeCarava is an unsung hero of Black history. Convinced that the lives of ordinary Black people deserved to be immortalized and documented in photos, Roy celebrated Black people through his art, a process that the incomparable author Gary Golio and illustrator E. B. Lewis capture in this beautiful picture book.

Lexile measure 990; Ages 10-14; Gr.4-6.
At the cusp of the Cold War, Americans were so afraid of communists living among them that they began to hunt them like witches. As Senator Joe McCarthy took up this mantle to hunt down "communists" in the US, citizens grew terrified of being accused, so they turned on each other - pointing fingers at neighbors, friends, and even family. Told through a unique and inviting screenplay-format, brought to life with dozens of illustrations by Tim Foley, and comprised almost entirely of quotes derived from primary sources, Witch Hunt recounts the political craze that gripped America during the Red Scare when McCarthyism forced people to go to extraordinary lengths to keep themselves and their families safe from persecution against their own government.

Ages 4-8; PrK-Gr.3; John Steptoe award for new talent illustrator, 2025.
Celebrate James Baldwin's one-hundredth birthday anniversary with the first-ever illustrated biography of this legendary writer, orator, activist, and intellectual. Before he became a writer, James "Jimmy" Baldwin was a young boy from Harlem, New York, who loved stories. He found joy in the rhythm of music, family, and books. But Jimmy also found the blues, as a Black man living in America. When he discovered the written word, he discovered true power.

Ages 8-12; Gr.3-7.
With a Thai mother and an American father, Kathy lives in two different worlds. She spends most of the year in Bangkok, where she's secretly counting the days till summer vacation. That's when her family travels for twenty-four hours straight to finally arrive in a tiny seaside town in Maine. Kathy loves Maine's idyllic beauty and all the exotic delicacies she can't get back home, like clam chowder and blueberry pie. But no matter how hard she tries, she struggles to fit in.

Ages 4-8; PrK-Gr.3; Caldecott honor, 2025.
A vibrant historical picture book about Tokyo's bicycle food deliverers, or demae, who balanced towering trays of steaming hot noodles on their shoulders while navigating crowded city streets.

This book tells the story of Larry Itliong's lifelong fight for a farmworkers union, and the birth of one of the most significant American social movements of all time, the farmworker's struggle, and its most enduring union, the United Farm Workers.

Ages 14-18; Gr.10-12.
In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer - and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety.

Ages 12 and up; Gr.7 and up.
In the spring of 1992, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Los Angeles was torn apart. Thousands of fires were set, causing more than a billion dollars in damage. In neighborhoods abandoned by the police, protestors and storeowners exchanged gunfire. More than 12,000 people were arrested and 2,400 injured. Sixty-three died. In Rising from the Ashes, award-winning author Paula Yoo draws on the experience of the city's Korean American community to narrate and illuminate this uprising, from the racism that created economically disadvantaged neighborhoods torn by drugs and gang-related violence, to the tensions between the city's minority communities.

Lexile measure 920; Ages 5-8; Gr.1-3.
The Golden Gate Bridge, beloved landmark and symbol of San Francisco, finally gets a gorgeous picture book that tells the thrilling story of how it was built! Across a treacherous strait where deep ocean waters rip back and forth with the tides, and during the depths of the Great Depression, daring teams of engineers and builders set out to make something many thought impossible.

Ages 7 and up.
Alvin Coffey: The True Story of an African American Forty-Niner is a picture book biography of one man, born into slavery, who came to California in 1849 seeking something more precious than gold. Mining gold by day and mending boots by night, Alvin never gave up working toward his goal – freedom for himself and his family.

Lexile measure 820; Ages 7-10; Gr.2-5.
Roberto Clemente always loved baseball. Growing up in Carolina, Puerto Rico, he swung tree branches (since he didn't have a bat) and hit tin cans. He was always batting, pitching, running, sliding. His dedication paid off when, at the age of 19, he was tapped for a major league team. First stop- chilly Montreal . . . where he warmed the bench and himself, longing to play baseball. Months later, he finally got his chance with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Clemente became an instant star on the field-hitting the ball and making it to first base and finally home.

Lexile measure 730; Ages 7-10; Gr.2-5.
How did the Joshua Tree National Park in California come to be? Meet Minerva Hamilton Hoyt, an artist, activist, and environmentalist, whose determination saved the desert and helped to create the park. Long before she became known as the Cactus Queen, Minerva Hamilton Hoyt found solace in the unexpected beauty of the Mojave Desert in California. She loved the jackrabbits and coyotes, the prickly cacti, and especially the weird, spiky Joshua trees.

Lexile measure 870; Ages 8-12; Gr.3-7.
"You are to report to Station X at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, in four days time....That is all you need to know." This was the terse telegram hundreds of young women throughout the British Isles received in the spring of 1941, as World War II raged. As they arrived at Station X, a sprawling mansion in a state of disrepair surrounded by Spartan-looking huts with little chimneys coughing out thick smoke--these young people had no idea what kind of work they were stepping into. Who had recommended them? Why had they been chosen? Most would never learn all the answers to these questions. Bletchley Park was a well-kept secret during World War II, operating under the code name Station X. The critical work of code-cracking Nazi missives that went on behind its closed doors could determine a victory or loss against Hitler''s army. Amidst the brilliant cryptographers, flamboyant debutantes, and absent-minded professors working there, it was teenaged girls who kept Station X running.

Lexile measure 1040; Ages 6-9; Gr.1-4.
The true story of John Meyers and Charles Bender, who in 1911 became the first two Native pro baseball players to face off in a World Series. This picture book teaches important lessons about resilience, doing what you love in the face of injustice, and the fight for Native American representation in sports.

Ages 8-12; Gr.3-7.
Three women narrate a perilous wagon journey westward that could set them free--or cost them everything they have--in this intergenerational verse novel that explores the history of the Black homesteader movement.

Ages 10-18; Gr.7-9.
Millions of Africans were enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade, but few recorded their personal experiences. Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano is perhaps the most well known of the autobiographies that exist. Using this narrative as a primary source text, authors Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge share Equiano's life story in "found verse," supplemented with annotations to give readers historical context.

Ages 4-7; Gr.1-2.
Malak is a little girl who lives in Gaza with her parents. She goes to school, plays in the ocean, and visits Sitti's house on Fridays. One day while she is in school, bombings begin. She spends the next 50 days at home with her parents worrying and feeling scared, until one day she picks up her paintbrush.

Ages 8-12; Gr.3-7.
Inspired by the true story of how the Grand Mosque of Paris saved the lives of hundreds of Jews during World War II, Hiba Noor Khan weaves a breathtaking tale of suspense, compassion, and courage, starring an extraordinary young heroine readers will never forget. Safiyyah loathes the brutal Nazi occupation of Paris, even though her Muslim identity keeps her safe--or, at least, safer than her Jewish neighbors. Violence lurks in the streets, her best friend has fled, and even her place of refuge--the library--has turned shadowy and confusing, as the invaders fear the power of books. Safiyyah longs to fight back and hates feeling powerless to help her Jewish friends. Worse yet, her father--who taught her to always do the right thing--is acting strangely and doing nothing to help them either. Or is he?