Books like Amazing Grace
By Mary Hoffman
For the kid who turns every living room into a stage, Amazing Grace is proof that the biggest role is always the one you cast yourself in. Warm, spirited, and quietly triumphant.
A warm, direct address to a girl reader, moving through everyday moments — muddy puddles, freckled faces, tabletop dances — to remind her she's powerful, valued, and worthy of love just as she is.
A boy settles into the barber's chair for a fresh cut, and with every snip of the clippers feels himself transform into something sharper, prouder, and more sure of who he is.
A parent looks at a child and wonders aloud, in rhyme, about all the different people they might grow up to be — brave, clever, silly, wise — no matter what.
A Puerto Rican girl grows up surrounded by love and pride in her Taíno and African heritage, but painful treatment from the world slowly dims her sense of her own beauty — until her community rallies to wake her up again.
A lyrical love letter traces a child's life from first steps and first laughs through hard days and heartbreak, affirming again and again that they matter, always have, and always will.
A lyrical picture book celebrates self-worth, kindness, and respect for others, reminding every child who reads it that they have purpose and are already enough.
A young boy travels before dawn with his family to Granny's farm for their annual reunion, where every child must find their own way to honor the family's history — but Lil Alan isn't sure what he'll bring.
A young Asian girl notices her eyes look different from her friends' — then realizes her eyes match her mother's, grandmother's, and little sister's, and learns to see them as beautiful.
A boy who loves to draw anytime, anything, anywhere loses his confidence after one careless comment from his older brother — until his little sister shows him a different way to see his own work.
A biography of jazz pioneer Duke Ellington, tracing his rise from playing pool halls and cabarets as a teenager to leading his orchestra through a groundbreaking Carnegie Hall performance of Black, Brown, and Beige.
A Black boy growing up in segregated 1940s North Carolina loves to draw everything around him, but becomes a football star instead — until his dream of making art finds its way to him.
A determined young dancer in the 1930s and 40s trains for ballet despite discriminatory schools, then refuses to paint her skin white for a company's offer — and rises to become the Met Opera's first Black prima ballerina.
