Books like An American Story
By Kwame Alexander
For families ready to open up a hard conversation together, this book offers the words when your own words run out. Solemn, poetic, and ultimately hopeful — heavy subject matter carried by lyrical language and striking artwork.
An enslaved man endures separation from his family in Virginia, then hits on a desperate plan: mailing himself in a wooden crate to freedom in the North.
A young Armenian boy leaves behind his home and everyone he has known to search for refuge, carrying his story until he finally finds the courage to share it.
A spirited young girl navigates segregated 1950s Nashville alone, facing Jim Crow signs and painful moments on her way to the one welcoming place in town: the public library.
A lyrical, free-verse journey traces enslaved Black Americans' path to freedom, from the moment shackles fell in 1865 Galveston, Texas to how Juneteenth is honored today.
Enslaved people in 19th-century Louisiana count down the days through endless labor — slopping hogs, chopping logs, plucking hens — toward Sunday afternoon, when they gather in New Orleans' Congo Square to sing, dance, and briefly live free.
A picture-book biography traces Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s path from a childhood in the segregated South to becoming a minister and civil rights leader, told through his own powerful words.
An egg named Humpty Dumpty loves nothing more than watching birds from high on the city wall — until a great fall leaves him terrified of heights, and he must find the courage to climb again.
A Black child moves through a year of feelings, from summertime joy on his skateboard to the fear, anger, grief, and eventual peace that follow a police shooting in his community.
A true portrait of an enslaved man in 1800s South Carolina who became a master potter, shaping massive clay jars and carving his own poetry into them despite the world telling him he had no voice.
A woman who loves the trees of her Kenyan homeland begins planting seeds one by one, teaching other women to do the same, until the whole country grows strong and green again.
A legendary railroad worker, born with a hammer in his hand and stronger than anyone around, takes on a steam drill to see who can dig through a mountain faster.
A groundbreaking basketball player soars above the rim with a style no one had seen before, then takes a stand when hotels and restaurants refuse him for being Black.
