Books like Brick by Brick
By Heidi Woodward Sheffield
For the kid who wants to grow up to do exactly what their parent does, this is a book about hard work looking like love. warm, grounded, quietly proud
A young girl, her waitress mother, and her grandma save every spare coin in a big jar, hoping to finally buy a comfortable chair after a fire destroyed their old furniture.
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.
An aspiring young musician hauls his double bass through busy city streets on the long walk home from school, weaving between crowds while music fills his heart the whole way.
A father speaks love to his child from day one — through truth, comfort, joy, and pride — guiding them through monsters both imaginary and real, and toward a better world.
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 country cottontail raising twenty-one children dreams of becoming an Easter Bunny, and when the wise Grandfather Bunny notices how capably she runs her big household, he chooses her for the job.
A simple food connects generations of a Native American family, as fry bread becomes a lens for exploring food, time, nation, and identity across communities from coast to coast.
A girl from the Muscogee Creek Nation dreams of jingle dancing at the next powwow, but her dress has no jingles — so she turns to the women in her family and community to borrow theirs.
A young boy rides the bus across town with his grandmother every Sunday, grumbling about the rain and the wait, until she helps him see the beauty and music hiding in their ordinary route.
A young left-handed girl picks up her brother's guitar, flips it upside down to play it her own way, and by age eleven has written "Freight Train," a song the world would come to know.
With a baby on her hip and laundry still waiting, a no-nonsense creator demands light and dark, earth and sky, and every living creature into being — then sits back satisfied with what she's made.
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.
