Books like Freedom in Congo Square
By Carole Boston Weatherford
For families ready to talk about history honestly, this book holds unimaginable hardship and unbreakable joy on the same page without flinching from either. Somber and rhythmic, building from weary toil to a burst of communal celebration.
A child piano prodigy flees revolution in Venezuela for the United States, and despite feeling lonely and out of place, grows famous enough to be invited to play for President Lincoln at the White House.
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 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 teacher searches for the words to tell her class about American slavery, tracing the story from fireside tales in Africa through the Atlantic crossing to the fields of the South.
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.
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 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 boy who longs to be a trumpeter can only play an imaginary horn, until a musician from the neighborhood night club notices his ambition and takes him seriously.
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 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.
Four small animals — a yellow bird, a white dog, an orange fox, and a brown squirrel — each face a little setback in one day, until something good turns things around for all of them.
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.
