Books like Ho'Onani: Hula Warrior
By Heather Gale
For the kid who's never quite fit the boxes handed to them, Ho'onani's story says the middle can be its own strong, proud place to stand. Grounded, proud, and quietly triumphant, rooted in real Hawaiian culture and chant.
A young Indigenous girl decides to grow her hair long, after her mother's was called too wild and her grandmother's was taken from her, to honor her family and culture.
After spotting three dazzling mermaids on the subway, a boy transforms his home into a lagoon of imagination, fashioning his own mermaid costume from a curtain and some ferns.
A rap-inspired tribute moves through the stories of Indigenous heroes past and present — Tecumseh, Sacagawea, Crazy Horse, astronaut John Herrington, NHL goalie Carey Price — all building to one message: we are people who matter.
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 celebration told through many young voices, each one honoring the beauty of their own brown skin and finding themselves reflected in the natural world around them.
A girl who sings to the sun, the moon, and the birds outside her window says yes to a solo in her school's Spring Sing — then has to face the butterflies of stage fright with her grandmother's help.
When her mother asks why she likes being little, a young girl answers back with a list of the small, particular joys of childhood that grown-ups tend to overlook.
A child notices that black isn't in the rainbow, then traces the color through everyday things and through the history, culture, and legacy of Black people and community.
A crayon labeled red is actually blue inside, and no matter how hard he tries — drawing strawberries, mixing orange with a classmate — he just can't make red marks, until a new friend sees him differently.
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.
A musical girl from small-town North Carolina, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, grows into the singer Nina Simone — her sweet voice rising into a thunderous roar of protest during the Civil Rights Movement.
A young reindeer with a glowing red nose is teased and left out by the other reindeer, until a foggy Christmas Eve gives Santa a reason to need him most.
