Books like Nina: A Story of Nina Simone
By Traci N. Todd
For the family raising a child who sings before they can talk and feels music in their whole body, this is a picture book about where that gift can lead. Lyrical, reverent, building from quiet to powerful.
A boy in Punjab, born with weak legs that kept him from playing cricket or walking to school, grows stronger year by year on his family's farm and eventually runs marathons at over one hundred years old.
A picture book biography of the first Black woman elected to Congress, tracing her early years, her fight for a seat in the halls of power, and her bid to become president.
Two sisters wake before sunrise six days a week to practice tennis, pushing through boos and taunts from a sport that didn't expect them, on their way to becoming legends.
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 fearless young woman falls in love with flying after her first airplane ride, then defies people who scoff at her dreams to become a pilot with the Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II.
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 true story about a young inventor who builds his own microphone from a broomstick, a cinderblock, and a telephone, then goes on to engineer the world's first solid-body electric guitar.
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 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.
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 folk hero grows so fast he bursts through the porch roof, then grows into a legend — swinging two sledgehammers to build roads and racing a steam drill through a mountain.
A glamorous Hollywood movie star secretly spends her nights inventing — and during World War Two, she develops a groundbreaking communications system the military doesn't take seriously, at first, because of who she is.
