Books like Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free
By Alice Faye Duncan
For the kid who asks tough questions about fairness, this true story shows how one girl's heartbreak became a lifelong mission for change. Warm and celebratory at first, then sobering and determined — joy and justice woven together.
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 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 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 girl who loves running isn't allowed on her school's track team, so when officials say women can't handle the Boston Marathon's distance, she sets out to prove them wrong.
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 biography of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, told through the many disagreements and dissents she voiced over a lifetime spent standing up against unfair treatment.
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.
In a world where girls only wear dresses and boys only wear pants, a determined young girl named Mary decides she'll simply wear whatever she wants.
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.
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 poem honoring Black American life across history — the pain of slavery, the courage of the civil rights movement, and the achievements of dreamers, artists, and everyday heroes.
