Books like Pedro, the Angel of Olvera Street
By Leo Politi
For the kid who loves a good procession, a costume, and the anticipation of what's hidden inside a piñata, Pedro's Christmas Eve is the kind of night that stays with you. Warm, communal, and festive, with the hum of music and lantern light along a real Los Angeles street.
Two children prepare for el Día de los Muertos, making sugar skulls and special bread, then scatter marigold petals to guide their ancestors home for a night of singing, dancing, and remembering.
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 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 picture-book biography traces Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s path from a childhood in the segregated South to becoming a minister and civil rights leader, told through his own powerful words.
Imprisoned with her family at a WWII incarceration camp, a young woman finds a small library and, in it, a quiet friendship with a man who checks out an armful of books every single day.
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 bricklayer works hard every day building the city, while his son works hard at school and plays at molding tiny clay bricks, until one Saturday his father surprises him with something built just for their family.
Across generations, the women in one family pass down the art of quilting — from a seven-year-old girl sold away from her parents who sewed secret maps to freedom, to daughters who carried her knowledge through segregation and into the fight for literacy.
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 lyrical picture book celebrates self-worth, kindness, and respect for others, reminding every child who reads it that they have purpose and are already enough.
A skilled quiltmaker refuses to make a quilt for a rich, unhappy king unless he gives away everything he owns — and the more he gives, the happier he becomes.
A poor boy joins the procession of gift-bearers traveling to Bethlehem, and with no treasure to offer the newborn Christ Child, he plays the only gift he has: a song on his drum.
