Books like Pelé, King of Soccer/Pelé, El rey del fútbol
By Monica Brown
For the kid who kicks a ball around every room in the house, this is proof that a childhood obsession can turn into something legendary. Inspiring, energetic, larger-than-life.
A determined mountaineer dreams of climbing despite being told no by men, sponsors, and gear made only for men's hands — so she leads an all-women team up Everest, battling avalanches and icy crevasses along the way.
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 Black boy growing up in segregated 1940s North Carolina loves to draw everything around him, but becomes a football star instead — until his dream of making art finds its way to him.
A legendary railroad worker, born with a hammer in his hand and stronger than anyone around, takes on a steam drill to see who can dig through a mountain faster.
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 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.
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 champion Italian cyclist who won the 1938 Tour de France secretly uses his bicycle and racing fame to help save Jewish lives during World War II, risking everything without ever telling a soul.
A young girl leaves her grandmother's house in Mexico to join her parents and brother in New York, facing a new language, unfair accusations, and the slow work of calling a new place home.
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.
A granddaughter joins her granny and a growing group of neighbors on a mysterious, important walk through their community — one granny says will shape her into a leader.
A young Japanese American artist grows up determined to draw, even as her family is sent to a WWII internment camp — and she goes on to create groundbreaking picture books that show children of every race together.
