Books like Smoky Night
By Eve Bunting
For families ready to talk about hard things honestly, this book meets a scary, real event with steadiness instead of looking away. Tense, urban, unflinching, and ultimately grounded.
During the Syrian Civil War, an ambulance driver stays behind in Aleppo when his neighbors flee, and finds himself feeding and comforting the many cats they left behind.
A boy leaving New York City and a girl leaving Mexico City each face the same nervous questions about their move — will they make friends, what will they eat, where will they play?
A shy mountain boy walks miles to a village school each day and is shunned as an outcast for years — until a new teacher, Mr. Isobe, finally notices what makes him remarkable.
A Black child moves through a year of feelings, from summertime joy on his skateboard to the fear, anger, grief, and eventual peace that follow a police shooting in his community.
In 1707, an eight-year-old girl travels into the Connecticut wilderness with her father to build a new home, then must find her courage when he leaves her with their Indian neighbors.
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.
A king adopts a family of orphans, who each try to win his approval with gifts and displays of talent — until one simply chooses to spend time with him instead.
A young boy asks his grandma where God is in their city, so she teaches him to look for kindness, patience, and love in the people around him.
A rhyming, day-in-the-life look at a school where kids from every background arrive, share their traditions and talents, and are welcomed exactly as they are.
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 poem-portrait of one family — brown-skinned mama, white-skinned daddy, and their two children — celebrates every skin tone between them as simply, joyfully theirs.
A girl dreads joining the special education class at her new school, nicknamed the junkyard, until her teacher Mrs. Peterson helps her see her odd, brilliant classmates for who they really are.
