Books like The Story of Ruby Bridges
By Robert Coles
For families ready to talk about fairness, courage, and history through the eyes of a child who lived it. Solemn, dignified, and ultimately hopeful.
A spirited young girl navigates segregated 1950s Nashville alone, facing Jim Crow signs and painful moments on her way to the one welcoming place in town: the public library.
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 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 young girl is separated from her mother at the last moment and must sail to America alone, only to discover the address for her family in New York has smudged into illegible ink.
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 timid squirrel afraid of thunder, hawks, and dark forest paths must carry soup through Buckthorn Forest to her sick Granny Oak, facing creatures who want to help — and some who want the soup.
A young Jewish immigrant from Lithuania grows up drawing everything he sees, then uses his art to speak out against injustice — standing up to bullies, defying teachers, and pushing the US government to help struggling Americans.
Born into slavery, a woman hears the voice of God calling her north and escapes through the woods with only her faith, beginning the journey that will make her Moses to her people.
On his first day at a new school, a shy boy named Yefferson hears his name mispronounced again and again, until his family helps him find the courage to speak up for himself.
A woman who loves the trees of her Kenyan homeland begins planting seeds one by one, teaching other women to do the same, until the whole country grows strong and green again.
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.
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.
