Talking About Race: Children and Tween Reads

Grades pre-K - 2

Seven-year-old Lena and her mother observe the variations in the color of their friends' skin, viewed in terms of foods and things found in nature.

Woodson’s lyrical text and Lopez’s vibrant illustrations work in tandem to create a sense of empathy and understanding between characters who feel outcast because of their different backgrounds and experiences. The day we are brave enough to acknowledge and embrace what makes us different, we can begin to connect to the shared humanity of others.—K - Grade 3

Middle schooler Jordan Banks had hoped to attend art school, but mom sends him to a private prep school where he is one of a handful of black kids. No one at Riverdale Academy Day School is openly hostile towards him for his race, but he deals with a series of microaggressions, like being called the name of another black student, or everyone looking at him when the teacher is discussing students on financial aid. Craft mixes humor with heart in this hilarious yet thoughtful graphic novel.

Grades 4-8. During the summer of 1968, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters travel to Oakland, California to visit their mother, who abandoned them as babies. While there, they reluctantly spend time at a summer camp run by the Black Panthers.