Children's

Social Justice Picture Books!

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Raych Krueger

Staff Writer

Raych has so many kids (like, two, but they’re super young, which makes it seem like there are more of them) and this really cuts into her reading time. She’s using her degrees in Early Childhood Education and English Literature to teach the toddler to read to the baby so she can get back to her trashy Victorian sensation novel, or whatever. She’s also teaching her kids to travel and eat broadly, mostly through example (Do As I Do is super important, you guys), and hasn’t gone a year without hopping on a plane since she was a teenager. She recently moved from the Canadian coast to the Canadian prairies, where it gets hella cold, and if not for the internet, she’d surely be dead. Blog: Books I Done Read Twitter: @raychraych

While we at the Riot take some time off to rest and catch up on our reading, we’re re-running some of our favorite posts from the last several months. Enjoy our highlight reel, and we’ll be back with new stuff on Tuesday, January 3rd.

This post originally ran November 17, 2016.


 I have been furious and exhausted and sad all week, but I still have to get up and go to my job, because my job lives in my house and can’t pour its own cheerios yet. (It’s kids. My job is my kids.)

I’m channeling some of my fury into helping here and now, into donating and volunteering, but the rest of it I’m pouring into my kids – into raising fierce little feminist killjoys, unrepentant SJWs, the nastiest little women. This is never happening again on my watch.

Here’s our reading list:

a-is-for-activistA is for Activist – Innosanto Nagara

Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation – Duncan Tonatium

Let’s Talk About Race – Julius Lester

Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Maker’s Strike of 1909 – Michelle Markel

Mama Went to Jail for the Vote – Kathleen Karr

This Day in June – Gayle E Pitman

One Family – George Shannon

Sonja Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx – Jonah Winter

I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsberg Makes Her Mark – Debbie Levy

Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story From Africa – Jeannette Winter

The Librarian of Basra: A True Story From Iraq – Jeanette Winter

She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story – Audrey Vernick

i-am-rosa-parksI Am Rosa Parks – Brad Meltzer

Ron’s Big Mission – Rose Blue

The Little Black Fish – Samed Beh-Rang

Malala Yousafzai: Warrior With Words – Karen Leggett Abouraya

(This one is breaking my heart a little [a lot] but) Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls Are Born to Lead – Michelle Markel

Gimme your recs. I want books about civil rights, about queer issues, about Latinx heroes.

I want books to show my kids how to change the world, and to prove to them that it needs changing.