In celebration of Black History Month, the Curriculum Resource Centre (CRC) is featuring a list of resources to help us learn about and honour the accomplishments of blacks throughout history and appreciate the diversity of our community.

Each week during the month of February, the CRC will be highlighting important works; this week we are featuring children picture books. Be sure to check out these titles!

Dare to Dream: Coretta Scott King and the Civil Rights Movement by Angela Shelf Medearis and illustrated by Anna Rich
(Interest Level: Grades 4-8)

This book tells how Coretta Scott grew up in the segregated South, married Martin Luther King, jr., and took part in the civil rights movement.

Give Me Wings: How a Choir of Former Slaves took on the World by Kathy Lowinger
(Interest Level: Grades 9-12)

This is a story about Ella Sheppard, a founding member of a traveling choir, the Jubilee Singers that help raise funds for the Fisk Free Colored School, later known as Fisk University. The Jubilee Singers traveled from Cincinnati to New York, following the Underground Railroad. With every performance they endangered their lives and those of the people helping them, but they also broke down barriers between blacks and whites, lifted spirits, and even helped influence modern American music: the Jubilees were the first to introduce spirituals outside their black communities, thrilling white audiences who were used to more sedate European songs.

I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes and illustrated by Gordon C. James
(Interest Level: Kindergarten-Grade 3)

The confident Black narrator of this book is proud of everything that makes him who he is. He’s got big plans, and no doubt he’ll see them through–as he’s creative, adventurous, smart, funny, and a good friend. Sometimes he falls, but he always gets back up. And other times he’s afraid, because he’s so often misunderstood and called what he is not. So slow down and really look and listen, when somebody tells you–and shows you–who they are.

Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne Rockwell and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
(Interest Level: Grades 5-6)

A powerful picture book biography of one of the abolitionist movement’s most compelling voices. Sojourner Truth traveled the country in the latter half of the 19th century, speaking out against slavery. She told of a slave girl who was sold three times by age 13, who was beaten for not understanding her master’s orders, who watched her parents die of cold and hunger when they could no longer work for their keep. Sojourner’s simple yet powerful words helped people to understand the hideous truth about slavery.

The Rite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara with Susan McClelland
(Interest Level: Grades 4-6)

As a child in a small rural village in Sierra Leone, Mariatu Kamara lived peacefully surrounded by family and friends. But when 12-year-old Mariatu set out for a neighboring village, she never arrived. Heavily armed rebel soldiers attacked and tortured Mariatu by cutting off both of her hands. Stumbling through the countryside, Mariatu miraculously survived. The sweet taste of a mango, her first food after the attack, reaffirmed her desire to live. With no parents or living adult to support her and living in a refugee camp, she turned to begging in the streets of Freetown. As told to her by Mariatu, journalist Susan McClelland has written the heartbreaking true story of the brutal attack, its aftermath and Mariatu’s eventual arrival in Toronto where she began to pull together the pieces of her broken life with courage, astonishing resilience, and hope.

World Issues: Racism by Harriet Brundle and Blaine Wiseman
(Interest Level: Grades 4-6)

What is racism? How does racism happen? What can we do to stop racism? Discover more about racist behavior and how to spot and report it in Racism, part of the World Issues series.