Diverse Books for Elementary Students

The school year might be ending but learning should never stop! Here’s a great list of diverse books for Elementary School readers.


A Ride to Remember
By Sharon Langley

This book reveals how in 1963, demonstrations and public protests lead the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park to became desegregated. Learn how tells how a community came together—both black and white—to make a change.

Book | eBook | eAudio

A Girl Like Me
By Angela Johnson

Empower young readers to embrace their individuality, reject societal limitations, and follow their dreams. This inspiring picture book brings together a poem by acclaimed author Angela Johnson and Nina Crews’s distinctive photocollage illustrations to celebrate girls of color.

Book | eBook

The Undefeated
By Kwame Alexander

Originally performed for ESPN’s The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world’s greatest heroes. 

Book | eBook

Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice
By Mahogany Browne

Historically poets have been on the forefront of social movements. Woke is a collection of poems by women that reflects the joy and passion in the fight for social justice, tackling topics from discrimination to empathy, and acceptance to speaking out.

Book | eBook

Hidden Figures
By Margot Lee Sheterly

Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden were good at math…really good. They participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes, like providing the calculations for America’s first journeys into space. And they did so during a time when being black and a woman limited what they could do.

Book | eBook


Get Up, Stand Up
By Cedella Marley
Book | eBook
Radiant Child
By Javaka Steptoe

Book | eBook
Josephine
By Patricia Hruby Powell
Book | eBook
Let the Children March
By Monica-Clark Robinson

Book | eBook
This is the Rope
By Jacqueline Woodson

Book | eBook
The First Step
By Susan Goodman

Book | eBook

Preaching to the Chickens
By Jabari Asim
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Freedom Over Me
By Ashley Bryan
Book | eBook
Whoosh!
By Chris Barton

Book | eBook
Before She was Harriet
By Lesa Cline-Ransome
Book | eBook


Looking for more diverse books? Check out the Pratt’s collection of Diverse Books for Elementary Students.

Diverse Reading Recommendations for our Youngest Readers

Are you looking for diverse books to read with your pre-schoolers?
Take a look at these selections. They’re perfect for story time or bedtime!


Hair Love
By Matthew Cherry

When Daddy steps in to style Zuri’s hair for an extra-special occasion, he has a lot to learn. But he loves Zuri, and he’ll do anything to make her and her hair happy. Tender and empowering, Hair Love is an ode to loving your natural hair — and a celebration of daddies and daughters everywhere.

Book | eBook

Hey Black Child
By Useni Eugene Perkins

Six-time Coretta Scott King Award-winner and four-time Caldecott Honor-recipient Bryan Collier brings Useni Eugene Perkins’s classic, inspirational poem to life. This book celebrates black children and seeks to inspire all young people to dream big and achieve their goals.

Book | eBook

Parker Looks Up
By Parker Curry
and Jessica Curry

Don’t miss this moving picture book that tells the story of a young girl and her family whose visit to see Amy Sherald’s transcendent portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama at the National Portrait Gallery becomes an extraordinary moment.

Book | eBook

The King of Kindergarten
By Derrick Barnes

Starting kindergarten is a big milestone — and the hero of this story is ready to make his mark! The day will be jam-packed, but he’s up to the challenge, taking new experiences in stride with his infectious enthusiasm.

Book | eBook | eAudio

I Believe I Can
By Grace Byers

I Believe I Can is an affirmation for boys and girls of every background to love and believe in themselves, from actress and activist Grace Byers. The book teaches, “My presence matters in this world. I know I can do anything, if only I believe I can.”

Book | eAudio


Bedtime Bonnet
By Nancy Redd

Book | eBook

Don’t Touch My Hair
By Sharee Miller

Book | eBook

Going Down Home with Daddy
By Kelly Starling Lyons

Book | eAudio
I Am Enough
By Grace Byers

Book | eAudio

I Walk with Vanessa
By Kerascoët

Book | eBook

In Plain Sight
By Richard Jackson

Book | eBook

Last Stop on Market Street
By Matt De La Peña

Book | eBook
Saturday
By Oge Mora

Book | eBook
Sulwe
By Lupita Nyong’o

Book | eBook
Thank You, Omu
By Oge Mora

Book | eBook

Looking for more diverse books? Check out the Pratt’s collection of Diverse Reading Recommendations for our Youngest Readers.

Kanopy Spotlight, Night Tide

by Tom Warner, Librarian, Best & Next Department

One of the perks of browsing through Kanopy, the Pratt’s free video streaming resource, is discovering how many “hidden gems” are in its collection. While other streaming services concentrate purely on popular, mainstream movies, Kanopy has something for everyone — even Cult and low-budget B-movie fans. Case in point, Curtis Harrington’s 1961 sleeper Night Tide

Night Tide was Harrington’s first feature-length film, shot in and around Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier, and was described by critic Andrew Male as “existing in a strange, fugal netherworld of its own — somewhere between queer independent American cinema, Val Lewton horror and the poetic dream cinema of Jean Cocteau.”  The influence of the thoughtful and moody Val Lewton-produced film chillers of the 1940s (Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, Isle of the Dead) as well as Herk Harvey’s surreal Carnival of Souls (1962, also set at a carnival and available from Kanopy) in which you’re never sure whether what’s happening is real or imagined — is unmistakable.

Harrington’s film tells the story of a young sailor, Johnny Drake (played by a baby-faced Dennis Hopper in his first proper starring role), who falls in love with a carnival sideshow mermaid named Mora (played by Linda Lawson), who may or may not be the real thing. Mora certainly thinks she is and Johnny soon comes to believe that Mora might be a siren who draws men to a watery death during the full moon —- after all, her two previous boyfriends drowned, making her a literal femme fatale

Night Tide was ignored at the time of its release in 1961, paired on a double-bill with Roger Corman’s The Raven, and died a quick death, only becoming an acclaimed cult film with the rise of home video and DVD. By the way, the soundtrack music is by David Raskin, who scored the music for the classic film noir Laura (1944).

Marjorie Cameron

Of special interest to cult film fans is the appearance of Marjorie Cameron (pictured right) as an ominous sea-witch whose siren-call lures Mora back to the water. Cameron was an American artist, poet, actress, and occultist; she was a follower of “Thelema,” the religious movement established by English occultist Aleister Crowley, and was married to rocket pioneer and fellow Thelemite Jack Parsons. (Parsons was convinced she was his “Scarlet Woman,” the incarnation of what he had been searching for in his “sex magick” experiments.) Cameron also appeared in Harrington’s The Wormwood Star (1955) and Kenneth Anger’s The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1956).

Though it has all the trappings of a low-budget horror film, Night Tide can also be seen as a doomed love story, its moody atmosphere reflecting the fear and anxiety of romantic obsession.

Kanopy also offers The Curtis Harrington Short Film Collection, which includes his early experimental films Fear of Seeking (1946), The Four Elements (1948), and The Fall of the House of Usher (1949).

Books to add to your Anti-Racism Reading List

Happy Juneteenth! In celebration of the holiday, we’re highlighting the richness of the Black Culture as well as spotlighting books that speak to the current racial climate.

Not sure what Juneteenth is? On June 19, 1865, the abolition of slavery was announced in Texas, marking the end of slavery in the United States. First known as Freedom Day, Juneteenth commemorates that critical date in history.


How to be an Antiracist
By Ibram X. Kendi 

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

Book | eBook | eAudio

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
By Michelle Alexander

Alexander provocatively argues that by targeting Black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness.

Book | eBook | eAudio

Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
By Paul Kivel

Learn about interpersonal, institutional, and cultural racism along with stories of resistance and white solidarity. It provides practical tools and advice on how white people can work as allies for racial justice, engaging the reader through questions, exercises, and suggestions for action.

Book | eBook

Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?
By Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia gives voice to the many people of color who have fallen to police bullets or racist abuse, and offers the post-Ferguson generation advice on how to address police abuse in the United States.

Book | eBook

They Can’t Kill Us All
By Wesley Lowery

Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery details his quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it.

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Getting Smart about Race
By Margaret L. Anderson

Book
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot
By Jennifer E. Cobbina
Book
Just Mercy
By Bryan Stevenson

Book | eBook
Making All Black Lives Matter
By Barbara Ransby

Book | eBook
Me and White Supremacy
By Layla F. Saad

Book | eBook
The Condemnation of Blackness
By Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Book
The Racial Healing Handbook
By Anneliese Singh

eBook
White Fragility
By Robin Diangelo

Book | eBook

Looking for even more books on this subject? Check out the Pratt’s collection of Anti-Racist Reading for Adults.