Research Guides: Children's Literature: Celebrating Black History

Black History Month

On this page you'll find a selection of books in the Children's Literature Collection and online educational resources that you can use for projects, classes, and read-alouds to celebrate Black history all year-round!

Edutopia Black History Month Lesson Ideas
Resources and ideas to infuse Black history into class activities year-round.
Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
A project from Teaching for Change, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching provides lessons, handouts, news, and resources for teaching about the role of everyday people in the Civil Rights Movement
Teaching for Change
Teaching for Change offers professional development, develops lessons, and curates resources to help classroom teachers supplement pre-K–12 curriculum. Their areas of focus and projects aim to help students think outside the textbook on topics that include: Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights Education, and Anti-Bias Education
The Zinn Education Project
For more than ten years, the Zinn Education Project has introduced students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. With more than 125,000 people registered, and growing by more than 10,000 new registrants every year, the Zinn Education Project has become a leading resource for teachers and teacher educators.
The 1619 Project Lesson Plans
The 1619 Project, inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine, challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation's foundational date. Here you will find reading guides, activities, and other resources to bring The 1619 Project into your classroom.

Books to Celebrate Black History Month

Black Women in Science by Kimberly Brown Pellum
Publication Date: 2019
Granddaddy's Turn: A Journey to the Ballot Box by Michael S. Bandy; Eric Stein; James E. Ransome (Illustrator)
Publication Date: 2019
It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw by Don Tate (Illustrator); R. Gregory Christie
Publication Date: 2012
Standing on Her Shoulders by Monica Clark-Robinson; Laura Freeman (Illustrator)
Publication Date: 2021
This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration by Jacqueline Woodson; James Ransome (Illustrator)
Publication Date: 2013

Award Winners

A sampling of award winning books in the Chester Fritz Library collection:

Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson. Newbery honor. Coretta Scott King Award.
Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, Derrick Barnes. Caldecott honor.
Firebird, Misty Copeland. Coretta Scott King Award. Ezra Jack Keats honor.
Little Melba and Her Big Trombone, Katheryn Russell-Brown. Coretta Scott King Award.
Magnificent Homespun Brown, Samara Cole Doyon. Coretta Scott King Award, Maine Lupine Award, NCSS 2021 Notable Social Studies Book.
Piecing Me Together, Renee Watson. Newbery honor.
The Teachers March!: How Selma's Teachers Changed History, Sandra Neil Wallace. Orbis Pictus honor.
The Undefeated, Kwame Alexander. Caldecott winner.
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, Carole Boston Weatherford. Caldecott honor. Robert F. Sibert honor.