Growing Future Activists
Top 10 Growing Future Activists
: Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, And Tango Makes Three, Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa, The Curious Garden, Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down
| Author | Kathleen Krull |
| ISBN | 0152014373 |
Cesar Chavez is known as one of America's greatest civil rights leaders. When he led a 340-mile peaceful protest march through California, he ignited a cause and improved the lives of thousands of migrant farmworkers. But Cesar wasn't always a leader. As a boy, he was shy and teased at school. His family...
The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq
| Author | Jeanette Winter |
| ISBN | 0152054456 |
"In the Koran, the first thing God said to Muhammad was 'Read.'"*
--Alia Muhammad Baker
Alia Muhammad Baker is a librarian in Basra, Iraq. For fourteen years, her library has been a meeting place for those who love books. Until now. Now war has come, and Alia fears that the library--along...
Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
| Author | Doreen Cronin |
| ISBN | 0689832133 |
Farmer Brown has a problem.
His cows like to type.
All day long he hears
Click, clack, MOO.
Click, clack, MOO.
Clickety, clack, MOO.
But Farmer Brown's problems REALLY begin when his cows start leaving him notes....
Doreen Cronin's understated...
| Author | Justin Richardson |
| ISBN | 0689878451 |
This true story about two penguins who live in the Central Park Zoo has been creating quite a controversy. I heard about the book this morning on The View (yes, I do inevitably end up watching four women squabbling on tv when I don't have to work, and controversies like this are the reason I keep going back!)....
Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
| Author | Doreen Rappaport |
| ISBN | 0786807148 |
The Barnes & Noble Review
Acclaimed author Doreen Rappaport and Coretta Scott King Award winner Bryan Collier, who previously collaborated on
Freedom River
, have pooled their talents yet again in a stunning tribute to civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. An extraordinary...
Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad
A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist.
Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream...
Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa
| Author | Jeanette Winter |
| ISBN | 0152065458 |
As a young girl growing up in Kenya, Wangari was surrounded by trees. But years later when she returns home, she is shocked to see whole forests being cut down, and she knows that soon all the trees will be destroyed. So Wangari decides to do something—and starts by planting nine seedlings in her own backyard....
| Author | Peter Brown |
| ISBN | 0316015474 |
One boy's quest for a greener world... one garden at a time.
While out exploring one day, a little boy named Liam discovers a struggling garden and decides to take care of it. As time passes, the garden spreads throughout the dark, gray city, transforming it into a lush, green world.
This...
Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan
| Author | Jeanette Winter |
| ISBN | 1416994378 |
Renowned picture book creator Jeanette Winter tells the story of a young girl in Afghanistan who attends a secret school for girls.
Young Nasreen has not spoken a word to anyone since her parents disappeared.
In despair, her grandmother risks everything to enroll Nasreen in a secret...
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down
| Author | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| ISBN | 0316070165 |
It was February 1, 1960.
They didn't need menus. Their order was simple.
A doughnut and coffee, with cream on the side.
This picture book is a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the momentous Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in, when four college students staged a peaceful protest...
| Author | Claire A. Nivola |
| ISBN | 0374399182 |
Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Green Belt Movement, grew up in the highlands of Kenya, where fig trees cloaked the hills, fish filled the streams, and the people tended their bountiful gardens. But over many years, as more and more land was cleared, Kenya was transformed....
Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya
| Author | Donna Jo Napoli |
| ISBN | 1416935053 |
“Nelson’s pictures, a jaw-dropping union of African textiles collaged with oil paintings, brilliantly capture the villagers’ clothing and the greening landscape…This is, in a word, stunning.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Nelson’s (We Are the Ship) breathtaking...
Using "fairy" and "goblin" in lieu of female and male, the author has created a timely allegorical fairy tale. A youngster named Julep, who lives in a forest tribe, insists on growing up to be a goblin rather than a fairy. The tribe learns to accept that Julep is a goblin at heart, eventually coming around...
| Author | Doreen Rappaport |
| ISBN | 0786851414 |
Eleanor Roosevelt was raised in a privileged but stern Victorian household, with an affectionate but mostly absent father and a critical mother who made fun of her daughter's looks. Alone and lonely for much of her childhood, Eleanor found solace in books and in the life of her lively and independent...
¡Sí, Se Puede! / Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A.
¡Sí, Se Puede! / Yes, We Can! is a bilingual fictional story set against the backdrop of the successful janitors’ strike in Los Angeles in 2000. It tells about Carlitos, whose mother is a janitor. Every night, he sleeps while his mother cleans in one of the skyscrapers in downtown L.A. When she comes...
| Author | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| ISBN | 0786807679 |
Born into slavery, Belle had to endure the cruelty of several masters before she escaped to freedom. But she knew she wouldn't really be free unless she was helping to end injustice. That's when she changed her name to Sojourner and began traveling across the country, demanding equal rights for black...
| Author | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| ISBN | 0060821183 |
This story begins with shoes.
This story is all for true.
This story walks. And walks. And walks.
To the blues.
Rosa Parks took a stand by keeping her seat on the bus. When she was arrested for it, her supporters protested by refusing to ride. Soon a community of thousands was coming...
| Author | Patricia C. McKissack |
| ISBN | 0689818858 |
'Tricia Ann is going to her favorite place in the world today. It's the first time she's been allowed to go there all by herself. In a lovely dress that looks like spring, she leaves the house. Her grandmother cautions her to "hold yo' head up and act like you b'long to somebody."
But holding...
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
| Author | Robert C. O'Brien |
| ISBN | 0689862202 |
Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse with four small children, must move her family to their summer quarters immediately, or face almost certain death. But her youngest son, Timothy, lies ill with pneumonia and must not be moved. Fortunately, she encounters the rats of NIMH, an extraordinary breed of highly...
| Author | Rose Blue |
| ISBN | 0525478493 |
Nine-year-old Ron loves going to the Lake City Public Library to look through all the books on airplanes and flight. Today, Ron is ready to take out books by "himself." But in the segregated world of South Carolina in the 1950s, Ron's obtaining his own library card is not just a small rite of passage - it...
| Author | Paul Fleischman |
| ISBN | 0763610526 |
WESLANDIA honors the misfits—and the creators—among us.
Enter the witty, intriguing world of Weslandia! Now that school is over, Wesley needs a summer project. He’s learned that each civilization needs a staple food crop, so he decides to sow a garden and start his own - civilization,...
Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Malala Yousafzai's first picture book, inspired by her own childhood.
Malala's first picture book will inspire young readers everywhere to find the magic all around them.
As a child in Pakistan, Malala made a wish for...
The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust
| Author | Karen Gray Ruelle |
| ISBN | 0823421597 |
When the Nazis occupied Paris, no Jew was safe from arrest and deportation.
Few Parisians were willing to risk their own lives to help. Yet during that perilous time, many Jews found refuge in an unlikely place--the sprawling complex of the Grand Mosque of Paris. Not just a place of worship but...
Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children
| Author | Sandra L. Pinkney |
| ISBN | 0439148928 |
I am black. I am unique.
Let's talk about racism! Ah, yes, I can see you heading for the exit already. That's okay, I totally get it. It's a rough topic. For those of you still with me:
How do you teach a child about racism or tell him/her about it? I don't know. I don't have a flippin' clue....
| Author | Rochelle Strauss |
| ISBN | 1553379543 |
Seen from space, our planet looks blue. This is because almost 70 percent of Earth's surface is covered with water. Earth is the only planet with liquid water --- and therefore the only planet that can support life.
All water is connected. Every raindrop, lake, underground river and glacier...
| Author | Antonio Skármeta |
| ISBN | 0888995504 |
Winner of the UNESCO Tolerance Awarda and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, and an Americas Award Commended Title
Life is simple for Pedro -- he goes to school, does his homework and, most importantly, plays soccer. But when the soldiers come and take his friend Daniel's father away, things...
| Author | Jacqueline Woodson |
| ISBN | 0590400053 |
Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson has written a poignant picture book about a little girl who waits hopefully for her father's release from prison.
Only on visiting day is there chicken frying in the kitchen at 6 a.m. And Grandma in her Sunday dress, humming soft and...
| Author | Tim Tingle |
| ISBN | 0938317776 |
There is a river called Bok Chitto that cuts through Mississippi. In the days before the War Between the States, in the days before the Trail of Tears, Bok Chitto was a boundary. On one side of the river lived the Choctaws. On the other side lived the plantation owners and their slaves. If a slave escaped...
| Author | Calvin Alexander Ramsey |
| ISBN | 0761352554 |
In the not so distant past, traveling America's highways was not easy for the black motorist. Many restaurants, hotels, and even gas stations refused service to African Americans. In 1936, Victor Green, an African American from New York, listed all the businesses that would serve black travelers...
| Author | Yangsook Choi |
| ISBN | 0440417996 |
The new kid in school needs a new name! Or does she?
Being the new kid in school is hard enough, but what about when nobody can pronounce your name? Having just moved from Korea, Unhei is anxious that American kids will like her. So instead of introducing herself on the first day of school, she tells...
| Author | Langston Hughes |
| ISBN | 1416935401 |
Langston Hughes' powerful and simple poem is brilliantly accompanied by Charles R. Smith's transcendent photographs. Each photograph illustrates the beauty, depth and soul of being an African-American today. From close ups of lined hands to the joy of a baby's giggle, the photographs span ages....
Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace
| Author | Jen Cullerton Johnson |
A while back I read a couple picture books about Wangari Maathai, including Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai and Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa, and I loved them both, and I’m interested in reading her autobiography and her book about the Green Belt Movement,...
| Author | Blair Richmond |
| ISBN | 0979647576 |
Nineteen-year-old Kat Jones has been a competitive runner since she was a young girl, but after her mother's death, the path her life was supposed to take begins to crumble around her -- until one day, she finds herself on the run in a literal sense, this time in a race for her very life.
Kat's journey...
| Author | Torben Kuhlmann |
| ISBN | 0735842086 |
Torben Kulhmann's stunningly illustrated, nearly wordless tale offers a fascinating window into an imaginary, yet hauntingly familiar world under our feet, where a mole suddenly recognizes the precarious balance between progress and preservation. But is it too late?
Kulhmann's open...
A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story
| Author | Linda Sue Park |
| ISBN | 0547251270 |
A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan,...
101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed U.S. History
| Author | Michele Bollinger |
| ISBN | 1608461564 |
In the great tradition of Howard Zinn, 101 Changemakers offers a “peoples’ history” version of the individuals who have shaped our country for middle school students. In the place of founding fathers, presidents, and titans of industry, are profiles of those who courageously fought for social...
Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story
| Author | Ken Mochizuki |
| ISBN | 1584301570 |
In 1940, five-year-old Hiroki Sugihara, the eldest son of the Japanese consul to Lithuania, saw from the consulate window hundreds of Jewish refugees from Poland. They had come to Hiroki's father with a desperate request: Could consul Sugihara write visas for them to escape the Nazi threat?
The...
