Book Finder

The story of the 1961 Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights Movement viewed through the experiences of two student leaders: a black man from Alabama and white man from Wisconsin. Includes archival photographs, an illustrated timeline of the Civil Rights Movement, resource guide, and suggested readings.

In twenty-six original, free-verse poems the author depicts the thoughts, feelings, and life events of Mexican self-portraitist Frida Kahlo. The poems are accompanied by twenty-four full-color reproductions of Kahlo’s paintings. Substantial background materials include a biographical sketch, chronology, and glossary.

This non-fiction account of a West Texas town’s obsession with high school football was the basis of the movie and the television show.

Espionage played an important role in defeating the British, as is demonstrated in this cleverly-formatted, intriguing book.

In three interwoven biographies, Weller chronicles the life and times of three tradition-breaking women singer-songwriters who came of age in the late 1960s.

Many students know of John Wilkes Booth as Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, but few know that before he committed this infamous crime, he was a member of a family of accomplished actors, including his well-known brother, Edwin.

In comic-book format, biographical and statistical information is presented about some of today’s hottest basketball stars, including Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, and Tim Duncan. The comic format conveys the action, while also making this series highly appealing to reluctant readers.

Hand in Hand presents the stories of ten men from different eras in American history, organized chronologically to provide a scope from slavery to the modern day. The stories are punctuated with dynamic full color portraits and spot illustrations by two-time Caldecott Honor winner and multiple Coretta Scott King Book Award recipient Brian Pinkney. Backmatter includes a civil rights timeline, sources, and further reading. 

Wendell Scott figured he was signing up for trouble when he became NASCAR’s version of Jackie Robinson in the segregated 1950s. For the next two decades, Scott chased a dream through crashes, health problems, money troubles, and repeated encounters with discrimination. Hard Driving is the dramatic story of one man’s dogged determination to live the life he loved, and to compete, despite daunting obstacles, at the highest level of his sport.

Harriet Tubman did something exceptionally courageous: She escaped slavery. Then she did something impossible: She went back. She underwent some thirteen missions to rescue around seventy enslaved people, using and expanding a network of abolitionists that became known as the Underground Railroad. She spent her life as an activist, speaking out for Black people and women’s suffrage. This graphic novel of story is detailed and authentic. Illustrated with care for the historical record, it offers insight into the life and mind of Tubman, displaying her as a woman with an unshakable desire to break the chains of an unjust society. Introduction by Carole Boston Weatherford.

Knox was a Boston bookseller in Colonial America who would go on to join the Continental Army and later become the young country’s first Secretary of War. Silvey presents the “dramatic story of his achievements [which is a…] little-known episode in the history of the American Revolution. 

This book brings to life the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who lived through the Civil Rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the movement for gender equality, and whose work forever changed the face of NASA and the country.

This attractive book presents a brief but comprehensive look at the 35th U.S. President and the issues he confronted during his brief time in office including the Cuban missile crisis and more. Additional resources are included in this useful and attractive book.

Pulitzer Prize winner John Hersey interviewed survivors of Hiroshima’s bomb while the ashes were still warm. Hersey describes the lives of six people — a clerk, a widowed seamstress, a physician, a Methodist minister, a surgeon, and a German Catholic priest — shortly before and for about a year after the bombing. While describing the ordeals of these individuals, Hersey manages to convey the devastation and the suffering experienced by the people of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. A final chapter was added in 1985 that continues with the lives of these six people.

A journalist explores the pristine “Emerald City,” the American government’s enclave in the middle of war-torn Baghdad.

Perhaps his difficult childhood helped create the brilliant scientist (but rude man) he became. A complete portrait of Newton and his contributions to science are presented in a conversational text punctuated with droll illustrations.

We know a lot about Kennedy’s political career and untimely death, but little has been written for younger readers about his childhood. Kennedy was both a sickly child and a mischievous one.

Subtle references and evocative language introduce Jesse Owens and what he faced as a Gold Medalist — an African American in Hitler’s 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. An endnote provides more information.

This biography dives into Lennon’s life from the night he was born in 1940 during a World War II air raid on Liverpool, deftly taking us through his turbulent childhood and his rebellious rock’n’roll teens to his celebrated life writing, recording, and performing music with the Beatles. She sheds light on the years after the Beatles, with Yoko Ono, as he struggled to make sense of his own artistic life.

A former Democratic senator from California, in 2021 Kamala Harris became the first woman Vice President, as well as the first Black Vice President and the first Vice President of South Asian descent. Harris is known for her intelligence, toughness, and sense of humor — among students, teachers, coworkers and political opponents. Her message to kids is very much like the one her mother passed on to her: Don’t let your critics hold you back from achieving your potential.

Discover how 40 influential Latinas became the women we celebrate today! In this collection of short biographies from all over Latin America and across the United States, Juliet Menéndez explores the first small steps that set the Latinitas off on their journeys. With her text and hand-painted illustrations, Menéndez shines a spotlight on the power of childhood dreams. 

As in others in the series, lucid text combines with period photographs to present an overview of the life of the woman of Little House on the Prairie fame.

For African American women, the fight for the right to vote was only one battle. This Coretta Scott King Author Honor book tells the important, overlooked story of black women as a force in the suffrage movement — when fellow suffragists did not accept them as equal partners in the struggle and they had to maintain their dignity—and safety—in a society that tried to keep them in its bottom ranks. 

A warm, moving portrait of Abraham Lincoln told through the eyes of his children and captured in exquisite full-color illustrations. Historians claim him as one of America’s most revered presidents. But to his rambunctious sons, Abraham Lincoln was above all a playful and loving father. .