In honor of Women’s History Month, we’ve rounded up ten of our books that feature some amazing women of color! From a baseball player to an American politician, these women have helped pave the way for many others.
1. Wangari Maathai, Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace – the first African woman, and environmentalist, to win a Nobel Peace Prize
2. Marcenia Lyle, Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream – the first woman to play for an all-male professional baseball team
3. Anna May Wong, Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story – the first Chinese American movie star
4. Florence Mills, Baby Flo: Florence Mills Lights Up the Stage – an international dancing and singing superstar during the Harlem Renaissance
5. Augusta Savage, In Her Hands: The Story of Sculptor Augusta Savage– a sculptor during the Harlem Renaissance who carved out her own special place in art history
6. Pura Belpré, The Storyteller’s Candle / La velita de los cuentos – New York City’s first Latina librarian
7. Patsy Mink, How We Are Smart – an American politician from the U.S. state of Hawaii
8. Hiromi Suzuki, Hiromi’s Hands – one of a handful of women in the male-dominated world of sushi chefs
9. Rosa Parks, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today’s Youth – Mrs. Parks changed the course of history when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, sparking the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement
10. Zora Neale Hurston, Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree – renowned African American writer
We’ve also created a Women’s History Collection, available now for purchase on our website.
Further reading on Women’s History Month:
Three of the books in The Children's Book Review's best selling picture books list for July fall under the category of American history. Each of the books are deliciously rich in visual cues.
I am Rosa Parks
By Brad Meltzer
Illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos
A whitewashed (ahem) picture book biography of the famed
Civil Rights icon. Parson Weems would be proud.
Now that we have Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice
Toward Justice out in the world I feel it is incumbent on anyone treading
toward teaching kids about the Civil Rights do so with a more open
understanding
Enter to win a Who Was? book from Grosset & Dunlap's leading biography series.
Giveaway begins March 21, 2014, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends April 20, 2014, at 11:59 P.M. PST.
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’ve rounded up ten of our books that feature some amazing women of color! From a baseball player to an American politician, these women have helped pave the way for many others.
1. Wangari Maathai, Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace - the first African woman, and environmentalist, to win a Nobel Peace Prize
2. Marcenia Lyle, Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream - the first woman to play for an all-male professional baseball team
3. Anna May Wong, Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story - the first Chinese American movie star
4. Florence Mills, Baby Flo: Florence Mills Lights Up the Stage - an international dancing and singing superstar during the Harlem Renaissance
5. Augusta Savage, In Her Hands: The Story of Sculptor Augusta Savage- a sculptor during the Harlem Renaissance who carved out her own special place in art history
6. Pura Belpré, The Storyteller’s Candle / La velita de los cuentos - New York City’s first Latina librarian
7. Patsy Mink, How We Are Smart - an American politician from the U.S. state of Hawaii
8. Hiromi Suzuki, Hiromi’s Hands - one of a handful of women in the male-dominated world of sushi chefs
9. Rosa Parks, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today’s Youth - Mrs. Parks changed the course of history when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, sparking the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement
10. Zora Neale Hurston, Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree - renowned African American writer
Filed under:
Book Lists,
Musings & Ponderings Tagged:
Anna May Wong,
augusta savage,
diversity,
florence mills,
hiromi suzuki,
Marcenia Lyle,
patsy mink,
Pura Belpré,
Rosa Parks,
Wangari Maathai,
women,
women's history,
women's history month,
zora neale hurston 
As February comes to an end, we round out Black History Month with a guest post by Pamela M.Tuck, author of As Fast As Words Could Fly. We asked her if there was one person she could choose to be as well-known or remembered as Rosa Parks, who would it be and why?
In a segregated all-black school, a young student was empowered by an African American motivational speaker from Washington, DC. It was 1960s North Carolina and this speaker, in the student’s mind, was famous. The young student was my mother, Pauline Teel, and the speaker was Cortez Peters.
Cortez Peters, Sr. taught himself to type, at the age of 11, on a used typewriter his father had received in a trade. His “hunt and peck” system later developed into a fast and accurate method that garnered him the title of World Typing Champion, with speeds over 100 words per minute. He was the founder of the Cortez W. Peters Business School, which debuted in 1934. It was one of the first vocational schools in Washington, DC to prepare African Americans for business and civil services. The opening of his school became a pivotal point in history for African Americans.
Cortez Peters, Jr. began typing at the age of 12. He eventually surpassed his father’s world record with a typing speed of 225 words per minute with no mistakes.
Both Peters Sr. and Peters Jr. made a career out of teaching their craft to others.
At that unforgettable school visit, Cortez Peters awed my mother and the other students with his rhythmic typing finesse. My mother remembers how his typing mimicked the tunes of many songs, and how he made artistic configurations on his paper. She stated, “He would use all A’s to form the letter A, and all B’s to form the letter B.” His phenomenal typing ability was an amazing entertainment for the students, but his accomplishments as an African American entrepreneur made him an empowering role model.
Cortez gave his formula of success to the students in 3 simple words: Determination, Inspiration, and Perspiration. Determined not to let anyone or anything stop them from reaching their dreams. Inspired to do whatever it takes to accomplish their dreams. And work hard (Perspiration) to make those dreams come true.
Cortez Peters’ formula for success became ingrained into my mother and was one of the driving forces that helped shape her into the successful woman she became. Enough so, that she passed the formula on to me and I have passed it on to my children.
With the impression Cortez Peters made on my mom, I guess it seems fitting that her high school sweetheart, my dad, turned out to be a local typing champion. Ironically, Cortez Peters and my dad unknowingly shared the same formula for success, and As Fast As their Words Could Fly, change was taking place, history was being made, and dreams were coming true.
Filed under:
guest blogger,
Musings & Ponderings Tagged:
Black History,
black history month,
cortez peters,
Pamela Tuck,
Rosa Parks,
typing 
This Day in World History
December 1, 1955
Rosa Parks refuses to change her seat
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move—and became the mother of the civil rights movement.
In 1955, strict segregation laws separated African Americans and whites in public settings across the South, including Parks’s home town, Montgomery, Alabama. That December evening, returning home from work, Parks sat with three other African Americans in a row just behind the fourteen whites in the front of the bus. Because the bus was full, a white man had to stand when he entered the bus. Under the South’s Jim Crow laws, whites sat and African Americans stood. The bus driver told Parks and the other three blacks to move to the back of the bus—the black section. The other three did, but Parks refused. The driver insisted, and she refused again. Faced with continued refusal, he used his powers under a city ordinance to arrest her. The driver summoned the police, and Parks spent the night in jail.
The arrest galvanized Montgomery’s African Americans. The local chapter of the NAACP had long resented the segregated buses and the drivers’ treatment of blacks; now they had a chance to act. The next day, a women’s council called for a boycott of the city bus system. African Americans by the thousands complied. By December 5, a new group—the Montgomery Improvement Association—was formed to coordinate the boycott. Inspired by young clergyman Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery’s African Americans kept up their boycott for more than a year, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation on buses unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of the early triumphs of the civil rights movement. Parks later admitted her surprise: “I had no idea when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the South.”
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down History is often made by ordinary people taking extraordinary risks.Such was the case on February 4, 1960, when four black college students took seats at the whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down
, tells that story with same passion and intensity with which it took place.
The story is told with minimal yet factual narrative, with a delicious dash of figurative language salted throughout (Brian explains why in the video below). The narrative is also punctuated with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which not only guided the protesters of the time in their nonviolent methods, but may also help young readers of today understand how these crusaders could withstand such abuse and humiliation.
In this video, author Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrator Brian Pinkney discuss the events leading up to the sit-ins (these same events are detailed in an epilogue called "A Final Helping" at book's end). They also discuss the writing and illustration process, and close with a brief overview of the book.
Several segments of this video lend themselves to discussion and extensions for the book: - Andrea and Brian discussed the food references used in the book. Why was food mentioned so often? Share a specific passage which employs a food metaphor and ask, What does that passage mean? Why not just come right out and say that? What other food-related metaphors did you hear? In our everyday language, what other metaphors are often used?
- The author and illustrator talked about the need for conducting research using photographs from the time. Why would this be so important? What information might the photographs provide? If the author/illustrator team chose to create a picture book set in a time period before photography was invented, how might they gather information for their pictures? If we also say, "Write what you know," then why do research?
- Toward the end of the video, Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brain Pinkney discuss their own heroes. Why is that included in the video? How might their own heroes have affected their decision to create this book? Why is it important to have heroes? Who are some of your heroes? How could you find out more about them?
- For additional ideas and extensions, check out the teaching guide from Hatchette Book Group, prepared by the very talented Tracie Vaughn Zimmer.
Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins
By: J.F. Durante,
on 1/13/2011
Blog:
Books of Wonder and Wisdom
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Rosa Parks,
Martin Luther King Jr,
Jim Crow laws,
Peace stories,
MLK day stories,
Andrew Young,
Jo S. Kittinger,
Paula Young Shelton,
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Selma to Montgomery marches,
Steven Walker,
Richard Michelson,
Picture Books,
Civil Rights,
Bryan Collier,
Raul Colon,
Civil Rights Movement,
Add a tag
Kittinger, Jo. S. Rosa’s Bus: The Ride to Civil Rights. Illus. by Steven Walker. Calkins Creek, 2010. Ages 6-9.
Many children’s books relate the story of Rosa Parks and her refusal to vacate her seat for a white man. This picture book, however, zooms in on the actual bus — #2867, which began its journey in 1948 on the assembly line in Michigan and ended up getting restored and displayed in the Henry Ford Museum in 2003. Kittinger keeps the story rolling along, undeterred by superfluous details. Walker’s colorful oil paintings, especially those of the bus, add to the kid appeal. After Rosa’s arrest, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the bus boycott, which “went on and on. No dimes jingle-jangled in the coin box. Day after day, week after week, month after month, Bus #2357 rode down the street with plenty of empty seats.” After 382 days, the boycott ended with the Supreme Court ruling that outlawed race-based discrimination. Use this book to enhance children’s understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and their appreciation of the perseverance of those who participated. The bibliography provides noteworthy sources for those who want more details.
Shelton, Paula Young. Child of the Civil Rights Movement. Illus. by Raul Colon. Schwartz & Wade, 2009. Ages 5-9. 
This first-time author is a daughter of Civil Rights leader Andrew Young and a first-grade teacher, experiences that enrich her engaging, child-friendly true story. Using simple, rhythmic language, she describes how her family moves from New York to Atlanta to work for the end of “Jim Crow, / where whites could / but blacks could not”). Famous leaders in the movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr., are not cast as distant gods but as folks who ate and laughed and prayed together. Colón’s soft-colored pencil-and-wash illustrations evoke the affection shared among the activists. Children will laugh upon learning of Shelton’s first protest: She sat on the floor and wailed when a Holiday Inn restaurant in Atlanta refused to serve her family. One aspect that particularly recommends this book to children is its hopeful, positive tone, with its emphasis on community and respect. The story’s triumphant end shows Paula and her family joining the world-changing march from Selma to Montgomery. A brief bibliography and biographical notes provide additional information.
Other Recommended Titles for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Michelson, Richard. As Good as Anybody:Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom. Illus. by Raul Colón. Knopf, 2008. Ages 6-10. Michelson provides an interesting perspective in this 2009 Sydney Taylor Book Award winner. He focuses on two peaceful heroes: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and an ally, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Michelson invites readers to consider the parallels between the two leaders and their experiences. Both experienced hostility and prejudice in their homeland. Both overcame it with love, faith, and wisdom. Colón’s iIllustrations illuminate both the individual exper
By: Lauren,
on 12/1/2010
Blog:
OUPblog
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
History,
US,
civil rights,
African American Studies,
this day in history,
segregation,
rosa parks,
Jim Crow,
*Featured,
black women in america,
darlene clark hine,
montgomery bus boycott,
Add a tag
Today is the 55th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ infamous stand sit during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her daring refusal to move to the back of the bus was not a decision made lightly because she was simply “too tired.” “The only tired I was,” Parks wrote in Rosa Parks: My Story (1992), “was tired of giving in.” The following short biography of Parks comes from Darlene Clark Hine, editor of Black Women in America.
Parks, Rosa (b. 4 February 1913 ; d. 24 October 2005 ), civil rights activist. From the moment her photograph was first published in newspapers across America, Parks, with her quiet dignity, has been a symbol for the civil rights movement in this country. Those who orchestrated the Montgomery bus boycott bypassed several other women to choose Parks as a representative of all the black women and men who were forced to live with Jim Crow laws and customs in the South, and she lived up to their expectations.
Early Life and Activism
Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, the daughter of James McCauley , a carpenter, and Leona Edwards , a teacher. Her father migrated north to find work when Rosa was two years old and did not often communicate with the family after that. Her mother moved Rosa and a younger brother to Pine Level, Alabama, to be nearer her own parents and siblings. In Pine Level, Parks worked as a field hand, in addition to taking care of her grandparents while her mother worked, often as a teacher. Parks’s mother homeschooled her until she was eleven, then sent her to live with her aunt in Montgomery so that she could go to school. While attending the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, she did household chores for her aunt and also went out to do domestic work outside the home. She attended the Booker T. Washington High School but left before graduation to take care of her mother. Her experience in all these situations left her angry about the injustices in the world, and, when she was nineteen, she met Raymond Parks , a barber who was involved in the civil rights movement. On 19 December 1932 they were married.
The couple did not have children. With her husband’s encouragement, Parks completed her high school education, receiving a diploma in 1934 . From the beginning of their marriage, both were social activists. They worked to secure the release of the Scottsboro Boys, nine black youths accused of raping two white girls. Parks joined the Montgomery Voters League and worked to enfranchise African Americans in the community. During the 1940s she joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and served as secretary of the branch from 1943 until 1956 . Edgar Daniel Nixon Jr. , organizer of the Black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Union in Montgomery and head of the Progressive Democrats, was president of the local NAACP chapter.
Particularly good at working with young people, Parks helped train a group of NAACP youths to protest
On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks decided that enough was enough. When she was asked to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus so that a white person might sit down, she refused. For this crime she was imprisoned, and because of what happened on that bus, the leaders of the Montgomery civil rights movement decided to stage a bus boycott, which lasted for more than a year.
I recently read a wonderful picture book about the bus that Rosa rode on that fateful day, and about the pivotal role that it played in the civil rights movement. Here is my review.
Jo S. Kittinger
Illustrated by Steven Walker
Nonfiction picture book
Ages 6 to 8
Boyds Mills Press, 2010, 978-1-59078-722-9
Bus #2857 rolled off the General Motors assembly line in 1948. It carried people around Terra Haute, Indiana for a few years, and then it was taken south to Montgomery in Alabama in 1954. In this city, the bus acquired something new. A sign was put in place ten seats back from the front of the bus. The new sign read: Colored, and it meant that African American passengers could only sit at the back of the bus.
If you were white you got onto the bus, paid your dime, and sat in one of the front seats. If you were African American, you got on the bus, paid your dime, got off, and got back on using the rear door of the bus so that you could sit in one of the rear seats. It did not matter if you were old and frail or if it was raining and cold. If you were “colored” this is what you had to do. If the white seats filled up, a whole row of African American passengers had to give up their seats because African Americans could not share a row with white people. “That’s just the way things were.”
Then, on the evening of December 1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks got onto bus #2857 and she took a seat behind the Colored sign. At the next stop, all the seats for the white folks filled up, and the bus driver told Rosa and the other passengers in her row to get up so that a white man could sit down. The other African American passengers did as they were told, but Rosa refused to do so. She was arrested, and soon afterwards the Montgomery bus boycott began.
It has been one of those days. I discovered that what I thought was going to be a small - ish - job is going to be a big one. I took a deep breath and dived in. Only to encounter numerous computer related technical difficulties. Things snowballed and snowballed and now the job looks like a mountain in front of me. Not only is it enormous but it is also covered with a glacier and snow. It looks insurmountable.
I was beginning to truly wallow in my anxiety and self pity when I looked at the TTLG Bookish Calendar and saw that on this day in 1955 Rosa Parks took her famous stand. Suddenly trying to get my new website ready for January 1st does not seem that important. After all, I can go where I wish, say what I wish, vote freely, and I can go about my life without having to worry that someone is going to make my life miserable because I am different in some way. You can find some great books about Rosa Parks here, and I do hope you get a chance to look at the first one, Rosa, by Nikki Giovanni. This book greatly moved me and it helped me better understand the American Civil Rights movement.
Today is also the birthday of author/illustrator Jan Brett. Jan's picture books are a joy to look at, and readers of all ages love her delightful pictures.
.jpg?picon=380)
By:
[email protected] (Mark Blevis and Andrea ,
on 8/26/2009
Blog:
Just One More Book Children's Book Podcast
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Review,
Podcast,
Music,
Forgiveness,
Respect,
Picture book,
Girl,
Woman,
Making a difference,
Hardship,
Resilience,
Fun,
History,
Hope,
Life Skills,
Freedom,
Harmony,
Perseverence,
Man,
Joy,
Non-Fiction,
Thinking/Attitude,
Understanding/Tolerance,
civil rights,
Fairness / Justice,
Personalities,
obama,
Poetic Prose,
barack,
childrens-book,
War, peace, conflict,
rosa parks,
Intriguing,
Let Freedom Sing,
Vanessa Newton,
ruby bridges,
Community,
Ages 4-8,
Compassion,
Courage,
Celebration,
Diversity/Multi-culturalism,
Cartoony,
Cute,
Assertiveness,
Confidence,
Contributing/Industry,
Bullying/Abuse,
Add a tag
Author: Vanessa Newton (on JOMB)
Illustrator: Vanessa Newton
Published: 2009 Chronicle Books (on JOMB)
ISBN: 9781934706909
Spot-on sixties-style illustrations, simple, springboard text and a soulful, sing along refrain shine a celebratory light on 18 individuals who stood tall and opened doors for generations.
More freedom reading on JOMB:
We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.
.jpeg?picon=3220)
I’d add to this list the real-life Lozen, the woman who inspired Joseph Bruchac’s character by the same name in KILLER OF ENEMIES. She was a warrior (beside Geronimo and her brother, Victorio) who defended the Apache people during a terrible time of war with the United States, as well as using her skill as a tracker (and some supernatural skills) to know where their enemies were coming from.
[…] booktalks allow students to explore and develop their interests. Consider creating collections for Women’s History Month, Cesar Chavez Day, baseball season, National Poetry Month in April, and Earth […]