Talking about Race & Racism with Young People

Publisher Annotation: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer...

All 16-year-old Rashad was looking for was a bag of chips. He never asked to be assaulted by aggressive cop Paul Galluzzo. One of the witnesses, varsity basketball player Quinn Collins, lost his father in Afghanistan and has since been raised by Paul. The video of the incident goes viral, Rashad stops coming to school, and everyone takes sides. Rashad and Quinn face difficult choices as they move toward a new understanding of their world.

Told from multiple viewpoints, Shae Tatum, an unarmed, thirteen-year-old black girl, is shot by a white police officer, throwing their community into upheaval and making it a target of demonstrators.

"A history of racist and antiracist ideas in America, from their roots in Europe until today, adapted from the National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning"-- "The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. Racist ideas are woven into the fabric of this country, and the first step to building an antiracist America is acknowledging America's racist past and present. This book...

Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. All she wants to do is to follow the rules. (Oh, and she?d also like to make it through seventh grade with her best friendships intact, learn to run track, and have a cute boy see past her giant forehead.) But in junior high, it?s like all the rules have changed. Now she?s suddenly questioning who her best friends are and some people at school are saying she?s not black enough. Wait, what? Shay?s sister,...

"A white child sees a news report of a white police officer shooting and killing a person with brown skin who had their hands up. "We don't see color," the child's mother says, but the child senses a deeper truth. An afternoon in the library uncovers the reality of white supremacy in America. The child connects to the opportunity and their responsibility to dismantle white supremacy-for the sake of their own liberation out of ignorance and injustice"--Provided...

Publisher Annotation: Fifty of the foremost diverse children's authors and illustrators--including Jason Reynolds, Jacqueline Woodson, and Kwame Alexander--share answers to the question, "In this divisive world, what shall we tell our children?"

After discussing the police shooting of a local Black man with their families, Emma and Josh know how to treat a new student who looks and speaks differently than his classmates.

Other students laugh when Rigoberto, an immigrant from Venezuela, introduces himself but later, he meets Angelina and discovers that he is not the only one who feels like an outsider.

"Big, small, curly, straight, loud, quiet, smooth, wrinkly. Lovely explores a world of differences that all add up to the same thing: we are all lovely!"--