Great Fiction & Nonfiction Books
Age Level: 3-6 years old


A Is for Activist
By: Innosanto Nagara
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Each spread presents a letter and a bit of social commentary urging children to take a stand...

Awesome Dawson
By: Chris Dall
Age Level: 3-6 years old

Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909
By: Michelle Markell
Age Level: 3-6 years old

Helpers in Your Neighborhood
By: Shira Evans
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Nonfiction
Get to know the everyday heroes in your community! From firefighters to teachers, mail carriers...

John Henry
By: Julius Lester
Age Level: 3-6 years old
John Henry's talent was evident at an early age when he helped his daddy, but was cemented...

More Than Anything Else
By: Marie Bradby
Age Level: 3-6 years old
More than anything else, young Booker T. Washington wanted to read. This fictionalized account...

Rosa's Bus: The Ride to Civil Rights
By: Jo Kittinger
Age Level: 3-6 years old
No one knew that when "Bus #2857 rolled off the assembly line in 1948 ... [that it] would...

Tasty Baby Belly Buttons
By: Judy Sierra
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Uriko is small but brave, determined, and smart. In fact, she saves the town’s children when...

The Impossible Patriotism Project
By: Linda Skeers
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
Caleb's class is making projects that represent patriotism but Caleb can't think of a way to...
Age Level: 6-9 years old


A Picture Book of Jackie Robinson
By: David Adler
Age Level: 6-9 years old
A portrait of a true American sports hero, Jackie Robinson, who was the first African American...

A Picture Book of Jesse Owens
By: David Adler
Age Level: 6-9 years old

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr.
By: David Adler
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Born in 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up to become a civil rights leader whose philosophy...

Abe's Honest Words
By: Doreen Rappaport
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
A straightforward overview of Lincoln's life is punctuated by Lincoln's words and...

Annie and Helen
By: Deborah Hopkinson
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy US Marshall
By: Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Formerly enslaved in the 19th century, Bass Reeves escaped Texas and lived with Indians. It was...

Bold & Brave: Ten Heroes Who Won Women the Right to Vote
By: Kirsten Gillibrand
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Here are the stories of 10 leaders who strove to win the right to vote for American women--a...

Bright Path: Young Jim Thorpe
By: Don Brown
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Jim Thorpe's childhood was a mix of hard work in the outdoors and a succession of military-...

Captain America Joins the Mighty Avengers
By: Rich Thomas
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker's Story
By: Joseph Bruchac
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
During World War II, Chester was recruited by the US Marines to use the Navajo language to...

Cut from the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend and Tall Tale
By: Robert San Souci
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
From the Northeast to the West, the United States is filled with stories of wise, strong, and...

Daring Dozen: The Twelve Who Walked on the Moon
By: Suzanne Slade
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Spare, poetic text and luminous, realistic illustrations chronicle the Apollo missions....

Elizabeth Started All the Trouble
By: Doreen Rappaport
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Women could not attend college, enter politics or vote when the United States was established....

Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods and Heroes Pop-Up
By: Matthew Reinhart, Robert Sabuda
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Six beautifully illustrated full-page spreads, each including a dramatic paper-sculpture...

Family Is a Superpower
By: Michael Dahl
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have many extraordinary abilities, but their greatest...

Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table
By: Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Martin shares the remarkable life story of former professional basketball player Will Allen,...

Fight of the Century: Alice Paul Battles Woodrow Wilson for the Vote
By: Barb Rosenstock
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
When Woodrow Wilson was elected President, he didn't know that he would be participating in one...

Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh
By: Robert Burleigh
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Charles Lindbergh was only 25 years old when he made his historic non-stop flight across the...

Float Like a Butterfly
By: Ntozake Shange
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Visually stunning and informative, Ali’s early life, how it influenced him, as well as his many...

Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins
By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
A girl and her mom want to have a sweet treat on a hot day but cannot sit at the soda fountain...

Go for the Moon: A Rocket, a Boy, and the First Moon Landing
By: Chris Gall
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
A boy looking out his bedroom window into the night sky begins, “The moon is out tonight. In the...

Grandad Mandela
By: Zazi Mandela, Ziwelene Mandela, Zondwa Mandela
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Zazi and Ziwelene’s great-grandad is called Nelson Mandela. Once day, they ask their grandmother...

Greta and the Giants
By: Zoe Tucker
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
This picture book retells the story of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg—the Swedish...

Harvesting Hope: The Story of César Chávez
By: Kathleen Krull
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Hold the Flag High: The True Story of the First Black Medal of Honor Winner
By: Catherine Clinton
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
The story of the first Black Medal of Freedom winner and a stirring account of one of the most...

I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark
By: Debbie Levy
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime disagreeing: disagreeing with...

Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth
By: Michelle Duster
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Ida B. Wells was an educator, journalist, feminist, businesswoman, newspaper owner, public...

Ida B. Wells: Let the Truth Be Told
By: Walter Dean Myers
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Ida B. Wells worked bravely as an activist, educator, writer, journalist, suffragette, and...

John Henry: An American Legend
By: Ezra Jack Keats
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
John Henry was born to be a hero – strong, competitive and determined. The legendary steel-...

Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters
By: Andrea Pinkney
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Brief sketches of the lives of both well-known (for example, Harriet Tubman) and lesser known...

Lunch Lady and the Mutant Mathletes
By: Jarrett Krosoczka
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Magic Pickle
By: Scott Morse
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Sophisticated readers will appreciate the over-the-top adventures of a cryogenic pickle that...

Malala's Magic Pencil
By: Malala Yousafzai
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Malala's first picture book will inspire young readers everywhere to find the magic all around...

Malala: Activist for Girls' Education
By: Raphaële Frier
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Malala’s story is one of the resilience that comes from strong conviction. It is told through a...

Martin's Big Words: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
By: Doreen Rappaport
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Martin Luther King Jr. grew up fascinated by big words. He would later go on to use these words...

Meet the Marvel Super Heroes
By: Scott Peterson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction

Midnight Teacher: Lilly Ann Granderson and Her Secret School
By: Janet Halfmann
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Lilly Ann Granderson,, who was enslaved, secretly learned to read and write as a child and...

Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman
By: Alan Schroeder
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Molly, by Golly! The Legend of Molly Williams, America's First Female Firefighter
By: Dianne Ochiltree
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Williams was a cook for New York City's volunteer Fire Company 11 in the early 1800s. When a...

My Name Is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth
By: Ann Turner
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Isabella Baumfree was born into slavery but she would not remain enslaved. Instead, she took the...

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
By: Barack Obama
Age Level: 6-9 years old
In this tender letter to his daughters, President Barack Obama has written a moving tribute to...

Pies from Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott
By: Dee Romito
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
The life story of Georgia Gilmore, a woman whose pies and delicious homemade cooking helped...

Preaching to the Chickens: the Story of Young John Lewis
By: Jabari Asim
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
As a child, John Lewis always practiced his deep religious convictions, even with his much loved...

Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World
By: Laurie Lawlor
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Rachel Carson was a shy child, always drawn to nature. She grew up to become a professional...

Seed by Seed: The Legend and Legacy of John "Appleseed" Chapman
By: Esme Raji Codell
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, changed his world "seed by seed, deed by deed"...

Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World
By: Susan Hood
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
This book of poems introduces fourteen revolutionary young women—each paired with a noteworthy...

She Persisted: Harriet Tubman
By: Andrea Davis Pinkney
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Born enslaved, Harriet Tubman rose up to become one of the most successful, determined and well-...

Side by Side: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez / /Lado a Lado: La Historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chavez
By: Monica Brown
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
This bilingual book pairs the dual stories of powerful activists César Chávez and Dolores Huerta...

Sidekicks
By: Dan Santat
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Sojourner Truth's Step-Stomp Stride
By: Andrea Pinkney, Brian Pinkney
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Lively language and energetic illustrations create a memorable portrait of a woman who was to...

Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx / La juez que crecio en el Bronx
By: Jonah Winter
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Poverty didn’t stop this girl from working hard, reading lots of books, and graduating top in...

Stealing Home: Jackie Robinson Against the Odds
By: Robert Burleigh
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Lush, realistic illustrations combine with a simple text to suggest what it must have been like...

Superhero School
By: Aaron Reynolds
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Leonard is disappointed in superhero school; the only thing his teacher, The Blue Tornado, talks...

Susan B. Anthony
By: Alexandra Wallner
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Susan B. Anthony lived and worked as a teacher when women were paid less for the same jobs...

Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
By: Deborah Hopkinson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Clara is born into slavery but learns an important skill when she becomes a seamstress. Her...

Thanks to Frances Perkins: Fighter for Workers' Rights
By: Deborah Hopkinson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
After Frances Perkins witnessed the Triangle Waist Factory fire in 1911, she decided to work to...

The Adventures of Sparrowboy
By: Brian Pinkney
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
Mild-mannered paperboy Henry collides with a sparrow and turns into Sparrowboy just like his...

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
By: William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer
Age Level: 6-9 years old
When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba's Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops...

The First Step: How One Girl Put Segregation on Trial
By: Susan E. Goodman
Age Level: 6-9 years old
More than a century before Brown v. Board of Education, there was Roberts v. City of Boston....

The House That Jane Built: A Story About Jane Addams
By: Tanya Lee Stone
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
The story of Jane Addams who transformed a poor neighborhood in Chicago by opening up her house...

The Incredible Life of Balto
By: Meghan McCarthy
Age Level: 6-9 years old
A dog saved the people of Nome, Alaska in 1925 when a sled team was the only way to fetch...

The Mighty 12: Superheroes of Greek Myth
By: Charles Smith
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Greek gods and goddesses are the stuff of contemporary superheroes. Dramatic full-color,...

The Story of Harriet Tubman
By: Christine Platt
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Explore how Harriet Tubman went from being an enslaved person on a plantation in Maryland to one...

The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist
By: Cynthia Levinson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Audrey Faye Hendricks was confident and bold and brave as can be, and hers is the remarkable and...

Thunder Rose
By: Jerdine Nolan
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
In this tall tale, Thunder Rose vows to grow up to be more than just big and strong,...

What Lincoln Said
By: Sarah Thomson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Lincoln's own words punctuate this overview of his life and times including lighter moments...

William Still and His Freedom Stories
By: Don Tate
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
William Still was the youngest child of parents who escaped slavery and went on to become the...

Wings
By: Christopher Myers
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Stunning, bold collage illustrations carry the action in this reworking of the traditional Greek...

Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass
By: Lesa Cline-Ransome
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Young Zeus
By: G. Brian Karas
Age Level: 6-9 years old

Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Makes a Splash
By: Jacqueline Jules
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Freddie Ramos' super running and jumping powers and his confidence disappear after the loss of...

Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off
By: Jacqueline Jules
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Product Description: One day Freddie Ramos comes home from school and finds a strange box just...
Age Level: 9-12 years old


12 Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali
By: Charles R. Smith, Jr.
Age Level: 9-12 years old
From the moment a fired-up teenager won 1960 Olympic gold to the day when a retired legend...

Because They Marched: The People's Campaign for Voting Rights that Changed America
By: Russell Freedman
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
Fifty years ago well-known civil rights leaders came together with other lesser known but key...

Chasing Freedom: The Life Journeys of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony
By: Nikki Grimes
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, a staunch proponent of...

Civil Rights Pioneer: A Story About Mary Church Terrell
By: Gwenyth Swain
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
Terrell worked to gain equal rights for herself and other African Americans, and is best-known...

Coretta Scott King: I Kept on Marching
By: Kathleen Krull
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Before she married Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott was known for her beautiful singing voice...

Dream Big Dreams: Photographs from Barack Obama's Inspiring and Historic Presidency
By: Pete Souza
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
With behind-the-scenes anecdotes of some iconic photos alongside photos with his family,...

Finish the Fight! The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote
By: Veronica Chambers Staff of the, New York Times
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
Who was at the forefront of women's right to vote? What about so many others from diverse...

For the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai's Story
By: Rebecca Langston-George
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
A straightforward, illustrated narration tells the story of the brave Pakistani girl who fought...

Henry Aaron's Dream
By: Matt Tavares
Age Level: 9-12 years old
In spite of growing up in the 1940s before the United States was integrated, in a segregated...

History Smashers: Women's Right to Vote
By: Kate Messner
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
Susan B. Anthony wasn't even alive when the 19th Amendment was ratified. The truth is, it took...

How Women Won the Vote: Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Their Big Idea
By: Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in America with this story of the little-...

I Am Gandhi: A Graphic Biography of a Hero
By: Brad Meltzer
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
The life of the man whose name is associated with nonviolent protest is presented in graphic...

Independent Dames: What You Never Knew about the Women and Girls of the American Revolution
By: Laurie Halse Anderson
Age Level: 9-12 years old
This fact and fun-filled look at female contributions to the American Revolution provides a...

Lives: Poems About Famous Americans
By: Lee Bennett Hopkins
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Well-known figures in American history are presented by diverse poets in a range of styles,...

Lost in Outer Space: The Incredible Journey of Apollo 13
By: Tod Olson
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
From "Houston, we've had a problem" to the final tense moments at Mission Control, Lost in Outer...

March: Book One
By: John Lewis, Andrew Aydin
Age Level: 9-12 years old
John Lewis, son of a sharecropper, grew up to become an activist and later, a U.S. Congressman....

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Age Level: 9-12 years old

Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag
By: Rob Sanders
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Have you ever wondered where the rainbow flag comes from? It all began with the first openly gay...

She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
By: Loki Mulholland
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Early experiences brought the inequality of America into focus for young Joan, a white...

The Breadwinner
By: Deborah Ellis
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in...

The Escape of Robert Smalls: A Daring Voyage Out of Slavery
By: Jehan Jones-Radgowski
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
In the midst of the deadly U.S. Civil War, an enslaved man named Robert Smalls was about to...

The Hero's Trail
By: T.A. Barron
Age Level: 9-12 years old
What is a hero? Using the metaphor of a hiking trail, this book showcases the great variety of...

The Undefeated
By: Kwame Alexander
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
This poem is a love letter to black life in the U.S. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of...

The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane
By: Russell Freedman
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Using excerpts from Wilbur's and Orville's journals and letters, young readers will find a...

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer
By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Stirring poems and vibrant collage illustrations combine to celebrate the life of Fannie Lou...

We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History
By: Philip Hoose
Age Level: 9-12 years old
From the boys who sailed with Columbus to today's young activists, this unique book brings to...

Words That Built a Nation: Voices of Democracy That Have Shaped America’s History
By: Marilyn Miller
Age Level: 9-12 years old
From the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address to the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on same-sex...

Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist
By: Philip Dray
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
Journalist Ida B. Wells faces the greatest challenge of her life as a tireless crusader for...