Partial biography booklist for children

Let’s start with the most important fact: we need to be teaching Black history all year long. Black history is American history, and once we start doing the work and making the connections, opportunities to share picture book biographies about Black historical figures will bubble up naturally. However, it’s February now, and Black History Month brings the spotlight onto the often overlooked or purposely ignored narrative of Black people in America.

As an elementary librarian, inom know that my students are exposed to the most common figures in their classrooms. In January they were doing Martin Luther King Jr. activities, and they have read about Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. They have had discussions about segregation in schools and at water fountains. They have named the horror of how Black people were kidnapped and enslaved as common practice. This brutal truth can’t be ignored, and I’m glad that most of my students have been exposed to this in age-appropriate ways from the earlie

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