Black History Month is right around the corner. But children should be learning about Black leaders, important events, and movements for change all year round right? Keep reading to find more than 60 fantastic children’s books about Black history, plus where to find lesson plans, printable posters, action ideas, and more.

60+ Children’s Books about Black History

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Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed and Stasia Burrington

As a child, future astronaut Mae Jemison dreamed about seeing the Earth “from out there.” With her parents’ encouragement, she read everything she could find about space. She made her own astronaut costume from orange curtains and a cardboard box.  She tells other family members and friends, and her dream continues growing.

But when Mae tells her class that she wants to be astronaut, her white teacher tells her that being a nurse would be better “for someone like you.” Mae’s parents won’t let her give up on her dream, and she promises that one day she’ll wave to them from a spaceship. (Recommended for ages 3 – 8)

Related Read: Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly and Laura Freeman

Read my review in this post: 15 of the Best Children’s Books about Black Women Leaders. You’ll also find picture books about other women in Black history, including Maya Angelou, Bessie Coleman, Josephine Baker, and more.

Visiting Langston by Willie Perdomo and Bryan Collier

This poem/picture book about a young girl’s admiration for Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes is a beautiful tribute. Langston can explain “what Africa means to me” and why this little girl’s “dreams run wild.” She too is a poet, a Harlem girl who writes about love and hip-hop. (Recommended for ages 3 – 8)

Related Post: 12 engaging chapter books to read during Black History Month

Related Read: A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by Alice Faye Duncan and Xia Gordon

Related Read: Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets by Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderly, Marjory Wentworth, and Ekua Holmes

Read my review in this post: 11 Diverse Poetry Books for Children

Related Read: Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton by Don Tate

Read my review in this post: How should we talk with children about slavery?  You’ll also find books about Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad, secret schools for enslaved people, and more in this post. 

Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton and Don Tate

Reading this book was almost as much fun as actually playing with a super soaker water gun! Lonnie Johnson became an inventor as child. His patient parents put up with all the bolts, screws, and spare parts he kept around. Even when he set the kitchen on fire making rocket fuel, his mom just sent him outside to do it.

As an adult, he came up with the idea for the super soaker while working on a much more serious project – how to replace air conditioning coolant with something that wouldn’t hurt the environment. Still, it took many years and many pitches to toy companies until Lonnie found one who would manufacture what is today a favorite summer toy. (Recommended for ages 5 – 10)

Find more children’s books about Black inventors + a list of inventions in this post from Here Wee Read.

Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane’s Musical Journey by Gary Golio and Rudy Gutierrez

As a child, John Coltrane was surrounded by music and by the assurance that the Spirit would guide him no matter what. But when he lost his grandfather, father, and grandmother all within the span of a year, the sweetness of his young life seemed over. Coltrane’s path to music was a complicated one. The saxophone allowed him to express his many different feelings and his connection to the Spirit. Yet his struggles with addiction threatened to end his career, a truth this book for older elementary children doesn’t shy away from. (Recommended for ages 9+)

When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop by Laban  Carrick Hill and Theodore Taylor III

As a child in Jamaica, Little Clive loved watching DJ’s “toast” – talking and singing over the instrumental B sides of records. As a teen living in the Bronx, he still dreamed of becoming a DJ. By now Little Clive was known as Kool Herc, and he knew what people who loved to dance wanted. He figured out how to play the dance-able portions of songs back to back so the music could go on and on. When he started to call out the names of his friends and give them compliments over the music, just like Jamaican DJs, the crowd loved it.

Who would have thought then that Kool Herc and other DJs in the Bronx were revolutionizing music not just in their neighborhood, but eventually, throughout the world? (Recommended for ages 4 – 10)

Related Read: Little Melba and Her Big Trombone by Katheryn Russell-Brown and Frank Morrison

Read my review in this post: 15 Children’s Books about Black Women Leaders

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jamey Christoph

Photography has long been a way to shine a light on injustice and suffering, something Gordon Parks did masterfully. Inspired by a magazine spread on migrant farmworkers, Parks bought a camera at age 25 and taught himself the art. After being a fashion photographer, Parks took a government job. It allowed him to document the stark contrasts between the promise of the American dream and reality for African Americans in the 1940s. (Recommended for ages 5 – 9). You can view of gallery of Gordon Parks photographs here.

Related Read: These Hands by Margaret H. Mason and Floyd Cooper

Read my review in this post: More Than Martin: 15 Children’s Books about the Civil Rights Movement

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe

As a child, Jean-Michel often drew from morning until night, sometimes side by side on the floor with his artistic mother. Steptoe tells us that his drawing were not “neat or clean, nor does he color inside the lines. They are sloppy, ugly, and sometimes weird;  but somehow still beautiful.” Jean-Michel’s mother taught him that so many different things were art, and that art can heal.

When his mother has to move out of their home because of mental illness, Jean-Michel often brings his art to her, promising that it will hang in a museum once he becomes a famous artist. (Recommended for ages 6 – 10)

Related Read: A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet

Read my review in this post:Best Picture Books for Every Interest

Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, Gwen Strauss, and Floyd Cooper

When Ruth’s family makes a trip from their home in Chicago to visit Grandma in Alabama, it seems like there are “whites only” signs everywhere. She feels ashamed when she and her mother have to go to the bathroom in the woods because the white gas station owner won’t let them use the restrooms. But her mother tells her the owner is the one who should be ashamed, not them.

A friend in Tennessee tells Ruth’s father to look for Esso stations, which won’t discriminate against Black travelers. It’s there that the family discovers The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide to all the businesses in the South that welcomed Black people. As they patronize these Black owned businesses, Ruth makes new friends and shares The Green Book with others. (Recommended for ages 6 – 10.)

Side note: I do NOT recommend that you see the movie The Green Book, which has been criticized for making a white person the center of the story and minimizing the impact of racism.

Related Read: Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jerome Laggarigue

Read my review in this post: 15 Children’s Books about the Civil Rights Movement. You’ll also find books about the Montgomery bus boycott, the Birmingham Children’s Crusade, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Ruby Bridges, and more in this post. 

Related Read: Belle, the Last Mule at Gee’s Bend by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, Bettye Stroud, and John Holyfield

Read my review in this post: Six Meaningful Ways Kids Can Honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (without watering down his legacy). You’ll also find biographies of Dr. King for children of all ages in this post.

Related Read: Lillian’s Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by Jonah Winter and Shane W. Evans

Read my review in this post: 6 Ways to Teach Kids about Democracy and Citizenship

This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration by Jacqueline Woodson and James Ransome

During the 20th century, more than 6 million African Americans left the South for relief from poverty and violence, migrating to Northern cities. Woodson traces the journey of one family through a simple rope that ties down the luggage on top of their car on the long trip to New York. Later that rope is used to do everything from drying flowers that smell like those back home, to skipping rope with new friends. (Recommended for ages 4 – 8)

Related post: 15 books that help kids & teens understand that Black Lives Matter

Firebird by Misty Copeland and Christopher Myers

Misty Copeland made history when she became the first African American principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater. She had to fight racial stereotypes about what a ballerina looks like to get there. Copeland writes Firebird to a young dancer who feels she will never have the grace, confidence, and strength of her idol. Her encouraging words and the stunning artwork remind children that our lives can change in ways we can’t yet imagine. (Recommended for ages 6 – 10)

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford and Eric Velasquez

When Arturo Schomburg’s fifth grade teacher told him that people of African descent had no history or heroes worth learning about, he knew she must be wrong. Arturo discovered Black inventor and astronomer Benjamin Banneker’s almanac of America, and a lifelong quest to document Black history began. His research not only unearthed Black leaders whose work is now well known. He also discovered that history had often been whitewashed. (For example, I certainly didn’t know that Beethoven was often described as a mulatto or a Moor.)

Schomburg’s enormous collection of Black history books eventually crowded out the living space in his home, and his wife demanded that the books find a more public home. They were purchased for the New York Public Library, where they now make up the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. (Recommended for ages 9+)

Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson

Perhaps you’ve seen the meme on social media that says “Black history is American history.” Kadir Nelson makes it profoundly clear in this volume that we can’t tell the story of the United States without telling the story of Black people. Each chapter gives children a short history of important periods, such as the Declaration of Independence, reconstruction, how Black history and American Indian history intertwine, and the push for Black women’s suffrage.

Because the chapters are narrated as a family history and are punctuated frequently with Nelson’s moving, detailed paintings, this is one history book that will hold children’s interest. (Recommended for ages 10+)

Young, Gifted, and Black: Meet 52 Black Heroes from Past and Present by Jamia Wilson and Andrea Pippins

During Black History Month, the stories of a few Black leaders tend to be told over and over. This volume tells about many leaders from history who children are less likely to hear about, such as Matthew Henson (the first African-American explorer in the Arctic) and Madam C.J. Walker (the first Black female millionaire). I love that is also tells the stories of Black leaders who are making history right now, including filmmaker Ava Duvernay and jazz musician Esperenza Spalding. There are also many leaders included who from places outside the United States. (Recommended for ages 5 – 10)

Related Read: Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison

Read my review in this post: 16 Children’s Books about Black Women Leaders

More Resources for Learning Black History All Year Round

Sources for Lesson Plans and Ideas

Black  History Lessons Plans for Kindergarten – 5th grade from the National Education Assocation

Black Lives Matter at School Starter Kit. This week of learning and action will officially be observed February 5 – 9, though there are resources in the kit you can use at any time. It includes a guide on how to talk to young children about Black Lives Matter. You can also find a beautiful, free printable coloring book that teaches the principles of Black Lives Matter here.

Poems for Celebrating Black History Month from The Poetry Foundation

Teaching for Change’s Civil Rights Mythbusters quiz. Although this quiz is geared toward high school students, it’s also an excellent tool for parents and teachers of younger children to use to build your background knowledge on civil rights. Each question includes additional resources for learning more about the topic.

Lessons on African American History from the Zinn Education Project. Use the filters on the right side of the page to narrow down lesson plans by age group.

Downloadable quote posters. This posters page from Teaching Tolerance includes quotes from Black leaders including Audre Lorde, Langston Hughes, B.B. King, John Lewis, bell hooks, and more.

Black History Flash Cards

ABC Me Flash Cards. These cards help preschoolers through 3rd graders learn about important leaders and topics in Black history.

Urban Intellectuals Black History Flash Cards. These cards are suited for upper elementary through adults. I love that they include more radical leaders and topics that are often left out of traditional Black History Month discussions. They come in 4 different volumes (including one on pre-1492 history!)

Take a field trip: Museums that Teach Black History

Discover 10 museums across the country (including an excellent one in my hometown of Memphis) that teach Black history in this post from Joanna.  She also wrote a second post with ten more museums.

Black History Videos for Kids

There is so much misinformation and stereotypes about who the Black Panthers were and what they did and stood for. This is a great video for tweens and teens.