I have pulled some of my favorite historical picture books to compile this free Black History Month Picture Book Reading Guide, and I am so excited to share it with you!
In Black History Months past, I have simply requested lots of black history-themed books from the library and read them here and there to my kids throughout February. It was nice that my children were getting and bits of pieces of black history, but they never really understood the full narrative of the story.
In this Black History Month Picture Book Reading Guide, I have chosen 20 picture books to be read (one each day) for the four weeks of February. The books move chronologically through American history so they really tell a cohesive narrative story of black people in the United States.
Here is the booklist (in order):
- Circle Unbroken (Margot Theis Raven) [Middle Passage from Africa]
- The Black Regiment of the American Revolution (Linda Crotta Brennan) [1770s-1780s] **If you’re looking for a shorter picture book geared toward younger children set during this period, I also recommend Phillis Sings Out Freedom: The Story of George Washington and Phillis Wheatley (Ann Malaspina) [1775]
- Brick By Brick (Charles R. Smith) [1790s]
- Love Twelve Miles Long (Glenda Armand) [1820s]
- Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams (Ashley Bryan) [1828]
- Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (Carole Boston Weatherford) [1840s-1850s]
- Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad (Ellen Levine) [1849]
- Hope’s Gift (Kelly Starling Lions) [1862]
- All Different Now (Angela Johnson) [1865]
- Ellen’s Broom (Kelly Starling Lyons) [Reconstruction]
- I Have Heard of a Land (Joyce Carol Thomas) [1880s]
- Uncle Jed’s Barbershop (Margeree King Mitchell) [1920s]
- Sugar Hill (Carole Boston Weatherford) [1920s Harlem Renaissance]
- Ruth and the Green Book (Calvin Alexander Ramsey) [early 1950s]
- White Water (Michael S. Bandy & Eric Stein) [1962]
- Let the Children March (Monica Clark-Robinson) [1963]
- Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down (Andrea Davis Pinkney) [1960s]
- This Is The Rope: A Story from the Great Migration (Jacqueline Woodson) [1960s-1970s]
- Last Stop on Market Street (Matt de la Pena) [modern times]
- The Undefeated (Kwame Alexander) [overview of black history]