Netflix has created a collection of twelve 5-minute episodes of celebrities reading children’s books. The featured books are by Black authors and they highlight the Black experience. The videos are available for free without a subscription on the Netflix Jr. YouTube. Here is the Netflix Bookmarks playlist.
Visit the Netflix Bookmarks website for links to additional resources, such as books and activities focused on concepts of identity, respect, justice, and action. The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) helped develop resources for this project, including the Supporting Diverse Communities Toolkit, #LookToLibraries, and ALSC booklists.
For more Black stories to share with your family, check out this post from our Staff Picks for Kids blog.
Anti-Racist Picture Books
A is for Activist
Nagara, Innosanto.
Also available in Hoopla. A is for Activist is an ABC board book written and illustrated for the next generation of progressives: families who want their kids to grow up in a space that is unapologetic about activism, environmental justice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and everything else that activists believe in and fight for. The alliteration, rhyming, and vibrant illustrations make the book exciting for children, while the issues it brings up resonate with their parents’ values of community, equality, and justice. This engaging little book carries huge messages as it inspires hope for the future, and calls children to action while teaching them a love for books.
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I Am Enough
Byers, Grace.
Also available as an e-audio through Hoopla. Shares a story of loving who you are, respecting others and being kind to one another.
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My Hair is a Garden
Cabrera, Cozbi A.
Also, available as an e-book through Hoopla. After being teased yet again about her unruly hair, MacKenzie consults her neighbor, Miss Tillie, who compares hair care with tending her beautiful garden and teaches MacKenzie some techniques. Includes tips for shampooing, conditioning, and protecting black hair, and recipes for hair products.
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Hair Love
Cherry, Matthew A.
Also available in Overdrive and as an e-audio through Hoopla. A little girl’s daddy steps in to help her arrange her curly, coiling, wild hair into styles that allow her to be her natural, beautiful self.
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Love
de la Peña, Matt.
Also available in English and Spanish as an e-book through OverDrive/Libby. Illustrations and easy-to-read text celebrate the bonds of love that connect us all.
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Mixed Me!
Diggs, Taye.
Also available as an e-audio through Hoopla. Told in rhyming text, Mike is a mixed-race boy, completely comfortable with his identity and his parents–and his wild, curly hair.
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Magnificent Homespun Brown : A Celebration
Doyon, Samara Cole.
Also available in Hoopla. Joyful young narrators celebrate feeling at home in one’s own skin.
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What
Evans, Kristina.
In a rhythmically-written conversation between parent and child, Mama lists her son’s many good traits–from physical attributes to behavior–and though he dismisses each quality as just a little thing, Mama explains that there is nothing little about love.
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Happy in Our Skin
Manushkin, Fran.
Bouquets of babies sweet to hold: cocoa-brown, cinnamon, and honey gold. Ginger-colored babies, peaches and cream, too–splendid skin for me, splendid skin for you! A delightfully rhythmical read-aloud text is paired with bright, bustling art from the award-winning Lauren Tobia, illustrator of Anna Hibiscus, in this joyful exploration of the new skin of babyhood. A wonderful gift book for new mums and toddlers; all children can see themselves, and open their eyes to the world around them, in this sweet, scrumptious celebration of skin in all its many, many, wonderful forms.
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Hands Up!
McDaniel, Breanna J.
A young girl lifts her hands up in a series of everyday moments before finally raising her hands in resistance at a protest march.
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The Proudest Blue : A Story of Hijab and Family
Muhammad, Ibtihaj.
Faizah relates how she feels on the first day her sister, sixth-grader Asiya, wears a hijab to school.
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Looking Like Me
Myers, Walter Dean.
Also available in Hoopla and as a kit. Jeremy sets out to discover all of the different “people” that make him who he is, including brother, son, writer, and runner.
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Sulwe
Nyong’o, Lupita.
Also available as e-book through OverDrive/Libby. When five-year-old Sulwe’s classmates make fun of her dark skin, she tries lightening herself to no avail, but her encounter with a shooting star helps her understand there is beauty in every shade.
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All Are Welcome
Penfold, Alexandra.
Illustrations and simple, rhyming text introduce a school where diversity is celebrated and songs, stories, and talents are shared.
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Shades of Black : A Celebration of our Children
Pinkney, Sandra L.
Photographs and poetic text celebrate the beauty and diversity of African American children.
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The Breaking News
Reul, Sarah Lynne.
When devastating news rattles a young girl’s community, her normally attentive parents and neighbors are suddenly exhausted and distracted. At school, her teacher tells the class to look for the helpers-the good people working to make things better in big and small ways. She wants more than anything to help in a BIG way, but maybe she can start with one small act of kindness instead … and then another, and another. Small things can compound, after all, to make a world of difference. Both timely and timeless, this charmingly illustrated debut picture book from Sarah Lynne Reul touches on themes of community, resilience, and optimism with an authenticity that will resonate with readers young and old.
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M is for Melanin : A Celebration of the Black Child
Rose, Tiffany.
Each letter of the alphabet contains affirming, Black-positive messages, from A is for Afro, to F is for Fresh, to W is for Worthy. This book teaches children their ABCs while encouraging them to love the skin that they’re in.
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Bilal Cooks Daal
Saeed, Aisha.
Bilal and his father invite his friends to help make his favorite dish, daal, then all must wait patiently for it to be done.
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In Your Hands
Weatherford, Carole Boston
A prayer from mother to son that he will always be in safe hands.
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The Day You Begin
Woodson, Jacqueline.
Also available as an e-book and e-audio through OverDrive/Libby. 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.
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Dreamers
Morales, Yuyi.
Also available as a DVD, an e-book and e-audio through OverDrive/Libby, and an e-audio and movie through Hoopla. An illustrated picture book autobiography in which award-winning author Yuyi Morales tells her own immigration story.
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Not My Idea : A Book About Whiteness,
Higginbotham, Anastasia.
Also available in Hoopla. A white child sees a TV news report of a white police officer shooting and killing a black man. “In our family, we don’t see color,” his mother says, but he sees the colors plain enough. An afternoon in the library’s history stacks uncover the truth of white supremacy in America. Racism was not his idea and he refuses to defend it.
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Hey Black Child
Perkins, Useni Eugene.
Also available as a VOX book. A lyrical, empowering poem that celebrates black children and seeks to inspire all young ones to dream big and achieve their goals.
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