Books About Social Activism for Young Readers

            In this article in Social Studies and the Young Learner, Iowa preschool teacher Taylor Marsho and five colleagues recommend books that several teachers used to explore issues of injustice, affirm students’ identities, and link activism to students’ artwork. In the course of this curriculum unit, teachers asked students:

• How can you help a friend with a problem they are facing?
• “Big ideas need big plans.” What is something you would like to do to make our classroom better?
• What can you do to treat others the way they want to be treated?
• When you try to make big, important changes in the world, sometimes people will think differently of you. How can you keep going to make change? 

Here are the books, which sparked lively discussions and student artwork on the questions:

• All the Way to the Top by Annette Bay Pimentel about Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins’s fight for the Americans with Disabilities Act;
• Mary Wears What She Wants by Keith Negley about women’s rights activist Mary Edwards Walker;
• Kamala and Maya’s Big Day by Meena Harris about how the young Kamala Harris and her sister Maya Harris advocated for transforming an empty apartment courtyard into a playground;
• The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson about how nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks protested segregation laws in Alabama. 

“Promoting Student Activism Through Children’s Literature and Social Justice Art” by Taylor Marsho, Ashtyn Riley, Deidra Rudd, Morgan Schmidt, Sunah Chung, and Sarah Montgomery in Social Studies for the Young Learner, November/December 2024 (Vol. 37, #2, pp. 5-10); Marsho can be reached at taylor.marsho16@gmail.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1065 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.