New Diverse Books

“Although set in faraway Sri Lanka, Fullerton’s rhythmic tale holds a universal message: that even the smallest and youngest among us can summon up the courage to face, and overcome, the most gargantuan challenges.”—Kirkus ★ Starred Review

It is time to plant the rice crop in Malini’s Sri Lankan community, and the little girl is both excited and nervous to help for the first time. What if she does it wrong? Will she be responsible if the crop fails? When the oxcart rumbles in loaded w …

When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from, despite the efforts of the nuns who are in charge at the school and who tell her that she is not to use her own name but instead use the number they have assigned to her. When she goes home for summer holidays, Irene's parents decide never to send her and her brothers away again. But where …

Boys around the world are treated differently than girls just because of their gender. They are given an education and choices that girls are not, and their needs and success are often put above the needs of the girls and women in their families and communities. But boys are also given special burdens. They are expected to "be a man", to work, to fight, to be brave. Once again amazing photographs from Plan International are paired with simple text to convey a message: that boys want to see the s …

Minimal text and stunning photographs from around the world describe the remarkable, and often dangerous, journeys children make every day on their way to and from school. No simple school bus picks them up each day, but rather children travel through disaster zones, cross rapids, climb mountains, and maneuver on ziplines daily to get to the classroom. Some of them even carry their desks!

In this beautiful picture book for young readers, every image and spread speaks to the desire for an educatio …

This is a letter of sisterhood to Malala Yousafzai, written from the perspective of girls around the world who share her belief that every girl has the right to go to school, and who represent the many barriers a girl can face when trying to get an education. After being shot by the Taliban for the simple act of going to school in her native Pakistan, Malala has become an international girls’ rights crusader and the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Girls the world over recogn …

The award-winning first picture book to recount the dramatic true story of a refugee family’s perilous escape from Vietnam

It is 1981. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a fishing boat overloaded with 60 Vietnamese refugees drifts. The motor has failed; the hull is leaking; the drinking water is nearly gone. This is the dramatic true story recounted by Tuan Ho, who was six years old when he, his mother, and two sisters dodged the bullets of Vietnam’s military police for the perilous chance o …

The electricity in Maya’s house has gone out again. She is afraid of the dark — and her fear has been even worse since her father died. Now it feels as if the darkness will never go away.

Maya’s mother distracts her with a legend about the banyan tree, which saved the world from the first monsoon by drinking up the floodwaters, and growing tall and strong. Later that night, unsettled by the noises around her, Maya revisits the story in her imagination. She ventures deep into the banyan tre …

When a teacher asks her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different, but the same in one important way ...

When a teacher asks the children in her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different in many ways — but the same in the one way that matters most of all.

One child is worried that her family is just too different to explain, but listens as her classmates talk about what makes their families special. One is ra …