These books, featured in NEA’s Read Across America program and recommended by a committee of educators, were included in PEN America’s 2022 analysis of titles challenged and banned in school and classroom libraries.
To find these titles in a local public library near you, view our companion list on WorldCat.
Elementary
Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal
Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford and R. Gregory Christie
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard
Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry
Ho’onani Hula Warrior by Heather Gale
Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love
Leila in Saffron by Rukhsanna Guidroz
Lubna and Pebble by Wendy Meddour
Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai
My Hair is a Garden by Cozbi A. Cabrera
Niño Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales
Stella Díaz Has Something to Say by Angela Dominguez
Your Name is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow
Middle Grade
Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship by Irene Latham & Charles Waters
Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes
The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson
Thanks a Lot, Universe by Chad Lucas
When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
Young Adult
American Street by Ibi Zoboi
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese
How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg
Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You by Jason Reynolds
The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater
The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott
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