What Are You Looking For?

A picture-book biography about how Billie Holiday made a protest song her own, set against racial discrimination and the history of lynching.

A concise historical account centres on Parks’s refusal and places it in the civil rights movement. The book also uses cut-paper images alongside Nikki Giovanni’s text.

A historically grounded adventure that also asks who receives credit for exploration and what costs expeditions impose on the people they encounter.

A Christmas gathering brings Evelyn together with children from three other families. Their shifting enthusiasms, quarrels and plans, including attic explorations, shape a story described as a fictionalised account of childhood.

This picture-led story uses archival photographs and imagined children’s dialogue to bring school desegregation into view. It offers a historical perspective through children’s experiences, rather than a purely factual account.

This is a historical account centred on the assassination and its aftermath, with attention to how Lincoln’s death affected the causes of freedom and equality.

A biography told through a court-case frame, this book follows Ginsburg’s education and legal career alongside the inequalities she faced as a Jewish woman and working mother.

A compact historical account centres on four college students’ peaceful challenge to racial segregation at a Woolworth’s lunch counter.

A historical biography links Morgan's safety invention to its development and use in rescue work and wartime protection.

A broad country profile, moving from physical geography and public life to culture and leisure. Its opening gives particular weight to wellbeing, equality and economic competitiveness.

A bilingual life story linking Cris Plata’s Mexican American family background and migrant farmwork with his development as a musician and his eventual home in Wisconsin.

A broad, structured introduction, combining explanations of institutions and reforms with young people’s profiles and creative writing.

A broad account of post-1945 US history, with civil rights at its centre and political, social and cultural developments also in view.

Expect a structured debate rather than a single narrative: articles address whether a wall is justified, practical, affordable or preferable to other approaches to immigration and border security.

This offers a broad, story-led route through United States history, connecting people, political decisions, social change, exploration, war and international affairs across multiple volumes. The focus is informational rather than fictional.

A portrait of Chanel’s rise in fashion sits alongside discussion of poverty, prejudice, self-invention and wartime controversy. The book offers achievements and faults together rather than presenting an uncomplicated style icon.

Expect a football-centred childhood story rather than an account of Burglar Bill. Its unofficial team, friendships and setbacks provide comic energy, while the reflective voice gives the book a poignant, nostalgic dimension.

A direct, feminist guide to growing up as a girl, combining personal subjects such as body hair and self-esteem with wider questions about sexism, media, stereotypes and sexualisation.

A historical account of four African American women mathematicians whose work contributed to aircraft and spacecraft research, while explaining segregation, wartime aviation, NASA’s origins and the space race.

This is a personal account of rejecting inherited hatred and choosing peace. It offers a way into questions about responsibility, identity and prejudice, while engaging with terrorism and family history rather than treating them as abstract subjects.

A visually presented introduction to Hispanic and Latino American figures whose work spans culture, public life, science, sport and the arts. It offers short life sketches rather than one continuous narrative.

A focused introduction to racial profiling and discrimination, combining real-life stories with practical legal information. It may help a young reader understand the issue and identify possible steps when confronting profiling or discrimination.

This is a visually rich wartime memoir about service, segregation, friendship and artistic persistence.

A candid, structured introduction to LGBTQ+ identities and experiences, combining explanation with practical guidance. Its strongest offering is breadth: it addresses identity, prejudice, coming out, relationships and sexual health in one supportive, conversational book.

A lively introduction to women’s contributions across history and different fields, presented through colourful illustrations, short profiles, facts and quotations. Its page-by-page structure supports dipping in, revisiting individual figures and noticing links between personal achievement and wider social change.

A classic-style children’s adventure built around a coastal mystery, teamwork and discovery. Expect suspense from dangerous rocks, suspicious night-time signals, local wrongdoing and the children’s determination to investigate without adult direction.

A visually presented life story linking football, military leadership and racial unfairness.

A warm introduction to football as something people can enjoy together, whether playing in a major stadium or an informal outdoor space. It foregrounds shared participation and belonging rather than competition, expertise or football celebrity.

This is a personal investigation into relatives who vanished during the Holocaust. Rosen follows clues, disappointments and discoveries, while poems and family materials give emotional and historical shape to what happened.

A dark, energetic mystery about an unusual group protecting overlooked children. Its strongest offering is a determined heroine, an ensemble built around difference and friendship, and a vividly grim historical setting.

A gently suspenseful wartime adventure with a strong historical setting. It combines a secret mission and possible betrayal with village tensions, friendship, refugee experience, and the practical importance of art, music and community.

A discussion-led introduction to values and civic ideas, linking right and wrong with society, justice, democracy, prejudice, discrimination, fairness and equality. It combines explanation with personal experiences and named contributors’ perspectives.

This is a child-focused historical account of persecution, concealment and courage during the Holocaust. Its central contrast is between a community’s ridicule of Anton and his decision to protect Jewish neighbours at great personal risk.

A topical, discussion-oriented introduction to medical ethics. It covers competing positions on testing and consent, including cases involving vulnerable people, animals, genetic information and international research.

A focused introduction to Malcolm X’s activism and public leadership, set against systemic racism and civil-rights history. Its documents and reference features may help readers connect biography with historical evidence.

A chronological introduction to LGBT civil-rights history, told through people’s experiences, major struggles and contributions. Its creative activities make the subject participatory, while the historical scope connects earlier activism with more recent events.

Take it as a historical biography linking one person’s experiences with apartheid, civil-rights struggle and political change.

A useful choice for readers interested in how law and government affect civil rights. Expect historical discussion of several groups and cases, with justice and discrimination presented as part of the Court’s record.

Choose this deliberately as an introduction to LGBTQ+ history and activism; its subject should be clear before a family decides to read it.