Erica Holyoke & Lori Elliott 
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Activism is the practice of taking action to create change, whether in our communities, our environment, or around the systems that shape our lives. In this collection of picturebooks, activism is represented in many forms: quiet and bold, individual and collective, personal and political. From a single child advocating for amphibians in her town to multigenerational efforts for racial justice and climate equity, these stories reflect the wide-ranging possibilities of what it means to take action and make a difference. Because social change occurs across boundaries and these books invite action and social change, we chose not to include age ranges in the book recommendations. We see possibilities for inviting readers across all ages to explore the narratives and themes in these books.
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These books offer a range of issues, such as racial justice, linguistic rights, voting rights, environmental justice, literacy, civil rights, and the arts, but also show that change begins in many places: with one voice, with a classroom, with a family, or as part of initiating an entire movement. Some books focus on personal acts of courage or discovery, while others highlight the power of community and collective resistance. Together, they remind readers that activism comes in many forms and that all forms of engagement matter. Activism is about envisioning a more inclusive and just world on personal, local, and global levels. 
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These books are rich with emotion, beautifully illustrated, and grounded in truth-telling and hope. In sharing them with children, we’re honoring history, embracing activism in the present, and shaping the future. Importantly, each text offers an opportunity for wonder, further research, and action. Let’s read, reflect, and rise!

I Am the Spirit of Justice. Jemar Tisby and Malcolm Newsome. Illus. by Nadia Fisher. (2025) Zonderkidz Press.
In this ambitious historical poem picturebook, the authors employ a personified spirit of justice to trace key moments and people in the pursuit of justice for everyone: “So I erupted like a volcano. Igniting faith in the souls of those who risked everything to deliver freedom to all.” The poem begins by recognizing the “royal and majestic people” in West Africa and concludes by highlighting the most recent violence against Black individuals that sparked national protests: “I am here. Even in the midst of horrifying brutality. Reminding the world that my loved ones still matter.” This personified spirit of justice flows throughout the book, offering reminders of progress, as well as inspiration for readers to continue the journey toward justice for everyone. The additional notes at the end of the book provide supplemental details about the contributions of each individual highlighted in the vibrant images across each double-page spread.

Marjory's River of Grass: Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Fierce Protector of the Everglades. Author and Illus. by Josie James. (2025). Christy Ottaviano Books.
This picturebook biography traces the remarkable life and impact of conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas from the time she reconnected with her father as a young adult to her death at 108 years young. The story explores how she fell in love with the Florida Everglades, the people she met during her tenure as the editor of The Miami Herald, and the skillful ways she intertwined her connections with the power of her pen to bring awareness and action to saving the unique ecosystem she described as “a river of grass.” Descriptive language helps readers stretch their vocabulary: “Birds sang, woodpeckers tapped, frogs croaked, and insects buzzed as the observers slogged beneath the majesty of a cypress dome,” while the warm and saturated hues of the illustrations provide a window into the beauty of the subtropical wilderness. The book concludes with an author’s note detailing additional facts about Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the Everglades and calls to action around access to clean water.      

My Language Rights: A Child’s Right to the Language. Judy Thompson. Illus. by Tete García. (2025). Scribble US.
“Language is the way I speak who I am to the world.” This book opens with a spread of children sharing a speech bubble voicing their identities to the world. The illustrations are inviting, show children of diverse cultural and racial identities, and celebrate how language is interwoven in human identity. While the text also prioritizes pride in one’s language, it is also about connection, community, and creating peace in the world. Related to activism, the text prioritizes the rights that children have to their languages with calls such as “my language should be treated with dignity and respect. My school should help me feel proud of the ways I speak,” and more. The book closes with a call to action to add linguistic rights to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, serving as a call to action itself.

Prisons Must Fall. Mariame Kaba and Jane Bell. Illus. by Olly Costello. (2025). Haymarket Books.
This is a powerful story positioning young readers as aware of injustices, having big questions, and engaging in complex conversations. Written in accessible rhyming language, this picturebook explores the realities about incarceration while advocating for abolition and community healing. Through thoughtful language and illustrations, the text positions restorative ways of being in our society and how we view and interact with one another in the world. The book also captures complexity, such as asking, “some may wonder: without prisons how will we mend harm? Compassion is a good place to begin, open up your arms.” Inviting in counter-perspectives and explicit solutions, the text proposes the power of relation and connection, alluding to the concept that we cannot be free until we are all free. The book closes with discussion questions for readers to explore together. The art and illustrations add beauty and depth to this thought-evoking picturebook.

Rise Up!: Powerful Protests in American History. Rachel C. Katz. Illus. by Sophie Bass. (2025). Barefoot Books.
This vibrant and engaging informational text introduces readers to key protests throughout American history. With accessible language, the book highlights how everyday people, including children and teens, have fought for justice, equity, and change. Each protest is framed in conversation with broader views of activism, empowering readers to engage in future and current protests. The book presents the individual protests thematically, then organizes them in a timeline sequentially, and finally shares a map of geographic locations. Back matter also includes historical and research context on each movement. The book offers readers hope in seeing protest as a tool to advocate for more just, equitable, and inclusive ways of being in the United States. It calls for shared action from past to present: “Use your brain, use your voice, find your personal mission. Join hands! Join a Cause! Join a long, proud tradition!”

Ruby Bridges–A Talk with My Teacher. Ruby Bridges. Illus. by Trudy Tran. (2025). Orchard Books.
This story focuses on conversations between Ruby Bridges and her first-grade teacher, Mrs. Henry, when they reconnected after thirty-five years. While the story references events related to school desegregation, the focus is equally on celebrating teachers and their powerful and lasting influence on our lives. The writing style is simple and accessible for young readers, often evoking a child's hopefulness and optimistic wonder: “Finally, after thirty-five years, I could talk with my teacher. I could ask her all the questions I have wondered about over the years.” A significant feature at the end of the book is the “Ruby Reads Teacher Glossary,” which details the contributions of many different activist-minded and influential teachers from around the globe, sparking curiosity and inviting readers into further research. 

​Safe Crossing. Author & Illus. by Kari Percival. (2025). Chronicle Books.
This lyrical narrative informational picturebook provides information and a story of how a child, her family, and her community advocate for wildlife crossings for the amphibians that have to journey across a major road. Through child-led fundraising and collective organizing, the community works to create a safer passage for the amphibians. The narrative centers the child’s voice and agency, showing how even small, local efforts can have a meaningful impact on ecosystems. The backmatter offers rich scientific content, including information about amphibian lifecycles, the importance of wildlife crossings, and actionable steps young readers can take to support local wildlife. By emphasizing both scientific knowledge and civic responsibility, Safe Crossing provides a powerful model for how children can engage in environmental justice through local, relational, and intergenerational activism.

They Call Me Teach: Lessons in Freedom. Lesa Cline Ransome. Illus. by James Ransome (2024). Candlewick.
The author-illustrator duo of Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome has written a moving, poetic story supported with deeply saturated watercolor images highlighting the experiences of enslaved individuals who learned to read and then risked their lives to teach others: “What sound this one make, Teach? they ask, eyes bright/crouched low, I teach in whispers with hushed letters and the soft scrape of a stick against slate.” The author intentionally and effectively weaves dialect throughout the story, bringing authenticity to ways of communicating during the period. This feature of the text also lends to sharing the book as a read aloud to help young readers navigate the words and the concepts. The informative author’s note at the end of the book highlights anti-literacy laws and the variety of ways resistance can be enacted. The words and images work in concert to capture the courage and powerful, and sometimes subtle, means of resistance taken by enslaved people in the quest for freedom. 

​Up, Up, Ever Up: Junko Tabei, A Life in the Mountains. Anita Yasuda. Illus. by Yuko Shimizu. (2024). Clarion Books.
This Caldecott Honor book seamlessly weaves lyrical language and engaging artwork to highlight the experiences and perseverance of Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Mt. Everest. The narrative presents the ways that Tabei challenged gender norms, and how she also continued to focus on environmental activism to protect the beloved mountain from tourism and climate change. In addition to focusing on Tabei’s resilience as a female climber, the book also details the many ways she “knitted other women climbers together, just as a ridge joins mountaintops…eager and unstoppable, they planned, trained, and dreamed beyond the horizon.” The author’s note, timeline, glossary, and bibliography provide meaningful information and invitations for readers to learn more about Tabei, mountain climbing, and environmental activism.

​Erica Holyoke, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in Responsive Literacy Education at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research focuses on justice, equity, and belonging in literacy teaching and teacher preparation.
 
Lori Elliott, Ph.D., is an associate teaching professor in the Responsive Literacy Education program at the University of Colorado Denver, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in children’s literature. 

​Nancy Brashear & Carolyn Angus
Series are perennial favorites for readers of all ages. This column includes reviews of recently published series books in a variety of genres and formats for beginning and newly independent readers. There are first books in new series, much anticipated sequels, and the latest books in some episodic series that can be read in any order.

The Cranky-Verse (Cranky Chicken #4). Katherine Battersby. (2025). Margaret K. McElderry.
The hilarity of the earlier books in this graphic novel series continues as best friends Cranky Chicken and Speedy, the worm, decide to bring a little turtle they name Wags into their Best Feathered Family. After Speedy breaks his tail on an evil leaf and, later, Cranky Chicken also breaks his arm on an evil leaf, they create the Cranky Club and the Cranky-Verse in a parallel universe, which leads to an end-of-summer camping trip that is “crank-tacular.” Clever dialogue, riddles, and wordplay between Cranky Chicken and Speedy in speech bubbles with an occasional “beep,” “Mama,” and “Papa” from Wags result in laugh-out-loud chaos and a camping trip with more silly escapades. Told in five short chapters with digitally rendered mixed-media comic-style art in panels, this series will engage the imaginations of young readers as they develop their comprehension skills. (PreK-Gr 2) 
—NB 

Dinosaur Friends! (The World of Dinosaur Roar!). Peter Curtis & Patty Michaels. (2025). Smithsonian Kids/Simon Spotlight.
Dino Bash (an Ankylosaurus), Dinosaur Honk (a Parasaurolophus), Dinosaur Boo (a Deinonychus), Dinosaur Chew (an Iguanodon), and eight other dinosaur pals are exploring the island of Paleos when they hear a noise and discover it is being made by Dinosaur Roar, the Tyrannosaurus rex who is excited to join his friends in exploring the rainforest. A glossary (with pronunciation guide) provides additional information about each of the dinosaurs. The World of Dinosaur Roar! series is inspired by Paul and Henrietta Stickland’s classic rhyming picture book Dinosaur Roar! (1994). Squeak Seeks! and A Fun Day with Bash!, the second and third books in this new Ready-to-Read Level One series, will be released later this year. (A second edition of the Stickland’s Dinosaur Roar! was published by Simon Spotlight on January 14, 2025.) (PreK-Gr 2)
—CA

Ducks! (Explore the World with Gail Gibbons). Gail Gibbons. (2025). Holiday House.
“A row of fluffy ducklings . . . waddle behind their mother. She’s heading toward more …. DUCKS!”  In this new and updated edition of Ducks! (originally published in 2001), Gail Gibbons introduces young readers to members of the two groups of ducks in the waterfowl family: dabbling ducks and diving ducks. With an accessible text and labeled, bright watercolor illustrations, she describes the basic characteristics of ducks and their behaviors, including swimming, feeding, communication, and the migration of some ducks. The life cycle of the mallard, the most common duck in the world, is described from nest building in the spring, to the laying of eggs and their hatching, to the mother’s care of her brood until they are full-grown and able to fly. Gibbons also includes information on domesticated ducks and conservation efforts to protect wild ducks, as well as a “QUACK … QUACK … QUACK …” page of duck trivia.  (PreK Up)
—CA

Little Blue Truck and Racer Red (Little Blue Truck #10). Alice Schertle. Illus. in the style of Jill McElmurry by John Joseph. (2025). Clarion.
Little Blue Truck and his friend Toad are going for a ride when—“ZOOM! ZOOM! ZOOM!”—a bright red race car whizzes by and then challenges Little Blue Truck to a race. “Ready . . . set . . . GO!” The lead keeps changing as they speed down the country road with Blue’s barnyard friends following and cheering him on. Reaching the finish line first, Racer Red wonders why Blue is not sad until he cheerfully explains to the winner that “win or lose, it’s fun to try!” Once again, Alice Schertle offers young children a gentle lesson in rhyme in this popular series that began with Little Blue Truck (2008). “‘Fast is fun, / and slow is too, as long as you’re / with friends,’ said Blue.” (PreS Up)
—CA

Lucy Lancaster Has a Secret (Lucy Lancaster #1). Willow Coven. Illus. by Priscilla Burris. (2025). Little Simon.
When Mrs. Welli, their second-grade teacher, makes Lucy Lancaster and Bryce Beltran partners for a unit on the life cycle of butterflies, neither girl is happy. Lucy is upset when Byrce criticizes her name for their caterpillar but, after her toes tingle and she hiccups, is surprised to find Bryce suddenly agreeable. Later, Lucy’s tingling toes and hiccups result in all the butterflies hatching at once and then clinging to her like she’s a “butterfly whisperer.” After town librarian, Ms. Egli, who is visiting for the day, invites Lucy to talk to her privately, she identifies her as a witch and gives Lucy a golden library card to the Magical Library so she can learn how to make magic as well as “un-magic” spells if they don’t turn out. Lucy Lancaster and the Stormy Day (Lucy Lancaster #2) was published simultaneously, and #3-#5 will be released later this year. (PreK-Gr 2) 
—NB

A Mystery in Pocketville (Monti and Leo #2). Sylvie Kantorovitz. (2025). Walker.
An exhibit of Mrs. Sheep’s figurines at the library has everyone in Pocketville developing collections. Even Monti Mole’s best friend, Leo Lizard, collects rocks. Monti would like to start a collection, too, but doesn’t know what to collect. When Mrs. Sheep’s favorite figurine goes missing, she accuses Monti of the theft because he spent so much time admiring it. And when small treasures of other citizens begin to disappear, and even he has begun to suspect Monti, Leo sets out to do some detective work to prove his friend’s innocence. Sylvia Kantorovitz presents this second story in her engaging early reader graphic novel series set in Pocketville in four short chapters with one to six panels of cartoonlike drawings, created digitally in a soft color palette, per page. She aptly dedicates the book to “all collectors of wonderful and curious things” and includes a chart of things to collect and a page of photographs of some of her own little treasures. (PreK Up)
—CA

​Nat the Cat Has a Hat (Nat the Cat #4). Jarrett Lerner. (2025). Simon Spotlight.
“This is Nat. // Nat is a cat.” As the never-seen narrator introduces the titular character, pictured in Jarrett Lerner’s cartoonlike illustration wearing what Nat proudly points out is a nice hat, his pal Pat the Rat comes along sporting a very nice purple hat with a flower attached. “Does Nat the Cat want a hat like THAT?” He does, and he gets one. However, when Nat envies the next “very, VERY nice” new hat Pat dons, the narrator’s comment that things are getting “very, very, very SILLY” has grumpy Nat angrily responding, “Fine! How about there are NO hats.” Has Nat come up with the perfect solution? The final page of this Ready-to-Read Pre-Level One story reveals an alternate way to keep Nat and Pat’s friendship intact that will delight beginning readers. (PreS Up)
­—CA

Prince and the Pawper (The Racc Pack #2). Stephanie Cooke. Illus. by Whitney Gardner. (2025). Simon & Schuster.
In the second installment of this hilarious middle grade graphic novel series, when siblings Dusty, Scraps, and ReRe Bins, who are dumpster-diving city raccoons, learn that the internet star Prince Raccoon is being featured at Toronto’s Convention Center PetExpo, they go undercover to learn how Prince pulled this gig off. They realize that Dusty and Prince are doppelgängers and convince Prince to swap places with Dusty for the rest of the PetExpo so the celeb can get some “paws-on experience” for a movie audition about a raccoon in the wild while Dusty anticipates a day of fame. Lively panels of digital art capture the antics of stepping into one another’s lives, and after Prince’s film premier, he sneaks the Bins boys into the green room for feasting and film-viewing, and Dusty offers to be a stunt double. (PreK Up)
—NB

Purranormal Activity (Great Puptective #2). Alina Tysoe. (2025). Simon & Schuster. In book two of this graphic chapter book series with expressive digital illustrations, sparse narration, speech bubbles, and occasional wordless panels, Poppy, also known as the Great Puptective, is accused of chewing a boot and sets out to prove his innocence, aided by his sidekick kitty, Truffles. When Poppy sees a ghost in the middle of the night and Truffles’ toys are found scattered around the yard along with more toys and a pillow chewed up inside the house, Poppy and Truffles set a domino-inspired trap and a box-and-stick trap to catch the ghost. After one trap is triggered, they explore a mysterious maze and meet Snowdrop, a cat who has moved in with a grandmother next door. Guilty of a lot of things (but not chewing), Snowdrop asks for help being liberated from Alfie, a ghost kitten—and Poppy asks what teething is . . . as he chews on a bone. Back matter includes a character list and instructions for drawing a ghost. (PreK-Gr 2)
--NB

Sam Squirrel (Willow’s Woods #1). Suzanne Selfors. Illus. by Ramona Kaulitzki. (2025). Aladdin.
When Mother Nature fails to appear on the first day of spring, the Quiet Woods critters worry that they will run out of food if winter persists. Sam Squirrel, youngest in his family, who began keeping lists of his own the previous year after Mother Nature introduced him to her list-keeping techniques, is recruited by Prince Errol, an elk, to be the list-taker and list-bearer and to help solve the mystery of her disappearance. After Willow West Wind, Mother Nature’s granddaughter, comes to housesit for her grandmother, the three of them team up and discover the secret to ending winter. Digital black-and-white illustrations enhance this chapter book adventure. Newly independent readers will enjoy reading Rosey Stink Badger, the second Willow’s Woods book, in which another of the charming anthropomorphized Quiet Woods animals helps Willow with her house-sitting chores. (PreK Up) 
--NB

Time Out! (Addy McBean #2). Margery Cuyler. Illus. by Stacy Curtis. (2025). Aladdin Quix.
Second-grader Addy, who loves numbers, is intrigued by her teacher Mr. Vertex’s introduction of telling time using both analog and digital clocks. Woven throughout the story are questions about time with math riddles and applications, along with Addy’s collection of clues that lead her to believe that her teacher is getting married and will announce it at the end of the class clock walk field trip at Marvel Park. Even after the mother of Star, her bestie, warns them not to jump to conclusions, Addy proceeds to share her suspicions with classmates before confronting Mr. Vertex--and learns that facts matter, and false news spreads rumors that cause problems. This easy-to-read book contains a table of contents, eight chapters with bolded words from a character list in the front of the book and a glossary at the back, lively digital black-and-white illustrations, and discussion questions that support comprehension. (PreK-Gr 2)
--NB

You Can’t Catch Me! (Molly, Olive, and Dexter #3). Catherine Rayner. (2025). Candlewick.
“At the edge of the meadow, there’s an oak tree. It’s home to Molly the hare, Olive the owl, and Dexter the fox.” Dexter, who loves chasing games, suggests they play a game of tag but soon realizes that Molly, who can dart and leap away, is just too quick, and Olive, who can swoop and swerve off, is just too good at flying for him to catch either of them. It looks like Fox will always be It, until thinking about what foxes are good at, he comes up with a clever plan. Young children will be delighted when Dexter pops out of a big pile of leaves and yells “BOO! You’re It, Molly! You’re It, Olive! . . . Got you both in one.” Who’s Afraid of the Dark?, the fourth book in Catherine Rayner’s playful picture book series about the three animal friends, will be published in August 2025. (PreS Up)
—CA