Classroom Read Alouds to Facilitate Conversations About Race

Here is a collection of books that will help you facilitate discussions with your children or students around race, discrimination, social injustice, and prejudice.  In order for us to make a change in the way our society has viewed and accepted racism for so long, we need to start teaching our children to recognize it and how to fight against it.  Having open discussions about it is a starting place instead of sweeping it under the rug because the topic makes you feel uncomfortable.  Accepting that horrible things have happened and continue to happen to people due to the color of their skin will help you to see the need for change.  This isn't just a part of our history, it is part of our present.  

Use these books to start a conversation with your children.  They are not stand alone lessons.  Watch and listen to these videos together.  Take time to pause and address questions.  Have an open discussion with your kids afterwards about how these stories relate to what is happening today and what each of us can do to make a change.  If you don't know how to answer a question, be honest.  Grown ups don't always have all the answers, and that is okay.  Do some research and get back to your child.  

Let's teach this next generation to be better.  To be more accepting.  To be less prejudiced.  Let's make our world a better place for people of color because then it will be better for everyone.  

Some of these books have additonal resources in them that you don't get from a Youtube read aloud.  If you are interested in purchasing them, here are the names and links to buy them on Amazon.  I'd also like to encourage you to purchase them from a small and local bookstore if you are able to.

We are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman

White Flour by David LaMotte

Soccer Fence by Phil Bildner

Let's Talk About Race by Julius Lester

Shining Star by Paul Yoo

Separate is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh

My Hair is a Garden by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Viola Desmond Won't be Budged! by Jody Nyasha Warner

When I Was Eight by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton

The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

I am Not a Number by Dr. Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer

Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Gwen Strauss

Something Happened in Our Town by Marianne Celano PhD, Marietta Collins PhD, & Ann Hazzard PhD

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