Multicultural Children’s Book Day (MCBD) will be celebrated on January 29th, 2021. According to its founders, MCBD “is an online and offline celebration that attracts thousands of supporters, educators, parents, caregivers, book reviewers, and quality authors and publishers who join forces to shine the spotlight on diversity in children and YA literature.” The founders effectively define the important key points of what makes an excellent multicultural book for children in their website article, “What is a Multicultural Book?”

To celebrate Multicultural Children’s Book Day, I have gathered together notable picture book biographies that highlight diverse people in history and today that have often overcome obstacles, and also have made important, and inspirational contributions. These biographies are great to share with younger readers, and are also excellent for 2nd and 3rd-grade independent readers. Plus, for further reading recommendations here is MCBD’s list of Diverse Biography Picture Books.

The titles below have links to eBooks on OverDrive and Hoopla; and also offer links to our catalog in case you would like to place holds on books which can be picked up at the Library once you receive notification that they are ready and waiting for you – enjoy!

Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed & Stasia Burrington
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“Born in Alabama, Mae Jemison dreamed of going to space. When she grew up, she attained a degree in chemical engineering before finishing medical school in the 1980s. After a stint in the Peace Corps, Jemison wasn't content with just being an engineer or doctor—she satisfied her love of the stars by becoming an astronaut—the first African American female astronaut and the first African American woman in space. Ahmed and Burrington have created a love letter to Jemison with this appealing picture book biography. The recurring line, “If you can dream it, if you believe in it, and work hard for it, anything is possible” is a chorus sure to resonate with children. The emphasis on Jemison's lifelong passion for space science will inspire readers to have confidence in the trajectory of their own interests.” –School Library Journal

Sharuko: El arqueólogo peruano Julio C. Tello / Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello by Monica Brown & Elisa Chavarri
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“This picture-book biography of Peruvian archaeologist and educator Julio C. Tello (1880-1947) forefronts Indigenous Peruvian science, knowledge systems, and art. Brown centers Tello's indigeneity from the opening spread. Born in 1880 ‘in the shadow of the Andes mountains,’ Tello spoke Quechua, the language spoken across generations of Indigenous Peruvian people. Nicknamed Sharuko for his brave disposition (‘not even the skulls he and his brothers uncovered in ancient tombs’ scared him), twelve-year-old Tello left the highlands for Lima to commence his studies, initiating a prolific and multi-continent educational journey. He returned to Peru in 1913, where at the Museum of Natural History in Lima he conducted groundbreaking excavation and fieldwork investigating the daily life of ancient Peruvians. Brown's text, usually appearing in Spanish on the left-hand pages and in English on the right (expertly translated by Dominguez), is informative and engaging. Chavarri's gouache and watercolor illustrations show panoramic Andean vistas, with saturated yellows balancing muted green hues; vignettes focus on resplendent brown faces; details in the art invite visual inquiry into renderings of colorful Paracas textiles and sculpted cabezas clavas from the archaeological site Chavin de Huantar. Author and illustrator notes affirm Brown's and Chavarri's (both of Peruvian descent) commitment to perpetuating Peru's Indigenous culture.” –Horn Book

Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code by Joseph Bruchac & Liz Amini-Holmes
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“Bruchac has penned a moving portrait of Chester Nez, a Navajo code talker who survived the residential school system and World War II. The narrative opens in 1929, with an eight-year-old Betoli being forced into a missionary's truck and given the name Chester. Even though he was told to only speak English in order to ‘live in the white man's world,’ he decided to never forget his language and his people. Once he graduated, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and was placed in platoon number 382, the group who created the only unbreakable code during the Second World War. Told in chronological segments (e.g., ‘December 1941: Month of Crusted Snow’), the work explores how closely the trauma of the residential school system and of fighting in war resemble each other. Amini-Holmes's illustrations are visceral in their depiction of pain; however, these moments are offset by more joyful scenes of Nez with family and his fellow code talkers and of him living ‘the Right Way.’ (‘But what he felt best about…able to live the Right Way as a Navajo, holding on to his language and traditions despite being told in school to give up his culture.’) Back matter includes an author's note and a portion of the Navajo code. VERDICT A can't-miss picture book biography.” –School Library Journal

Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines by Jeanne Walker Harvey & Dow Phumiruk
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“A concise biography introduces the Chinese-American artist and designer Maya Lin, best known for her architectural plan for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Lin, the child of a ceramic artist and a poet who ‘had fled China at a time when people were told…how to think,’ spends hours as a child playing in the nearby woods and building miniature towns of ‘paper and scraps.’ Lin is in her last year of college when she enters a competition to design a proposed memorial to Vietnam War veterans, to be built on the National Mall. The design had to include the 58,000 names of those soldiers who had died in Vietnam. Lin's design was chosen in the anonymous competition but was not without controversy when her name was revealed. The illustration of the completed memorial focuses on the wall and Lin's original concept, built into the earth, rising and falling with the landscape, rather than the compromised result, with statues representing soldiers…Overall, a fine celebration of a renowned woman artist.” –Kirkus Reviews

Mamie on the Mound: A Woman in Baseball’s Negro Leagues by Leah Henderson & George Doutsiopoulos
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“Mamie ‘Peanut’ Johnson broke gender barriers playing in the Negro League in the 1950s. Through informative prose and muscular illustrations, Mamie emerges as both small in stature and larger than life. Standing 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighing in at 120 pounds, Mamie was frequently underestimated due to her small size and gender but consistently proved skeptics wrong with her strong right arm. She even joined the all-white, all-boys Long Branch Police Athletic League in New Jersey while still a preteen, overcoming her teammates' snickers and helping them win two championships. She was unable to prove her worth for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which denied black women the opportunity to play. On the urging of a former Negro League player, Mamie won a spot on the Indianapolis Clowns at 19, eventually pitching her way to a 33-8 record in her three-season career. The artwork deftly works with the text to provide a memorable reading experience, Mamie's enthusiasm and determination shining from every page… An incredible tribute to an African American woman who dismantled racial and gender obstacles amid the civil rights movement.” –Kirkus Reviews

The Only Woman in the Photo: Frances Perkins & Her New Deal for America by Kathleen Krull & Alexandra Bye
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“'When someone opens a door to you, go forward.' Advice from Frances Perkins’s grandmother guided her life. Before she became ‘the first woman ever to join a presidential cabinet,' Perkins had transformed herself from a quiet observer to an effective activist, building a career on righting wrongs—operating as a social worker, speaking out for suffrage, reporting on hazardous workplaces, and advocating for fire safety after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. When FDR asks Perkins to serve as secretary of labor, she agrees—as long as ‘FDR allowed her to do it her way.’ In 1935, Perkins achieved ‘her most far-reaching dream… the life-changing Social Security Act.’ Weaving in quotes from Perkins, Krull crafts a deft introduction to the achievements of a remarkable woman. Bye’s snappy illustrations are notable for crisp lines and stylized period flair.” –Publishers Weekly

The Book Rescuer: How a Mensch from Massachusetts Saved Yiddish Literature for Generations to Come by Sue Macy & Stacy Innerst
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“This inspired pairing of two top picture book biographers tells the story of Aaron Lansky, an ‘all-American boy’ (a Star Trek poster decorates his bedroom) who in college became convinced that Yiddish books represented the ‘portable homeland’ of the Jewish people. With Yiddish dying out after the Holocaust and little mainstream support (‘Yiddish was a language whose time had passed’), Lansky learned the language, then began saving Yiddish books any way he could. He pulled nearly 5,000 out of a dumpster and accepted ‘one book at a time’ from elderly owners (‘We didn’t eat much,’ one book donor tearfully tells him, ‘but we always bought a book. It was a necessity of life’). Founded in 1980, Lansky’s Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., is today home to 1.5 million rescued books and is a hub of Yiddish studies. Innerst (Ruth Bader Ginsburg), who notes in an afterword that his illustrations were inspired by Chagall, contributes dramatic, textural acrylic and gouache images, with sculptural figures, expressionistic settings, and the deep, rich tones of vintage book bindings. Evoking both a lost past and an urgent present, they’re a marvelous complement to the journalistic, propulsive narrative by Macy.” –Publishers Weekly

Barbed Wire Baseball: How One Man Brought Hope to the Japanese Internment Camps of WWII by Marissa Moss & Yuko Shimizu
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“Focusing on her subject's strength of character and love of baseball, Moss introduces readers to Kenichi Zenimura (1900–'68). At barely five feet tall, Zeni was hardly a natural athlete; nonetheless, he developed great prowess as a player and coach. Before World War II, he played exhibition games alongside Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and toured Japan, where he was born. His family moved to Hawaii when he was a child and later to Fresno, California. When war broke out, Zenimura, his wife, and teenage sons were sent to the Gila River internment camp in Arizona. In the barren desert environment, Zeni determined to build a baseball field and rallied others to his cause. Shimizu's artwork, created with Japanese calligraphy brush and ink on paper and Adobe Photoshop, depicts Zeni hoeing and pulling weeds in the hot sun. He made a field with real grass; a fence of castor beans; and, in an ironic twist, bleachers with wood scrounged from the barbed-wire fence posts surrounding the camp. In an afterword, Moss notes that Zenimura won posthumous induction into Japan's Shrine of the Eternals, the equivalent of baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Text and illustrations mesh to create an admiring portrait of an exemplary individual who rose above his challenges and inspired others.” –School Library Journal

Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom by Teresa Robeson & Rebecca Huang
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“To have a girl child in China at the turn of the last century was not considered fortunate for most families. But the Wu family was not like most, and Chien Shiung was not only encouraged to go to school (her parents were educators), she was told she could be whatever she wanted. That support was taken to heart, and Robeson details in short but informative bites of text how the young woman extended her education, moving ever further from home and finally to the U.S., where she would delve deeply into her passion, the study of atoms. Writing biographies about people from different times and cultures can have challenges, but trying to explain physics—especially Wu's specialization, beta decay—in a picture-book biography certainly ups the ante. Robeson surmounts these almost effortlessly, getting to the heart of Wu's professional life and simply detailing her many accomplishments, as well as informing her audience how Wu was slighted when it came to awards like the Nobel Prize, with male colleagues taking the honors. The text's accessibility is supported and enhanced by Huang's collage-style artwork that captures Wu's dedication and willingness to take on leadership roles both in the scientific community and in leading political protests in China. Wu Chien Shiung's story is remarkable—and so is the way this book does it justice.” –Booklist Reviews

Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag by Rob Sanders & Steven Salerno
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“Written in direct, accessible language, this book opens with a quote from Harvey Milk about hope, the connecting theme of this uplifting introduction to the symbol of the Rainbow Flag. The text starts with Milk's choice to enter politics and Gilbert Baker's design of the first flag and connects that to the flag's modern appearances as a symbol of equality and pride and the use of it on June 26, 2015 across the White House. The illustrations are vibrant and lively, taking inspiration from 1970s fashions and styles while emphasizing the effectiveness of symbols. The narrative includes references to opposition to Milk's dream of equality and the assassination of Milk and George Moscone, but moves decisively on to tell of enduring hope, with an illustration of the candlelight vigil and the persistence of the rainbow flag as an icon. Biographical notes include more information on the flag, Milk, Baker, and the significance of the June 16, 2014 rainbow lights across the White House.” –School Library Journal

Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon by Simran Jeet Singh & Baljinder Kaur
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“Fauja Singh has defied expectations all his life. This book follows him as he takes his first steps at five, grows up to run his own farm, emigrates from India to England as an 81-year-old, and takes up running as an even older man, completing the London marathon six times. Whenever he encounters naysayers, Singh writes, ‘Fauja did not listen and Fauja did not stop.’ Instead, he keeps his mother’s encouragement close: ‘You know yourself, Fauja, and you know what you’re capable of. Today is a chance to do your best.’ As a response to discrimination against Sikhs in the U.S., Fauja runs the New York City Marathon at age 93: ‘He couldn’t read. He couldn’t write. He couldn’t speak English. But he could run.’ Though he finishes that race in pain, he keeps racing, in 2011 becoming the first 100-year-old person to run a marathon. Singh’s uplifting tale is supported by Kaur’s sensitive illustrations of emotionally resonant moments, like Fauja’s mother lovingly combing his long hair.” –Publishers Weekly

Turning Pages: My Life Story by Sonia Sotomayor & Lulu Delacre
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“The Supreme Court justice shares how books, reading, and words have shaped her life. ‘My story is a story about books—of poems and comics, of law and mystery, of science and science fiction—written both in Spanish and in English.’ So starts this book written with Justice Sonia Sotomayor's voice clearly felt yet also very accessible to her target audience. The author recalls her first encounter with the power of words, hearing her abuelita recite poems about Puerto Rico, her island home. Comic books about people with superpowers fueled her bravery as she coped with diabetes. After the death of her father when she was 9, books and the library helped her escape sadness at home. Her mother's purchase of an encyclopedia set unveiled the secrets of the world. Sotomayor describes books as companions, launchpads, lenses that brought focus to the world around her and helped her sort out right from wrong. Delacre's mixed-media illustrations contribute to the child-friendly feel of the book and neatly extend the metaphors the text spins.” –Kirkus Reviews

A Bowl Full of Peace: A True Story by Caren Stelson & Akira Kusaka
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“A picture-book adaptation of the Sibert Honor book Sachiko: A Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor (2016). No one knows where Grandmother's bowl came from, but everyone knows that it is precious. Passed down from mother to daughter, Grandmother's bowl sits, full of food, in the middle of young Sachiko Yasui's family table. Before every meal, everyone bows their heads and whispers, ‘itadakimasu,' or ‘we humbly receive this food.' As soldiers and sounds of war move into Nagasaki, Japan, Grandmother's bowl holds less and less, but still, they express their gratitude. One day when Sachiko is playing outside, an enemy bomber approaches, and Nagasaki is destroyed. Forced to leave, Sachiko's family experiences loss and sickness over the next few years before they return to Nagasaki. Digging through the rubble, Father finds Grandmother's bowl without a chip or crack. Each year they fill Grandmother's bowl to remember those they've lost and to pray for peace. Stelson shares this true story with young readers through a thoughtful, moving text. Kusaka's illustrations are powerful and vivid, bringing readers into Sachiko's experiences and emotions. Their chalky, weathered texture helps to keep the terrifying two-spread sequence that depicts the bombing from completely overwhelming readers. Text and art work together to show the devastating, lasting consequences of war and to convey a message of hope and peace for the future. A heartbreaking but essential perspective on war and survival.” –Kirkus Reviews

William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad by Don Tate
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“William Still's chance encounter with his long-lost brother changed the course of his life and those of many other African Americans striving for freedom. When Sidney Still escaped slavery in Maryland to join her husband, Levin, in New Jersey with their two daughters, she left their two sons behind. There, the family grew until William was born in 1821, youngest of 15. Tate's economical, urgent narrative lays out these facts before recounting how young William struggled to balance education with chores and Northern racism, At 26, he landed an office-clerk position at the Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia and eventually opened his home as a ‘station’ along the Underground Railroad. Finally meeting his older brother Peter during the latter's escape inspired Still to gather identifying information and stories of the runaways he assisted, work that was instrumental in reuniting families who had become separated and that became a chronicle of ‘slavery's nightmare.’ Tate's sentences are often short, underscoring Still's effort and drive; when they occasionally lengthen, they land with a punch: ‘With three dollars in his pocket, and a billion dollars in pride, William planted himself north of the Delaware River in east Philadelphia.’ His paintings often likewise play out in vignettes that capture action over time then linger lovingly on the expressive faces of his characters. Brings deserved attention to the life of a man who dedicated himself to recording the lives of others.” –Kirkus Reviews

Stephen Hawking by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara & Matt Hunt
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“A first introduction to the greatest scientist of the past half-century. Hawking makes a worthy but not an easy subject for an elementary-grade profile, as the likelihood that younger audiences aren't really up on the ins and outs of quantum theory or gravitational singularities limits the author's tally of his scientific contributions to a mention (sans meaningful context) of ‘Hawking radiation.’ His other claim to fame, as an exemplar of the triumph of mind over physical disability, is far easier to grasp. For this, Hunt's cartoon-style illustrations of a smiling scientist with idealized features on an oversized head help reinforce the notion that, as Hawking put it, ‘However difficult life may seem, there is always something that you can do and succeed at.’ He leans on a cane before a wall of mathematical notations, takes his children for a spin on his wheelchair, and lectures to a rapt audience. A closing note offers photos and a bit more detail plus a trio of titles for older readers.” –Kirkus Reviews

Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai & Kerascoët
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“Yousafzai, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and campaigner for the rights of all children to attend school, has written her first picture book. It is an autobiographical account of her life designed for younger readers. She gently introduces her childhood in Pakistan and recounts a favorite TV show where a young boy has a magic pencil that he uses to help people. The magic pencil becomes a recurring motif throughout the work on how to make the world a better place. Of the infamous Taliban violence, she simply says, ‘My voice became so powerful that the dangerous men tried to silence me. But they failed.’ The beautifully written book goes on to describe Yousafzai's quest for justice and the importance of finding one's voice. The enchanting story is accompanied by the beautiful illustrations of duo Sebastien Cosset and Maries Pommepuy, also known as ‘Kerascoët.’ Sparse pen and ink outlines the bright, soft watercolors that effortlessly depict Yousafzai's daily life and then are enhanced by delicate gold overlay drawings that highlight her magical wishes for a better world and the power that a single voice can command. This is a wonderful read for younger students that will also provide insight and encourage discussion about the wider world.” –School Library Journal