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This adorable and information-packed picture book is suitable for kindergarten through elementary school students. The illustrations may be sweet, but the biographies of the 40 women featured — Sojourner Truth, Nina Simone, and Gwendolyn Brooks, to name a few — highlight the power, tenacity, and brilliance of black women throughout American history.

Levine and Nelson tell the incredible, real-life story of Henry Brown, who escaped from slavery by mailing himself to freedom in a 3-foot wooden box. Ingenious and unexpected, Brown’s story is unique among accounts of the Underground Railroad written for children. The text is simple enough for grade school children to follow, without glossing over the cruelty of slavery or Brown’s yearning for escape. Nelson’s beautiful illustrations evoke love, sorrow, and exultation, making the book accessible even to children who are too young to understand its full historical context.

The story of the Great Migration was mostly left out of the African American history lessons we learned in school, and Woodson and Ransome offer a necessary corrective to that omission. Woodson’s selection of an object familiar to most children — a jump rope — as the story’s central image, and Ransome’s lush and love-filled oil paintings of a family’s intimate moments (feeding a baby while laundry dries on a jump rope line, a child pulling a toy on a jump rope leash) turn a complicated historical movement into a generational story that children will relate to.

All of the picture books on this short list are visually striking, but Before She Was Harriet takes the cake for sheer loveliness and emotional depth. Illustrated by the inimitable James Ransome, Lesa Cline-Ransome’s biography-in-verse explores Tubman’s many roles: as abolitionist, Union spy, conductor on the Underground Railroad, and for many years, a slave. The sophistication of Cline-Ransome’s verse, which distills Tubman’s story but doesn’t mellow it, along with Ransome’s evocative water colors, make this picture book suitable even for older elementary students.

Many of us at Powell’s have already purchased, read, and saved all three of Congressman John Lewis’s exceptional graphic novel autobiographies to share with our children. The trilogy traces Lewis’s role in the civil rights movement, and though his self-presentation is humble, Lewis not only worked with courageous icons like Martin Luther King Jr. — he became one himself. Nate Powell’s illustrations are bold and energetic, turning Lewis’s historical narrative into an addictive and exciting read perfect for all readers, but especially those who are visual learners or reluctant to pick up a traditional narrative.

Thomas examines the Black Lives Matter movement through the eyes of Starr, a 16-year-old girl who witnesses her best friend being fatally shot by a police officer. This trauma, and the media uproar that results, throw Starr’s carefully balanced life into disarray. An immensely loveable and relatable character, Starr’s ordinary teenage difficulties dealing with family and community pressure, as well as with school, dating, and friendships, are compounded by the presence of anti-black racism and violence in all corners of American life. Thomas examines these issues with sensitivity and intensity, ultimately crafting a timely novel that everyone should read.

This beautiful novel-in-verse has flown under the radar despite critical acclaim. Edmonia Lewis was one of the first women of color to study art at Oberlin College (in 1859!), but she was kicked out after first being accused of poisoning two white roommates, and when that didn’t hold, of stealing art supplies. She later moved to Europe, where she worked as a sculptor. Little else is known about Lewis, and few of her sculptures remain. Using this skeletal biography, Atkins reimagines Edmonia’s life and career, creating a truly fascinating, lyrical, and original “what if.”