Best Books for Black History Month in Elementary School in English and French

I’ve curated seven picture books that you can use in your classroom during black history month to teach about diversity, inclusion, self-love and self-compassion. Some of the books come in French as well as English. I’m excited to share these Black History Month read alouds with you!

Black history month school activities

Black history month is something that up until a few years ago I did not teach about. To be perfectly honest no one I know did either, at least not at the primary level. I love introducing new topics and ideas with picture books and I realized that I just didn’t know what kinds of picture books were already out there.

So I went on a mission to find some!

I needed books that were appropriate for the Kindergarten level. Simple books, not too much text and engaging pictures.

Through my school library, and online shopping (obvs) I’ve found 7 books that I can’t wait to share with you. Most of them come in English as well as French so if you teach French Immersion like I do I got you covered like butter… is that a saying? I feel like it’s not but I just said it so… ya.

Black History Month Read Alouds

Sulwe - by Lupita Nyong’o
I just love this book! I feel like I’m going to say that about all of these books, but it’s because it’s true! This one comes in FRENCH as well. What a bonus! Sulwe is about a young girl who wishes she could make her dark skin a few shades lighter. She wants lighter skin like her sister and parents have. Through a magical shooting star that visits her one night, Sulwe discovers the beauty of night and day, sunlight and darkness and how they work together to make our world a beautiful place. Sulwe begins to see herself as the true beauty she is, inside and out. She accepts herself and loves herself and her skin the way it is. This book sends a beautiful message of diversity and self-love to children of all shades.
Chocolate Me! - by Taye Diggs
Chocolate me would be a great black history read aloud to read after reading Sulwe. You could have your students make connections between the books.Chocolate me is about a little boy who feels out of place because of his dark skin. When other children make comments about his different nose, hair or skin he feels sad and wishes to fit in. He doesn’t seem to want to be the colour of chocolate. He wants to be more fair.At home, his mom helps him see how beautiful he is. As beautiful as wonderful and delicious chocolate! They bake chocolate cupcakes to share with his friends. The themes of this book are self-acceptance, self-esteem and appreciating the diversity in our world. Love it.
Antiracist baby - by Ibram X. Kendi
This one has a lot of important BIG IDEAS in it. I wouldn’t recommend starting off with this book in your Kindergarten classroom, I’d recommend taking pages from it and using it as conversation starters. For example, you could go to the part that says, “open your eye to all skin colors,” and talk about the fact that different people have different skin colours. This can be a starting point to talk about how we all have different shades of skin and that sometimes people with darker skin are treated unfairly.I’d take this book with me if I were to teach upper elementary kids to really get into the book, but I had to include it here because each page is AMAZING and it teaches us to use our words to talk about racism. Oh and did you know this book now comes in French?? Yaaasssss!
Skin Like Mine - by LaTashia M. Perry In French this book is called, “Un Teint Comme Le Mien,” and it’s perfect for your primary classroom. The theme of this book, similar to Chocolate Me and Sulwe are self-love, self-acceptance and self-esteem. The girl in the story has a different shade of skin than her sister and wonders why. She goes on to compare the skin of people she knows to different delicious chocolates, cookies and spreads she loves. She tells us that she loves diversity because the world would be so boring if we all looked the same. This would be a great time to read some stories about women’s history to your students! I have created some emergent readers on black women trailblazers that you will love.
Hair Like Mine - by LaTashia M. Perry
In French this book is called, “Des Cheveux Commes Les Miens.” Continuing with the theme of embracing diversity and accepting ourselves, this book is about a girl who is wondering why no one she knows has the same type of hair as her. Some people’s hair is more curly, others is more straight and she can’t figure it out! Throughout the book she learns that she is special just like everyone else. She has come physical characteristics that her mom has and she takes after her dad in other ways. The author of this one, LaTashia M. Perry, works hard to make encourage and support young girls to accept themselves.
Not Quite Snow White - by Ashley Franklin
In this story, Tameika is a girl who loves to sing and dance. She absolutely adores performing and she auditions for their school production of Snow White. Unfortunately, she overhears some of her peers saying she is too brown, tall and chubby to be Snow White. RUDE!She goes on to audition and get the part. Yes! I love how this book is set in a school full of kids of all different colours. It’s a great conversation starter with even the littlest of kids. I’ve read this one numerous times to my kids at home and they love it. Check it out!Looking for more picture books? Check out these 10 LGBTQ inclusive picture books for kids.
Black History Emergent Readers - by Oui Madame Wee (that’s me!)
I couldn’t find any French emergent readers on black and POC trailblazers so I decided to create some myself. I have readers for Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, George Washington Carver, Henry “Box” Brown, Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, Barack Obama, Booker T. Washington. I used super simple text with cute clip art for the kids and included a teacher’s guide (info for you so you know the information and some details about the person you want to teach about).These are super popular and my students loved colouring in their own reader to take home to share with their families, as well as colouring the colouring sheet I included. You can check out my Black History Emergent Readers in my TPT Shop!

Before I finish off this post I want to address that I know that there has been some encouragement in the Black and POC community to use the rich language of brown when talking about skin colour as women can feel fetishized when compared to foods. I want to acknowledge that point of view here as well as share these books with you, as I believe these are great books that can help small children learn about skin colour and accept themselves. I would hope that in upper elementary and high school the rich language of brown will be introduced and encouraged.

Are you looking for even more books to share with your students during Black History Month (or any time of the year)? Check out this blog post from French Frenzy all about French Black History Month Activities!

I hope that you check out some of the books listed and read them to your students. Which one will you read first? Let me know in the comments!