Books for Young Learners: MLK, Jr., Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges

Finding "just right" books for young students can be a challenge when dealing with sensitive topics like social injustice. As a teacher, I want to make sure that the books I read to them are age appropriate and cover the topic thoughtfully. 

Here are some of my favorite books for young learners about Martin Luther King, Jr.

Each of these books highlight the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.; many weave in quotes from his most famous speeches throughout the book.

These readings provide knowledge that we will use in our writing throughout our unit of study.  We create a tree map together using the verbs: was, changed, and dreamed. It is interesting to see each year what learning makes an impact on my students.  Students, then, write about MLK, Jr. using the sentence frames we created.

Learning about Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges provide us another opportunity to learn more about this time period from the perspective of a woman and a child.

Writing like this one and art like this guided drawing lesson will also be included.  

Teaching about sensitive topics can be intimidating, but, thankfully, there are plenty of excellent books for young learners which we can use to help us.