Book Review: Shining Bright, Shining Black

Kids and adults alike need more stories of Black excellence all year long, but especially during Black History Month it’s a great time to focus on current and historical figures whose stories should be shared.

Shining Bright, Shining Black from Jamia Wilson and Andra Pippins has 100 brief biographies of Black figures well known and less so from around the world and throughout history. It draws on material from their previous books but is expanded with a timeline, additional information about Black trailblazers and discussion questions for classroom and home use. The idea is for kids to think about how they are inspired by the stories and how they might seek to change history with their lives and ideas.

The book covers a lot of African American figures whose stories are pretty well known, including Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nina Simone, John Lewis, Oprah Winfrey, Prince, Serena and Venus Williams and Simone Biles, to name a few.

But there are also plenty of lesser known figures from around the world. The book opens with Juan Latino, the first Afro-Spaniard to publish a book of poetry in Latin who also had one of Spain’s first legally recognized mixed race relationships; and Queen Nanny, who helped formerly enslaved Africans in Jamaica fight for their freedom from British rule.

Other stories focus on Yaa Asantewaa, an Asante warrior queen in what’s now part of Ghana, who fiercely resisted British occupation of her lands; Moses and Calvin McKissack, who established the first Black-owned architecture firm in the United States; Albert Luthuli, winner of the Nobel Peach Prize in 1960 for his nonviolent campaign to end apartheid in South Africa; Bertina Lopes, a Mozambique-born artist who used her work to fight colonialism and discrimination; Thomas Sankara, a progressive president of Burkina Faso; and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.

Each biography is presented on one or two pages with large drawings of each person included. At the back of the book a trailblazers section notes the firsts of the people represented in the book (example: Charles Drew was the first African American to earn a doctorate of medical science) and a glossary of professions the people held. There are also discussion questions related to different stories in the book to get kids talking about perseverance, setting goals, making change and helping others.

It’s a colorful book full of brief and accessible biographies of people we should all know, and a good jumping off point for discussion of Black history and changemakers any time of year.

About the book: 128 pages, paperback. Published 2024 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $15.99.

My brother went through a phase where he was obsessed with maps. He loved to look at maps and he would draw maps of places real and imagined. He even drew maps that followed our route when we’d go to visit our grandparents in another state!

I assume there are still kids who go through map phases, and kids with an interest in history and how things got to be the way they are. Both kinds of kids will enjoy the book Borders: Understanding the Lines that Unite and Separate Us by Karim Ressouni-Demigneux, with illustrations by Karine Maincent.

The book describes how the original borders were natural, such as oceans, rivers, mountains and deserts, and while some of those borders are still in use today, many borders are human made, decided by treaties or carved out by colonizers. It covers the history of people congregating in one place and how city-states evolved into empires, how maps are drawn and how human conflicts can reshape borders.

There are stories about walls that reinforce borders, how borders work in the air and at sea, how people cross borders with passports or as refugees and how climate change is altering the borders of some countries.

You’ll also learn some fun border facts like the fact that if you stand in the middle of the bridge over the Zambezi River you can be in four countries at once because that’s where the borders of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe meet. Or how there is only one border crossing between India and Pakistan that’s closed each night in an elaborate ceremony.

The book talks about time zones, border towns and places where countries and parts of countries are inside other countries and places where borders are less important such as the European Union.

While there are serious subjects in the book, it’s still a fun read that’s sure to interest those kids around ages 8-12 who like travel, maps and weird but true facts.

About the book: 72 pages, hardcover, published 2026 by Blue Dot Kids Press. Suggested retail price $21.95.

Have you read?

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