Books for Black History Month and Beyond

If you’re looking for more people to study for Black History Month and beyond, I have a couple of book suggestions for you. Young, Gifted and Black and Young, Gifted and Black Too by Jamia Wilson and illustrated by Andrea Pippins each feature 52 Black artists, activists, athletes and more who made their mark on the world.

Each person is described in a brief biography and includes an illustrated portrait. The books are chronological in nature, but the first one focuses a lot more on people from the 20th and 21st centuries and current people readers might already know such as Beyonce and Solange Knowles, Oprah Winfrey, Venus and Serena Williams and Misti Copeland.

The first book covers some of the people you’d expect in a Black history book such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington Carver, Barack and Michelle Obama and Maya Angelou, but it also includes some lesser-known folks like Brian Lara, a Trinidadian cricket player, and British long-distance runner Mo Farah. You’ll also find profiles of people like Madam C.J. Walker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Muhammad Ali, to name just a few.

The second book goes a bit more into history and includes more people from around the world who aren’t athletes. The book opens with Juan Latino, an Afro-Spainard who was born enslaved, married a Spanish noblewoman (in one of the first legally recognized mixed-race marriages in that country back in the 1500s) and published three books of Latin poetry.

It includes Queen Nanny, who led formerly enslaved Africans in Jamaica; Toussaint L’Ouverture, known as the father of Haiti, which became the first free state founded by formerly enslaved people; Moses and Calvin McKissack, who established the first Black-owned architecture firm in the United States; Albert Luthuli, whose non-violent efforts to end apartheid in South Africa led to him being the first African awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960; godmother of rock ‘n’ roll Sister Rosetta Tharpe; Gladys Mae West, whose computer programs helped in the development of GPS; and British fashion designer Ozwald Boateng to name a few.

More well-known names are also included in the second volume such as Coretta Scott King, Prince, Laverne Cox, Naomi Osaka and Amanda Gorman.

These books are colorful and dun to look at and to read and would make a great jumping off point for further research and reports about these figures from Black history.

About the books: each book is 64 pages long and hardcover. The first was published in 2018 and the second in 2023 by Wide Eyed Books. Suggested retail is $23.99 for the first and $24.99 for the second.

Black History Month Collaborative Quilt Project

Black History Month Puzzle Pieces

Black History Bingo Cards

Johnny Appleseed Day is sometimes celebrated on Sept. 26 because that is John Chapman’s birthday, but even if you’re just doing an apple unit study for fall it’s a great time to talk about Johnny Appleseed.

And that’s the place to start, that Johnny Appleseed was a real person named John Chapman who was born in 1774 in what was then the province of Massachusetts Bay. He traveled west when he turned 18 and despite the image of him randomly tossing apple seeds everywhere, he was really a deliberate planter of apple tree nurseries, which he left in the care of others and checked on every year or two.

Learn a little more of his story with these cute coloring pages (though not entirely historically accurate, they’re still cute) from Homeschool of 1. They also have a Johnny Appleseed themed word search printable.

This pin of a Scholastic News page doesn’t link to a website, but it gives you some basic information and a true and false quiz you can use with kids.

Crystal & Co. has a cute apple themed counting mini book you can print and use with your Johnny Appleseed unit. They also have some coloring pages with a bit of handwriting practice. Or practice cutting with the Johnny Appleseed themed worksheets from 3 Boys and a Dog.

Make a Johnny Appleseed puppet to help tell the story with this craft with a free printable template from Simple Everyday Mom. You’ll also find some cute printable worksheets there to learn his story and put it in the correct order.

Color, cut out and assemble this Johnny Appleseed drawing from Homeschool Preschool. They also have an apple seed counting activity you can use for practicing one to one correspondence.

Tiaras and Tantrums has a free printable apple unit that includes Johnny Appleseed facts and coloring pages, as well as how to say apple in different languages, tracing apple vocabulary, art project ideas, science experiments and more.

And if you need more apple themed activities to go with your Johnny Appleseed celebrations, check out my posts on apple crafts and apple learning activities.

Have you read?

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