Welcome to the Bank Street Children's Book Committee's (CBC) Searchable Best Books List, a tool designed to help educators, families, librarians, and others access developmentally appropriate and engaging books for young readers (ages birth - 18).
Our online Searchable Best Books List draws from the committee's annual Best Children's Books of the Year-beginning with the list of books published in 2000-with each featuring more than 600 high-quality titles for young readers.
To share feedback about the tool, please feel free to email bookcom@bankstreet.edu. To learn more about the CBC, visit https://www.bankstreet.edu/cbc/.
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Separate Is Never Equal
written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh
Ages: 6+
Published: 2014
Publisher: Abrams BFYR
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1054-4
Keywords: Diversity, Civil Rights, Picture Books for Older Readers, Mexican Americans, Segregation, Read-Aloud
Sylvia Mendez was sent to a segregated school for Mexicans instead of her local public school, but her family sued the school district and won, seven years before the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case. Hand-drawn, digitally colored and collage illustrations and extensive back matter. (Note: Rather than asking for a new trial in state court as described in the book, the school district actually requested a review by an appellate court and the entire proceeding was heard in federal courts. Nonetheless the book is a superb account of this significant but little known civil rights case.)