I vividly remember my first Martin Luther King Day assembly. I was in first grade, and our entire school body was squished together on the scuffed linoleum floor of the multi-purpose room. A teacher put the lyrics to “We Shall Overcome” on the overhead projector and led us in several verses, and then a fifth grader recited King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

A few months later, at a barbeque hosted by my dad’s boss, I found myself playing with the boss’s daughter underneath a table. She looked appraisingly at me, tossed her golden curls, and declared, “You know, if it wasn’t for Martin Luther King, y’all’d still be slaves.” I was shocked. Not by the racist words spouting so casually from her mouth, but that this girl had somehow mixed up a hundred years of history, and also that she didn’t know the difference between Puerto Rican and black. It wasn’t until many years later that it dawned on me just how offensive her comment was.

Now that I am raising my own kindergartener, I am determined that she will fully appreciate and revel in the beautiful diversity of our world. These are the books that we read together for Black History Month, but really, they deserve a place on our shelves throughout the year. I tried to choose a good mix of biographies and fiction featuring protagonists of color. Enjoy!