Little Black Lives Matter

In an unevenly executed board book, spoken word artist and social justice advocate Dill highlights quotations from 15 Black luminaries, all of whom “lived little Black lives, my child,/ before they made us so proud.” Including bolded phrases from James Baldwin, Marsha P. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Audre Lorde, and Rosa Parks, among other historical figures, each spread lightly contextualizes the individuals’ most well-known accomplishments in variously metered rhyme: “Many wise people all across the world/ know Malcolm X’s strife./ “It is time for you and me to stand up for ourselves!”/ Before he led a great resistance/ he too led a little Black life.” Charles’s naïf-style portraits frequently depict connections between the adult figures and their childhoods, as in an image of Wilma Rudolph running alongside a shadow of herself as a child. Ages 3–6. (Jan.)