We tell children and youth that their voice matters. We tell them that it’s important for all of us to find causes we want to contribute, spend time or fight for. We look for real lives examples: big and smalls so we can show them that it CAN be done. Now to have a picture book so well written, organized and put together as this one is a GIFT. This book: No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History is the book we didn’t know we needed it. This book was edited by Lindsay H. Metcalf, Keila V Dawson and Jeanette Bradley and illustrated by Jeanette Bradley.
As soon as you open the book, you will see inspiring quotes to get readers ready and inspired. Then the book take you on an amazing journey meeting fourteen young Americans who challenged people’s minds and changed the world. There are many lanes to activism and this book shows readers that it can look different and still make an impact. One of my favorite things about this book is that each activist inspired a poet who writes about one part of that activist’s identity. When you meet DJ Annie Red: The Anti-Bullying Ambassador, you will see that Charles Waters wrote a poem about her. When you meet Ziad Ahmed, you will be inspired by the poem Hena Khan wrote about him. Traci Sorell wrote a beautiful piece about Cierra Fields, a young activist who was using her voice to improve health care in the Cherokee Nation as she struggled with skin cancer.
At the bottom of the page, readers will find a call to action or wisdom words as they embark on their own ways of changing the world. The driven question for your children and youth is “How can you make your community better for everyone?”
This book is a must book as we head into a new year and as we keep thinking all the different ways we can show up for the world right now.
