Portraits of eight exemplary teachers who differ in personal style and methods but share an approach to teaching that affirms and strengthens cultural identity.

This beautifully illustrated history of African American music takes a journey through time and history, beginning with the roots of music in Africa and continuing on to contemporary hip hop. The lyrical text, paired with vibrant, colorful illustrations, departs from the traditional format of children’s books in both form and content.

Over the course of a school year, a Chinese American girl explores her identity through incidents in and out of school. The book deals with universal issues of friendship, family, and personal growth, as well.

The website provides a written lesson plan built around the story of Olga Loya, a young Mexican American woman from Los Angeles. In this story, Loya discusses what it feels to be nepantla, which means “between worlds” in the Nahuatl--the ancient language of Mexico. For Loya, there was strong tension between the culture of her Mexican-American family and the larger Anglo culture of the United States. This story includes a series of stories (in 8 excerpts, with discussion questions for each excerpt) from Loya’s youth: spending time with her Mexican grandmother who encouraged her to be proud of her identity, learning to dance with her mother, confronting gangs and drugs in her neighborhood, and being discouraged from going to college by her high school counselor. Loya shares her struggle to find a place to belong and to embrace her various identities.

Kiowa Apache and Lakota storyteller Dovie Thomason weaves together personal narrative and historical accounts about the Indian Boarding Schools, where thousands of Indian children were sent, often against the will of their parents, during the end of the 19th and much of the 20th century. Thomason also focuses in on one particular person—Gertrude Bonnin, who later took the name Zitkala Sa—and her experience in the boarding schools and later in life. She reveals how the Indian students, including Bonnin, were used to decimate native culture and how some Indians stood up to defend themselves and their culture. Finally, Thomason uses her personal struggle to learn more about her own history and how to share that information with her own daughter as a thread to tie all of the stories together.