April is National Poetry Month! The picture books listed include a broad range of subjects, from Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson’s The 1619 Project, to Hoop Kings 2: New Royalty by photographer and poet Charles R. Smith Jr. The month of April also includes an important anniversary. On April 4th, the world will remember and celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his last speech “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” in Memphis, TN on April 3, 1968. Memphis author and educator Alice Faye Duncan penned the poetic and award-winning tribute, Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968, that “tells the story of a nine-year-old girl who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final stand for justice before his assassination – when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest.” Other esteemed authors featured in this list include Alice Walker, John Agard, Jacqueline Woodson, Nikki Grimes, Nikki Giovanni, and Eloise Greenfield.
For more picture books and novels-in-verse, see “Beauty and Emotion: 45 Children’s Books for National Poetry Month.” Happy Poetry Month!
1. Show the World!
Angela Dalton | Daria Peoples | Viking BYR | April 5, 2022 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
2. Books Make Good Pets
John Agard | Momoko Abe | Orchard Books | March 0, 2022 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
3. You Have A Voice
Vera Ahiyya | Fabiana Faiallo | Hightree Publishing | January 20, 2022 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
4. The Year We Learned to Fly
Jacqueline Woodson | Rafael López | Penguin/Paulsen | January 4 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
5. Dream Street
Tricia Elam Walker | Ekua Holmes | Anne Schwartz Books | November 16, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
6. The 1619 Project: Born on the Water
Nikole Hannah-Jones | Renée Watson | Nikkolas Smith | November 16, 2021 | Kokila | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
7. You Can Be ABCs
Robert Samuel White | Robert White II | Robert Paul | Philomel Books | November 9, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
8. The Sun, the Moon and the Stars
Rachel Montez Minor | Annie Won | Crown BYR | November 9, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
9. Stars with Flaming Tails: Poems
Valerie Bloom | Ken Wilson-Max | Otter-Barry Books | November 1, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
10. Song for Jimi: The Story of Guitar Legend Jimi Hendrix
Charles R. Smith Jr. | Edel Rodriguez | Neal Porter Books | October 19, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
11. The Me I Choose To Be
Natasha Anastasia Tarpley | Regis and Kahran Bethencourt | Little, Brown BYR | October 19, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
12. Everybody in the Red Brick Building
Anne Wynter | Oge Mora | Balzer + Bray | October 12, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
13. Sweet People Are Everywhere
Alice Walker | Quim Torres | Tra Publishing | November 2, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
14. The Rapping Princess
Hannah Lee | Allen Fatimaharan | Faber & Faber | October 5, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
15. Black Magic
Dinah Johnson | R. Gregory Christie | Square Fish | October 19, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
16. Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem
Amanda Gorman | Loren Long | Viking BYR | September 14, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
17. When We Say Black Lives Matter
Maxine Beneba Clarke | Candlewick | September 14, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
18. Hoop Kings 2: New Royalty
Charles R. Smith Jr. | Candlewick | September 7, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
19. Magic Like That
Samara Cole Doyon | Geneva Bowers | Lee & Low Books | September 7, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
20. Coyote’s Soundbite: A Poem for Our Planet
John Agard | Piet Grobler | Lantana Publishing | April 6, 2021 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
21. A Story about Afiya
James Berry | Anna Cunha | Lantana Publishing | PB | April 7 | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
22. Bedtime for Sweet Creatures
Nikki Grimes | Elizabeth Zunon | Sourcebooks Jabberwocky | January 14, 2020 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
23. A Likkle Miss Lou: How Jamaican Poet Louise Bennett Coverley Found Her Voice
Nadia Hohn | Eugenie Fernandes | Owlkids | 2019 | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
24. Get Up, Stand Up
Bob Marley | Cedella Marley | John Jay Cabuay | Chronicle Books | 2019 | Amazon | IndieBound | Bookshop
25. Africville
Shauntay Grant | Eva Campbell | Groundwood Books | September 4, 2018 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
26. Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968
Alice Faye Duncan | R. Gregory Christie | Calkins Creek | 2018 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
27. Seeing into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright
Richard Wright | Nina Crews | Millbrook Press | February 1, 2018 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
28. Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut
Derrick Barnes | Gordon C. James | Agate Bolden | October 10, 2017 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
29. The Friendly Four
Eloise Greenfield | Jan Spivey Gilchrist | HarperCollins | June 13, 2006 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
30. The Sun Is So Quiet
Nikki Giovanni | Ashley Bryan | Henry Holt and Co. | BYR | October 15, 1996 | PB | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
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