‘Lift Every Voice And Change’ is a beautifully illustrated NonFiction Children’s book filled with biographies of many Black American leaders and pioneers. 

The end pages are so beautiful and I loved the dedication page. At the beginning of the book, the author explains to the reader the power and importance of their voice and the use of their voice to uplift communities. 

I think this book was structured very well, and I really liked the formatting. Each information page included the Black American’s name, occupation, quote, date of quote, location of quote and general information. The author also includes a section where they ask a question to the reader that gives them the opportunity to use their critical thinking skills to write about something related to the information they just read. 

In this book, the author introduces you to many different people from a timeline spanning 1856-2020. I had previously learned about/heard of some of the people discussed but a lot of them I hadn’t heard of before so it was great to expand my knowledge and be introduced to these important figures. 

I think the author includes enough information to give the reader a great introduction to the public figure and inspire them to go on to do their own research as well. Since the target audience is children, I think the author has done a great job to make this book interactive to really engage the reader and kids tend to respond to these kind of books well. 

The author mentions a lot of different movements, laws/legislations, and references literature that the reader can go onto further research after finishing the book. The author gives a glossary towards the end of the book to give a brief explanation of some of the movements and legislations they mentioned. There’s also a section at the end of the book where the reader is giving the opportunity to write something they feel passionately about. 

Also at the end of the book, the author provides the reader with a list of books/resources for further reading on the Black experience. When I was a child and still now, I love to look for materials to do further research on the things I read in books so I know this will be greatly appreciated by many readers. This also gives the parent/guardian/teacher the opportunity to do further reading and expand their own knowledge to be more informed. 

This was an excellent read and I thank NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for allowing me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I plan to purchase this for myself when it is published and will be recommending it to my audience. 

TWs/CWs - Racism; Misogyny; Misogynoir; Segregation; Slavery; Voter Suppression