Edited by: Lindsay H. Metcalf, Keila V. Dawson, Jeanette Bradley

Illustrated by: Jeanette Bradley

For ages: 5-9 years 

Language: English 

Topics Covered: Activism, Youth Activists, Poetry, Own Voices, Environmental Activism, Violence, Indigenous Voices, American Citizens, LGBTQ, Education, Muslim Activist, Community. 

Summary: 

Y’all need to buckle up for this book.  These are the type of books I started this website for.  No Voice Too Small is a brilliant educational poetry collection that combines powerful stories of resilience and activism, uplifting young voices that are changing the world. While focusing on youth activists in the US today, this book beautifully joins together various poetic formats, helpful tips for young readers to become more outspoken about causes they feel passionately about, and inspirational youth currently doing the work.

The activists profiled run the gamut of environmental, educational, disability-oriented, anti-violence work and so much more.  Readers learn about Judy Adams, creator of Dimes for Down Syndrome and public speaker. We are also introduced to teen Jasilyn Charger from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, anti-gun violence activist Nza-Ari Khepra, and LGBTQ advocate Zach Wahls.

I love this book for many reasons, which I will try my best to eloquently explain.  No Voice Too Small does a marvelous job demonstrating that children can be activists and work towards equitable change, and it also gives tips for readers on how to begin their activist journey.  The poems are beautiful, and throughout the book many different forms are used.  Helpfully labeled, the reader also gets a crash course in poetic stylings, with a helpful glossary at the back as well.  By having role models who are changing the world be the same age as readers, this really emphasizes the power that youth have to advocate for themselves and for various causes that affect their communities.  Readers walk away from this book empowered to make a difference in the world, and champion movements for other marginalized groups.  This is a time we need to band together to organize and create change, not be driven apart.  At the end of the book are small blurbs about the diverse poets that wrote for the book.  I love books like these because of the way they introduce so many new names and faces to readers, heaping knowledge and new favorite writers into a single book.  Overall this is a stunning book that should be gifted at every opportunity, and placed permanently on every bookshelf.

This PDF was sent to us by Charlesbridge Publishing, but all opinions are our own. The book will be released in September of this year, and honestly I’m very impatient for it be here and in the hands of readers NOW!

Lindsay H. Metcalf grew up on a Kansas farm, flew the coop for a career in the city, and migrated home to write downwind of the neighborhood cattle. Lindsay has three forthcoming nonfiction picture books. She is the author of Beatrix Potter, Scientist, illustrated by Junyi Wu (Albert Whitman & Company, September 2020) and Farmers Unite! Planting a Protest for Fair Prices (Calkins Creek, November 2020) and a co-editor, along with Keila V. Dawson and Jeanette Bradley, of No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History (illustrated by Jeanette Bradley, Charlesbridge, September 2020). An experienced journalist, Lindsay has covered a variety of change-makers as a reporter, editor, and columnist for The Kansas City Star and other news outlets. She belongs to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and The Soaring ‘20s, a collective of debut picture-book authors and illustrators. Lindsay won a 2017 Creators of Diverse Characters Scholarship through SCBWI’s Austin chapter and earned a spot in the 2017 class of Writing with the Stars mentees. At home, she plays the ukulele and sings made-up pop-song parodies, embarrassing her husband, two sons, two old cats, and snoring Cavalier King Charles puppy.

Before becoming a children’s book author, Keila V. Dawson was a community organizer,  special education teacher, school administrator, educational consultant and advocate. She’s lived and worked in the U.S., the Philippines, Japan, and Egypt. She is a co-editor of No Voice Too Small (Charlesbridge, September 22, 2020), author of The King Cake Baby (Pelican Pub, January 23, 2015), and the forthcoming Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and His Green Book, (Beaming Books, January 19, 2021)

Jeanette Bradley has been an urban planner, an apprentice pastry chef, and the artist-in-residence for a traveling art museum on a train. Her debut picture book Love, Mama was published by Roaring Brook Press in 2018. It contains no cities, pastries, or trains, but was made with lots of love. She is also co-editor and illustrator of the forthcoming anthology No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History (Charlesbridge, 2020) and illustrator of When the Babies Came to Stay (Viking, 2020). Jeanette lives in Rhode Island with her wife and kids.