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Californians with an email address and internet access can now visit California’s Bookshelf to access over 300,000 eBooks and eAudiobooks. Previously, users had to log in through a library, but now the collection is just a few clicks away.
Learn how educators and communities throughout the state celebrated “Read Across America” Day.
Spread Kindness Through Books
Elevate the love of reading by downloading these California Reads resources for your students.
Early Childhood Education
ABC’S OF KINDNESS
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Author: SAMANTHA BERGER
Illustrator: EKATERINA TRUKHAN
Publish Date: December 24, 2019
Learning the importance of kindness is as easy as A-B-C with this sweet book that fosters social emotional development.
WE BELONG
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Author: LAURA PURDIE SALAS
Illustrator: CARLOS VELEZ AGUILERA
Publish Date: March 1, 2022
Explore and celebrate who you are and who others are too! Rhyming verse by Laura Purdie Salas invites others to notice the diversity of our world and affirm that we all belong, just as we are. Bright illustrations by Carlos Vélez Aquilera feature a diverse group of children, playing and learning in an urban setting.
PINK IS FOR BOYS
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Author: ROBB PEARLMAN
Illustrator: EDA KABAN
Publish Date: May 18, 2021
Pink is for boys . . . and girls . . . and everyone! This timely and beautiful board book rethinks and reframes the stereotypical blue/pink gender binary and empowers kids-and their grown-ups-to express themselves in every color of the rainbow. Featuring a diverse group of relatable characters, Pink Is for Boys invites and encourages children to enjoy what they love to do, whether it’s racing cars and playing baseball, or loving unicorns and dressing up. Vibrant illustrations help children learn and identify the myriad colors that surround them every day, from the orange of a popsicle, to the green of a grassy field, all the way up to the wonder of a multicolored rainbow.
Primary School
STACEY’S EXTRAORDINARY WORDS
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Author: STACEY ABRAMS
Illustrator: KITT THOMAS
Publish Date: December 28, 2021
Stacey is a little girl who loves words more than anything. She loves reading them, sounding them out, and finding comfort in them when things are hard. But when her teacher chooses her to compete in the local spelling bee, she isn’t as excited as she thought she’d be. Stacey will learn that win or lose . . . her words are powerful, and sometimes perseverance is the most important word of all.
OUR DIVERSITY MAKES US STRONGER
Author: ELIZABETH COLE
Illustrator: JULIA KAMENSHIKOVA
Publish Date: October 7, 2021
In this kids’ book, our little hero named Nick will show your children that we all are different in many ways, and everyone is unique—which is great! Nicky is afraid that his friends will not accept him because of his new reading glasses. By talking to his peers on the way to school, he discovers the beauty of diversity and realizes that our diversity is actually our strength.
BE KIND
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Author: PAT ZIETLOW MILLER
Illustrator: JEN HILL
Publish Date: February 6, 2018
When Tanisha spills grape juice all over her new dress, her classmate wants to make her feel better, wondering: What does it mean to be kind? From asking the new girl to play to standing up for someone being bullied, this moving story explores what kindness is, and how any act, big or small, can make a difference―or at least help a friend. With a gentle text from the award-winning author of Sophie’s Squash, Pat Zietlow Miller, and irresistible art from Jen Hill, Be Kind is an unforgettable story about how two simple words can change the world.
Intermediate School
THE ABCS OF BLACK HISTORY
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Author: RIO CORTEZ
Illustrator: LARUEN SEMMER
Publish Date: December 8, 2020
Letter by letter, The ABCs of Black History celebrates a story that spans continents and centuries, triumph and heartbreak, creativity and joy. It’s a story of big ideas––P is for Power, S is for Science and Soul. Of significant moments––G is for Great Migration. Of iconic figures––H is for Zora Neale Hurston, X is for Malcom X. It’s an ABC book like no other, and a story of hope and love. In addition to rhyming text, the book includes back matter with information on the events, places, and people mentioned in the poem, from Mae Jemison to W. E. B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer to Sam Cooke, and the Little Rock Nine to DJ Kool Herc.
THE HUNDRED DRESSES
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Author: ELEANOR ESTES
Illustrator: LOUIS SLOBODKIN
Publish Date: September 1, 2004
Wanda Petronski is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same faded blue dress every day. She claims she has one hundred dresses at home, but everyone knows she doesn’t. When Wanda is pulled out of school one day, the class feels terrible, and classmate Maddie decides that she is “never going to stand by and say nothing again.”
BECAUSE OF MR. TERUPT
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Author: ROB BUYEA
Publish Date: January 12th, 2016
Seven students are about to have their lives changed by one amazing teacher in this school story sequel filled with unique characters every reader can relate to.
Middle School
WONDER
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Author: RJ PALACIO
Publish Date: February 14, 2012
August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face.
OLIVIA JONES
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Author: PHILLIP A. BROWN
Publish Date: January 15, 2022
Eleven-year-old Olivia “Oli” Jones lives in the backwoods of rural Alabama. Her best friend, Bartholomew “Mo” Wright, helps her make sense of her uncommon life. After all, they both share the same tragic history. Both their fathers enlisted in the Army. Both their fathers fought in Vietnam. Both their fathers never came back. This deeply wounding sadness is something they bear together as only best friends can. However, they want nothing more than a semblance of a “normal” childhood, and when the opportunity comes to have that, they chase it with reckless abandon.
OUT OF MY MIND
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Author: SHARON M. DRAPER
Publish Date: March 4, 2010
Eleven-year-old Melody is not like most people. She can’t walk. She can’t talk. She can’t write. All because she has cerebral palsy. But she also has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She’s the smartest kid in her whole school, but NO ONE knows it. Most people—her teachers, her doctors, her classmates—dismiss her as mentally challenged because she can’t tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by her disability. And she’s determined to let everyone know it…somehow.
High School
THE SILENCE BETWEEN US
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Author: ALISON GERVAIS
Publish Date: August 13, 2019
Faced with the challenges of transitioning from a Hard of Hearing School to a Hearing high school, Maya has more than a learning curve. But what if she has more to learn about herself and how far she is willing to push for what she believes in? Perfect for contemporary fiction fans, The Silence Between Us is a novel that doesn’t shy away from the real-life struggles of high school, heart break, and d/Deaf culture.
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
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Author: ANTHONY DOERR
Publish Date: May 6, 2014
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
I WILL ALWAYS WRITE BACK
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Authors: MARTIN GANDA & CAITLINE ALIFIRENKA
Publish Date: January 12th, 2016
It started as an assignment… Everyone in Caitlin’s class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place. Martin was lucky to even receive a pen-pal letter. There were only ten letters, and fifty kids in his class. But he was the top student, so he got the first one. That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives. In this compelling dual memoir, Caitlin and Martin recount how they became best friends—and better people—through their long-distance exchange. Their story will inspire you to look beyond your own life and wonder about the world at large and your place in it.
