Great Reads from Great Places: Young Readers

Great Reads from Great Places

Each year Massachusetts selects a special youth title to represent the Commonwealth in the “Great Reads from Great Places” program. The affiliated centers for the book promote their selections at the Roadmap to Reading section of National Book Festival. To read more about it and see the books suggested by other Centers for the Book, visit Great Reads from Great Places at the Library of Congress.

Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America

by Ibram X. Kendi, adapted and illustrated by Joel Christian Gill

Racism has persisted throughout history—but so have antiracist efforts to dismantle it. Through deep research and a gripping narrative that illuminates the lives of five key American figures, preeminent historian Ibram X. Kendi reveals how understanding and improving the world cannot happen without identifying and facing the racist forces that shape it.

In collaboration with award-winning historian and comic artist Joel Christian Gill, this stunningly illustrated graphic-novel adaptation of Dr. Kendi’s groundbreaking Stamped from the Beginning explores, with vivid clarity and dimensionality, the living history of America, and how we can learn from the past to work toward a more equitable, antiracist future.

PURCHASE BOOK

TEACHER'S GUIDE

Editorial Reviews

“A welcome, educational addition to social justice collections.”—School Library Journal

“An impressive and disturbing weaving of the United States’ horrifically racist roots, the institutional and interpersonal racism still pervasive in American society today, and the ways in which antiracist movements can inspire hope and change.”—Screen Rant

“An amazingly drawn, deeply researched explanation of racial injustice in the United States.”—Book Riot

“This is an unvarnished, unapologetic, unflinching, and appropriately snarky tale of the mess we are in.”—W. Kamau Bell, Emmy award-winning executive producer, New York Times bestselling author, and comedian

“Buckle up. Joel Christian Gill and Ibram X. Kendi are absolutely unapologetic. Together, they deliver the facts and will transform everything you thought you already knew about race and racism.”—Safiya Umoja Noble, MacArthur Fellow and author of Algorithms of Oppression

“Gill imbues this graphic novel adaptation with emotional gravity that bolsters National Book Award–winner Kendi’s incisive analysis.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Scholar and author of the bestselling How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, speaks with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Nancy Giles about confronting the dangers of racism; protecting young people from harmful ideas; and the parenting values behind his books, How to Raise an Antiracist and the children's picture book, Goodnight Racism.

Meet the Author

DR. IBRAM X. KENDI is a National Book Award-winning author of sixteen books for adults and children, including ten New York Times bestsellers—five of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor. In the summer of 2025, he joined Howard University as Professor of History and Director of its newly established Howard Institute for Advanced Study.

Dr. Kendi is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest author to win that award. He also authored the international bestseller, How to Be an Antiracist, which was described in the New York Times as “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” Dr. Kendi’s other bestsellers include How to Raise an Antiracist and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant.

His next book is Malcolm Lives! It is the first major biography of Malcolm for young readers in more than thirty years, appearing in May 2025 on the centennial of Malcolm’s birth.

AUTHOR WEBSITE

Meet the Illustrator

JOEL CHRISTIAN GILL is a cartoonist and historian who speaks nationally on the importance of sharing stories. He is the author of the acclaimed memoir Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence cited as one of the best graphic novels of 2020 by The New York Times and for which he was awarded the 2021 Cartoonist Studio Prize. He wrote the words and drew the pictures for Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride and the award-winning graphic novel series Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, as well as 3 volumes of Tales of The Talented Tenth, which tell the stories of Bass Reeves, Bessie Stringfield, and Robert Smalls.

Gill has dedicated his life to creating stories to build connections with readers through empathy, compassion, and, ultimately, humanity. He received his MFA from Boston University and his BA from Roanoke College.

ILLUSTRATOR WEBSITE

Previous Massachusetts Great Reads: Young Readers

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