New York City educators, as you prepare to go back to school keep in mind creating a rich, robust, and diverse classroom library will promote healthy reading habits with students, as well as increase their reading frequency. This love and hunger for reading will help students attain greater levels of reading achievements as well as promote a path to lifelong learning.

Get an Educator Card

Did you know that NYC educators employed at Pre-K–12 schools are eligible to apply for a special educator library card with extended borrowing privileges?

Educator cardholders may:

• Borrow up to 100 items

• Receive no late fines for books or audiobooks

• Request up to 50 items

• Check out books and audiobooks for a loan period of 60 days

• Access NYPL's hundreds of electronic databases

With these extended privileges, we encourage you to use The New York Public Library’s materials in your classroom. For more information on Educator Cards, including how to apply for one, visit The New York Public Library’s Educator Card page.

Digital Resources

With your Educator card you have access to great titles, but you also have access to our databases, many of which provide access to educator resources, including lesson plans!

Scholastic Teachables – offers teaching resources for every subject. Lesson plans, mini-books, and activity sheets help educators plan for the school year. Teachables content extends from Pre-K to 8th grade.

Watch our quick walkthrough of Scholastic Teachables as well as other 'How- To' and Educator Booktalk videos found on our Educator Vimeo page.

Helpful Tips

Educators, working with both school and public librarians can help you succeed in finding relevant, current and high interest titles that your students will want to devour! Building relationships with your school and public librarians will help create a stronger and bigger community for students to flourish both in and out of school. Please reach out to the School Outreach Department at Schoolvisits@nypl.org to be connected to your local library.

Titles to get your classroom library started!

A Song of Frutas by Margarita Engle; illustrated by Sara Palacios

From Pura Belpré Award–winning author Margarita Engle comes a lively, rhythmic picture book about a little girl visiting her grandfather who is a pregonero, a singing street vendor in Cuba, and helping him sell his frutas. The little girl loves visiting her grandfather in Cuba and singing his special songs to sell all kinds of fruit: mango, limón, naranja, piña, and more! Even when they're apart, grandfather and granddaughter can share rhymes between their countries like un abrazo, a hug, made of words carried on letters that soar across the distance like songbirds.

 

Dumplings for Lili by Melissa Iwai

Lili loves to cook little dumplings called baos with her grandmother, but when cabbage is needed, Lili races up and down the stairs of her grandmother's apartment building to find the ingredient and help the other grandmothers borrow ingredients for different dumplings, from Jamaican meat patties and Italian ravioli to Lebanese fatayer and more.

A recipe for baos is included at the end.

 

 

Jayden’s Impossible Garden by Melina Mangal; illustrated by Ken Daley

Amidst all the buildings, people, and traffic in his neighborhood, Jayden sees nature everywhere: the squirrels scrounging, the cardinals calling, and the dandelions growing. But Mama doesn’t believe there’s nature in the city. So Jayden sets out to help Mama see what he sees. With the help of his friend Mr. Curtis, Jayden plants the seeds of a community garden and brings together his neighbors and Mama to show them the magic of nature in the middle of the city. At the back of the book, readers will find activities to make items found in the book, such as the milk jug bird feeder.

Laxmi’s Mooch by Shelly Anand; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

After Laxmi's friend Zoe points out the hairs on her lip, Laxmi is very self-conscious until her East Indian parents help her to accept and celebrate her appearance.

 

 

Anita and the Dragons by Hannah Carmona; illustrated by Anna Cunha

A courageous girl who knows herself to be a valiant princess fearlessly watches the dragons of her imagination from the cement roofs of her Dominican Republic village before the limits of her bravery are tested by adventures outside her home.

 

 

On the Trapline by David Robertson; illustrated by Julie Flett

A boy and Moshom, his grandpa, take a trip together to visit a place of great meaning to Moshom. A trapline is where people hunt and live off the land, and it was where Moshom grew up. As they embark on their northern journey, the child repeatedly asks his grandfather, "Is this your trapline?" This is a heartfelt story about memory, imagination and intergenerational connection that perfectly captures the experience of a young child's wonder as he is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family.

Young Reader

The One Thing You'd Save by Linda Sue Park; illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng

When a teacher asks her class what one thing they would save in an emergency, some students know the answer right away. Others come to their decisions more slowly. And some change their minds when they hear their classmates' responses. A lively dialog ignites as the students discover unexpected facets of one another and themselves. With her ear for authentic dialog and knowledge of tweens' priorities and emotions, Linda Sue Park brings the varied voices of an inclusive classroom to life through carefully honed, engaging, and instantly accessible verse.

 

Jo Jo Makoons: The Used-To-Be Best Friend by Dawn Quiqley; illustrated by Tara Audibert

Jo Jo Makoons Azure is a spirited seven-year-old who moves through the world a little differently than anyone else on her Ojibwe reservation. It always seems like her mom, her kokum (grandma), and her teacher have a lot to learn--about how good Jo Jo is at cleaning up, what makes a good rhyme, and what it means to be friendly. Even though Jo Jo loves her #1 best friend Mimi (who is a cat), she's worried that she needs to figure out how to make more friends. Because Fern, her best friend at school, may not want to be friends anymore.

 

 

Too Small Tola by Atinuke; illustrated by Onyinye Iwu

Tolu may be small, but she's very determined. Three delightful stories about Too-Small Tolu, a young girl who, though small, is very determined.

 

 

 

 

 

J.D. and the Great Barber Battle by J. Dillard; illustrated by Akeem S. Roberts

When J.D. gets a horrible haircut by his mom before the first day of 3rd grade he decides to take matters into his own hands and discovers a hidden talent.

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe, Maybe Marisol Rainey by Erin Entrada Kelly

Marisol, who has a big imagination and likes to name inanimate objects, has a tree in her backyard named Peppina...but she's way too scared to climb it. Will Marisol find the courage to climb Peppina?

 

 

 

 

Middle Grade

Akissi by Marguerite Abouet

A graphic novel collection of wild childhood adventures set on the Ivory Coast! Akissi and her posse are wreaking havoc wherever they go.

 

 

 

 

Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

Amari Peters has never stopped believing her missing brother, Quinton, is alive. Not even when the police told her otherwise, or when she got in trouble for standing up to bullies who said he was gone for good. So when she finds a ticking briefcase in his closet, containing a nomination for a summer tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she's certain the secretive organization holds the key to locating Quinton, if only she can wrap her head around the idea of magicians, fairies, aliens, and other supernatural creatures all being real. With an evil magician threatening the supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she's an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn't stick it out and pass the tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.

 

Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood by Kwame Mbalia

Featuring contributions from such critically acclaimed Black authors as Jason Reynolds, Jerry Craft and Kwame Mbalia, this celebration of Black boyhood is told through a brilliant collection of stories, comics and poems.

 

 

 

 

Fast Pitch by Nic Stone

Shenice Lockwood dreams of leading the Fulton Firebirds to the U12 softball regional championship. But Shenice's focus gets shaken when her great-uncle Jack reveals that a career-ending-and family-name-ruining-crime may have been a setup. It's up to Shenice to discover the truth about her family's past-and fast-before secrets take the Firebirds out of the game forever.

 

 

 

Ahmed Aziz’s Epic Year by Nina Hamza

Moving from Hawaii to Minnesota, Ahmed Aziz is having the worst year until he deals with bullies, makes new friends and uncovers his family’s past, all while finding himself in three books assigned for his English class.

 

 

 

 

The Legend of Auntie Po written and illustrated by Shing Yin Khor

Part historical fiction, part magical realism, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine as she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885.

 

 

 

 

 

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Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.