This month from our Small Print column:

I don’t know what it’s like to grow up black and poor – denied power and freedom because of the colour of my skin. Thanks, however, to some beautiful new books, I can imagine what it could be like. For this, Black History Month, let’s celebrate some books that illuminate the struggle of being born black in a racist world.

The Freedom of Jenny by Julie Burtinshaw
(Raincoast Books; ages 11 – 14; paperback; $12.95)

Jenny Estes is wilful, intelligent and hungry for freedom – qualities that can get you killed when your fate rests with a white man who bought your father and his family. A horrified Jenny sees her eldest sister die because she’s denied medicine, and is witness as her mother shrinks into her pain. But Jenny’s father raises the money to buy back his family and they head west, ultimately settling in Salt Spring Island near Vancouver.

Along the way, Jenny learns that for every step blacks take forward, there is someone ready to pull them back. Though initially rich in detail, the story loses its depth about halfway through and seems to end abruptly. However, it’s a hard book to put down and readers will all be rooting for Jenny.

Season of Rage by John Cooper
(Tundra Books; ages 10 and up; trade paperback; $14.99)

The sub-title of this book, Hugh Burnett and the Struggle for Civil Rights, might have many scratching their heads – Hugh Who? But it turns out that southwestern Ontario had its own Rosa Parks, in a sense. When businesses in Dresden, Ont., refused to allow blacks to sit and eat with whites, long after laws were passed to stop such discrimination, Hugh Burnett decided the time had come. This book details (in sometimes too much detail) the efforts of brave men – black Dresden activists along with some civil-rights advocates from Toronto – who faced death threats and increased discrimination because of their insistence on being treated fairly and equally.

Our Stories, Our Songs: African Children Talk About AIDS by Deborah Ellis
(Fitzhenry & Whiteside; ages 10 and up; hardcover)

Today, millions of blacks infected with HIV/AIDS in Africa are dying, denied access to life-extending drugs, pain medication, or even a clean, safe place to die. What’s more, they’re leaving children: 11.5 million of them, affected – and many infected – by the disease. Meanwhile, in the Western world, anti-retroviral medication is giving infected people hope and relief.

Deborah Ellis records the children’s stories, which are heartbreaking – a 14-year-old boy says he “fed his [dying] mother first. Whatever she could not eat, that’s what I ate.” But some are also hopeful, as in 13-year-old Robert who lost both his parents, but has found solace in music. “I want to keep singing all my life…Some things will try to get in the way of me being a success, but I won’t let them.”

The book includes statistics, quotes from Nelson Mandela and Canada’s own Stephen Lewis – who calls the situation “sanctioned murder”– as well as photos of beautiful, vibrant children, and information about services and aid groups for orphans.

Young readers can’t help but recognize that these children are just like they would be, had they been born into different circumstances. It’s a powerful message. Royalties from the book support UNICEF.

Leslie Garrett is a children’s author, columnist and mother of three. She volunteers with a charity that supports grassroots AIDS-related work in Africa.