Each month, our resident Children's Librarian, Julie Booker, gives us a new view from the stacks. For February, she provides a great list for Black History Month. 

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A colleague recently asked for black history materials that didn't reference slavery. I was taken aback. Then I realized; each year I rotely pull books about Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Viola Desmond, the Underground Railroad. The challenge this time was to create a list that veers away from slavery, and highlights Canadians. 

Kids Can Press offers that with three books in a research-friendly format. Profile boxes, Did-You-Know's, bold headings, bullet points, timelines, manageably-sized paragraphs and illustrations are perfect for ages 10 and up. 

The Kids Book of Black Canadian History, by Rosemary Sadlier, is a one-stop-shop, covering four major groups who helped form our country: Africans, Caribbeans & South Americans, Americans, and several-generation Canadians. Sadlier, of course, includes slavery, explaining Africville and Birchtown settlements, the Jamaican Maroons and the Exodusters. But she goes far beyond with military heroes, famous cowboys, journalists, pioneers, activists and inventors.

The Kids Book of Canadian Immigration, by Deborah Hodge, places similar historical characters within a broader framework. There's a two-page spread on Canadians of Black Loyalist Heritage, including Colonel Stephen Blucke, magistrate, teacher and Loyalist leader and Daurene Lewis, the first black woman mayor in North America. Hodge offers coverage of West coast communities in Victoria and Vancouver, black Californians who came to set up mines, mills, fisheries, to follow the Gold Rush, and to escape the American Civil War. This book also showcases current figures with Caribbean heritage, such as Michaëlle Jean and Oscar Peterson.

Some contributions of blacks can be found leafing through The Kids Book of Canadian Firsts, by Valerie Wyatt. Mention is made of Mary Ann Shadd, the first black newspaperwoman in Canada; Elijah McCoy, inventor of an automatic lubricator for train engines; and Matieu Da Costa, the first black explorer.

The following books provide more in-depth information.

Mary Ann Shadd, by Rosemary Sadlier, is great for research projects for those aged 12 and up. Shadd was a free woman in the US but she moved to Windsor, Ontario, to become a teacher, building a school for all races. She started a newspaper, The Provincial Freeman, which garnered her the title of first black woman publisher in North America. Shadd wrote articles encouraging blacks (former slaves) new to Canada to make a living beyond begging. She went on to be a Union army recruiter in the American Civil War, then a school principal and lawyer. 

The Real McCoy, by Wendy Towle, has the subtitle, "The Life of an African-American Inventor" because the subject spent much of his life in Michigan. But Elijah McCoy was born in Ontario to two former slaves. This picture book tells how he came to devise the train lubricator. It also credits him with inventing the first portable ironing board, lawn sprinkler, and tire tread designs.

Itah Sadu’s gem of a picture book, Mathieu Da Costa: First to Arrive, comes with a calypso CD version of the text, which introduces kids to the first African in Canada. He came on a Portuguese fishing boat in 1603 and helped Samuel de Champlain and Pierre Dugua de Monts establish early French settlements in Quebec and Nova Scotia. Da Costa, who spoke Mi'kmaq and French, had good relations with the natives. He was paid highly and in such demand that, at one point, he was kidnapped by the Dutch.

Sadlier has also compiled a lot of material in Leading the Way, Black Women in Canada. Out of five biographies, three are contemporaries. Carrie Best was a poet, publisher, and radio broadcaster whose humanitarian work earned her the Order of Canada. Rosemary Brown was the first black woman elected to the provincial legislature, and Sylvia Sweeney is a TV producer, musician, former basketball Olympian, and Oscar Peterson's niece. There are also 35 mini-bios of key black women in Canadian history; a fine resource for projects for the age-12-and-up crowd.

On her first day as teacher-librarian, Julie Booker was asked by a five-year-old if that was her real name. She's felt at home in libraries since her inaugural job as a Page in the Toronto Public Library. She is the author of Up Up Up, a book of short stories published by House of Anansi Press in 2011.

• Check out our Black History Book List