When books are selected for the Massachusetts Children's Book Award Program, the selection committee carefully considers genre, the quality of the writing, and the inclusion of a variety of cultural groups. As I look at the list every year and introduce them to children, I discuss each book's uniqueness. I also point out similarities in style or theme. Two of this year's nominated books are written in verse, but that isn't the important similarity. The protagonists in the books must learn to navigate in a society that often discriminates against them. They work to turn prejudice into acceptance.

Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton (Penguin) is a novel written in first person. The narrator is a young girl has moved with her family to Vermont. Her heritage is half-black and half-Japanese, and in 1969, Vermont was mostly white. Mimi Yoshiko Oliver finds out that to answer her classmates' and adults' questions about "what she is", she needs to figure out "who she is". Mimi defies stereotypes, and she also wants to be an astronaut, an opportunity that wasn't open to women. ....