Labor Day Middle Grade and YA Books About Labor Movements and Social Change

Are you looking for meaningful ways to incorporate Labor Day-themed books into your ELA routine this year? We're excited to share a list of books that will help students understand the history of labor movements that resulted in better pay and treatment of workers. 

Picture Books About Labor Movements and Social Change

Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909 by Michelle Markel

Kids on Strike! by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Farmers Unite! by Lindsay H. Metcalf

Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 by Alice Faye Duncan

The Traveling Camera: Lewis Hine and the Fight to End Child Labor by Lee Montgomery

Undocumented: A Worker’s Fight by Duncan Tonatiuh

Viva’s Voice by Raquel Donoso

Thanks to Frances Perkins: Fighter for Workers’ Rights by Deborah Hopkinson and Kristy Caldwell

My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel Quintero and Zeke Peña

Night Job by Karen Hesse and G. Brian Karas

Middle Grade Books About Labor Movements and Social Change

Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth

Growing Up in Coal Country by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Jessie de La Cruz: Profile of a United Farm Worker by Gary Soto

City on Strike by Harriet Zaidman

Counting on Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop

A Seed in the Sun by Aida Salazar

Young Adult Books About Labor Movements and Social Change

A Young People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson

Black Coal and Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars by Raymond Tyler

Strike! by Larry Dane Brimner

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald T. Takaki

Haymarket by Martin Duberman

Like One of the Family by Alice Childress

Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World by Paul Buhle

Ideas for Incorporating Labor Day Themed Books into Your Lesson Plan

• Before reading a book, ask students to share what they know about Labor Day
• Ask students to discuss what rights they believe all workers should have 
• Decorate your classroom with posters highlighting key figures in the American labor movement 
• Collaborate with the class to create a Venn diagram to compare historic labor issues with contemporary labor issues 
• Show students images from the Industrial Revolution and Gilded Age, as well as primary source documents about those periods in history 
• Have students read and annotate informational texts about labor movements 
• Encourage students to interview a "worker" (a friend or family member who is employed) and ask about their professional experiences, as well as what they hope will improve about their working conditions