TODAY IS DIFFERENT

When a Black man is “hurt” by police and Black Lives Matter protests are staged in her community, 7-year-old Hmong protagonist Mai knows that “today is different.”

Then Mai’s Black best friend, Kiara, misses school; the two girls usually do everything together…“but not today.” Seeking to understand more about race, Mai questions her teenage brother, Tou, and learns that “in the Hmong culture, there are Black Hmong, White Hmong, Green Hmong, Striped Hmong, and many more.” Although their parents want to shield them from the unfolding events—“It doesn’t have anything to do with you”—the siblings make a protest sign, and Mai uses colored pencils as an object lesson to show her parents that “if we all stand together, we will be unbreakable.” She and Tou run away to a Black Lives Matter rally to march in solidarity with Kiara’s family and are pleasantly surprised when Mom and Dad join them. The book focuses on racism against Black Americans, but Dad and Tou board up their house’s windows, a potentially confusing detail that the story glosses over. Though risking oversimplifying how children process racial trauma, Moua positively portrays a cross-cultural friendship and explores how racial violence impacts children. The backmatter explains the historical discrimination against Hmong people in many countries and emphasizes the importance of African American and Hmong communities uniting to fight injustice. Colorful but mediocre digital paint illustrations add little to the telling but realistically portray urban diversity.

An important story about how marginalized groups can work together for social justice, but some elements feel ill-conceived.