The Streets are Free (1985)

This delightful and empowering book is my favorite storybook in my extensive multicultural library that I've grown over the decades for my innercity classroom. It tells the true Venezuelan story of children who, with the help of the librarian, organize themselves a play space. Remarkably, it relates the two needed strands of organizing: pressuring the government (or other power structure) to do its job, and bringing the community together to do what the government can't. ( )