Get Ready for Day One
Ready for the first day of school on Thursday, September 10?
Hispanic Heritage Month Highlight: The Mendez Family's Fight Against School Segregation
September 15–October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month! To celebrate, we're sharing the story of Sylvia Mendez and her family, who led a groundbreaking legal fight to end school segregation in California. Their case, Mendez v. Westminster, helped pave the way for Brown v. Board of Education and showed how courage, community, and determination can spark lasting change in the fight for educational equality.
September 15 is National Voter Registration Day! New voters who are at least 16 years of age (who will be eligible to vote once they turn 18) can register to vote at vote.nyc—where you can also find information about important dates and deadlines, check your registration status, and more. For the upcoming election on November 3, 2026, New York voters must be registered by October 24.
Early Readers (3-K–Grade 2)
- Lillian’s Right to Vote, by Jonah Winter; illustrated by Shane W. Evans
- Miss Paul and the President: The Creative Campaign for Women’s Right to Vote, by Dean Robbins; illustrated by Nancy Zhang
- The President of the Jungle, by Andre Rodrigues, Larissa Ribeiro, Paula Desgualdo, Pedro Markun
- V is for Voting, by Kate Farrell; illustrated by Caitlin Kuhwald
- Vote for Our Future, by Margaret McNamara; illustrated by Micah Player
Elementary (Grades 3–5)
- Evicted!: The Struggle for the Right to Vote, by Alice Faye Duncan; illustrated by Charly Palmer
- Finish the Fight: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote, by Veronica Chambers and the Saff of the New York Times
- For Which We Stand: How Our Government Works and Why it Matters, by Jeff Foster; illustrated by Julie McLaughlin
- How Women Won the Vote: Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Their Big Idea, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; illustrated by Ziyue Chen
- When You Grow Up to Vote: How Our Government Works for YOU, by Elenor Roosevelt with Michelle Markel; illustrated by Grace Lin
Middle School (Grades 6–8)
- Drawing the Vote: A Graphic Novel History for Future Voters, by Tommy Jenkins; illustrated by Kati Lacker
- Lifting As We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box, by Evette Dionne
- The Woman’s Hour: Our Fight for the Right to Vote (Adapted for Young Readers), by Elaine Weiss
- This is Our Constitution: What It Is and Why it Matters, by Khizr Khan
- You Call This Democracy? by Elizabeth Rusch
Upper Grades (Grades 9–12)
- Because They Marched: The People’s Campaign for Voting Rights that Changed America, by Russell Freedman
- One Person, No Vote: How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally (A Young Adult Adaptation), by Carol Anderson and Tonya Bolden
- Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights, by Lawrence Goldstone
- Votes for Women! American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot, by Winifred Conkling
- Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections, by Jeff Fleischer
You can find these books and many more great reads on Sora, our Citywide Digital Library, which provides free access to thousands of digital e-books and audiobooks for our students!
Missed our previous book recommendations?
Check them out in the "What We're Reading" Archive!
SPOTLIGHT ON OUR SCHOOLS
The first week of the 2026–27 school year was certainly one for the books! From the debut of our City's new 2-K program, the implementation of our guidelines concerning the use of student-facing generative artificial intelligence, and the grand opening of the world's first-ever non-charter high school dedicated to hip hop, NYC Public Schools are already making plenty of history—and we're not even done with September!
Check out some of our photos from the first days of the new school year—and join us in welcoming everyone back to school!
