She learns who Katherine Johnson is. And she learns that books like this — books about real American history — include her.
That is the entire reason the Young Learners Series exists.
We built this series because the books that introduce children to Black historical figures are often either too academic (a kindergartner cannot read a 200-word biography) or too watered-down (a kindergartner can absolutely understand who Martin Luther King Jr. was, if you write it for them). There is a middle ground.
The Young Learners Series sits in it.
Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, the children's-literature scholar, wrote in 1990 that books should serve as both mirrors and windows for children — mirrors that reflect their own lives, windows into the lives of others.
For Black children, the mirror has historically been missing from most early-childhood bookshelves. For non-Black children, the window has been missing too.
The Young Learners Series puts both back.
Some adults assume children are too young for history. Children prove them wrong every day. A four-year-old who can recite every dinosaur from the Cretaceous period can absolutely learn who Ruby Bridges was.
Children at this age are at exactly the right moment to form their earliest opinions about what is normal, who is important, and what the world looks like.
Coloring is not a filler activity. For children ages 4–7, it is one of the most useful tools on the table.
Pair coloring with biography and you get something better than either alone.
The Young Learners Series is published by Spence Heritage Press LLC, an independent educational publisher in New York, founded by Lamont Spence.
Lamont spent more than a decade in workforce development and community work in New York — including time with the Urban League. The press grew out of one observation: the people most underserved by Black history publishing weren't academics or college students. They were children too young to read full biographies, and elders in care settings whose lifetimes overlapped with the figures themselves.
Spence Heritage Press publishes two series:
Both share an 8.5×11 trim, an educational mission, and a refusal to talk down to the reader.
