This is the Juneteenth book you want on your shelf. Instead of centering trauma, it centers joy, community, and one woman's incredible determination to make a holiday—and freedom itself—real for everyone.

Opal Lee's story is perfect for kids because she's still here, still fighting, and her victory is recent enough to feel immediate. The book doesn't sugarcoat history (that home-burning scene is real and happened), but it doesn't make that the point either. The point is what Opal did with her anger and disappointment: she turned it into a decades-long campaign that actually worked.

The writing is warm and almost musical, the illustrations are beautiful, and the 4.9 Amazon rating tells you everything you need to know about how this lands with families. It teaches history, models activism, and celebrates Black joy all at once. A genuinely great picture book that does exactly what it sets out to do.