Black History Month

Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is black, present paired poems about topics including family dinners, sports, recess, and much more. This relatable collection explores different experiences of race in America. (Description from catalog)

The author shares her childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South. (Description from catalog)

Twins Josh and Jordan Bell are both talented basketball players, encouraged by their parents on and off the court. Their father, once a European basketball star, now spends his time giving the twins advice about the game, as well as life. As they navigate middle school, Jordan grows more interested in girls, and the brothers begin to drift apart. Josh discovers that his father is hiding something that, when finally brought to the surface, threatens to change their lives forever. (description from Booklist)

"Kofi lives a simple life, but it is a life he loves. He’s 11, just on the cusp of becoming a man, and he finds that there are things he must tackle before coming of age: proving his strength by beating his cousin at a swimming match, speaking up so that the girl he likes knows that he admires her, and learning what the elders really mean by their coded language. When Kofi’s brother accidentally kills a neighboring chief’s nephew in a wrestling match, Kofi instinctively knows that everything in the world is going to change; he just doesn’t realize how much." (description from Booklist)

"Fourteen-year-old Ayo has to decide whether to take on her mother's activist role when her mom is shot by police. As she tries to find answers, Ayo looks to the wisdom of her ancestors and her Harlem community for guidance"-- Provided by publisher

Savannah Riddle feels suffocated by her life as the daughter of an upper class African American family in Washington, D.C., until she meets a working-class girl named Nell who introduces her to the suffragette and socialist movements and to her politically active cousin Lloyd. (description from catalog)

The only two black girls in town discover a collection of hidden journals, revealing shocking secrets of the past. (description from Novelist)

There are no monsters anymore. In the city of Lucille, Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. Then Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother's paintings and a drop of Jam's blood. Pet has come to hunt a monster-- and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption's house. How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist? (description adapted from jacket)

"When Gil, a Black teen from Brooklyn, struggles to fit in at his primarily white Manhattan prep school, he wages a clandestine war against the racist administration, parents, and students, while working with other Black students to ensure their voices arefinally heard." (description from catalog)

"Rufus is from Birmingham, 1963, a place full of civil rights activists including Dr. King. The adults are trying to show that separate is not equal. If Rufus’s parents participate in marches, their bosses will fire them. So the kids decide they will come in. Nobody can fire them. Rufus and his buddies join thousands of other students to peacefully protest in a local park. There they are met with policemen and firemen who turn their powerful hoses on them, and that’s where Rufus realizes that they are the fire. And they will not be put out." (adapted from publisher)

"A biographical novel tells the story of Cassius Clay, the determined boy who would one day become Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers of all time." (description from catalog)

After attending a powerful protest, Shayla starts wearing an armband to school to support the Black Lives Matter movement, but when the school gives her an ultimatum, she is forced to choose between her education and her identity. (description from catalog)

A friendless girl who has developed a knack for keeping her head down at school resists a red-headed newcomer who wants to make friends, before the two are paired for a class assignment that she hopes will secure her position on the debate team. (description from NoveList)

Ghost, a naturally talented runner and troublemaker, is recruited for an elite middle school track team. He must stay on track, literally and figuratively, to reach his full potential. (description from catalog)

Jerome Rogers, a black 12-year-old, is playing outside with a toy gun when he is shot and killed by a white policeman who views him as a threat. Now Jerome wanders the earth with other “ghost boys ” whose deaths are all connected to bigotry. Ironically, the only human who can see Jerome is Sarah, the young daughter of the officer who took his life. Jerome meets the ghost of Emmett Till and learns the horrific details of his murder. Emmett, like the other ghost boys , cannot rest until the world is swept clean of discriminatory violence; maybe Jerome can help if he can make Sarah understand that her father’s act was a result of deeply ingrained racism. (description from Publisher's Weekly)

"Raised by her aunt until she is six, Betty, who will later marry Malcolm X, joins her mother and stepfamily in 1940s Detroit, where she learns about the civil rights movement." (description from catalog)

Genesis comes home from school to find her family's belongings on the lawn; they've been evicted again. Her father promises that this next time will be different, renting a house in the suburbs and promising that he will get a promotion at work so they can afford it. At school, Genesis makes friends for the first time and is mentored by Mrs. Hill, the choir teacher, but Genesis's father still drinks too much and her parents' marriage is unraveling. Genesis tries lightening her skin, begs to be able to use relaxer in her hair, and keeps a list of things she hates about herself, believing that if she only looked like her light-skinned mother and not her dark-skinned father, the situation at home would improve. This message is hammered home by her father's cruel comments and her grandmother's story of the "brown paper bag" test. Genesis escapes by singing; she is inspired by greats like Billie Holiday and Etta James. When she has the opportunity to sing in the school talent show, Genesis must find the power in using her voice to speak her truth. (description from School Library Journal)

"The summer before seventh grade, as the constant threat of housefires looms over her Brooklyn neighborhood, basketball-loving Sage is trying to figure out her place in her circle of friends, when a new kid named Freddy moves in"-- Provided by publisher.

Starring thirty-seven poets, with contributions from acclaimed authors, including Kwame Alexander, Ibi Zoboi, and Nikki Giovanni, this breathtaking Black YA poetry anthology edited by National Book Award finalist Amber McBride, Taylor Byas, and Erica Martin celebrates Black poetry, folklore, and culture. Published from Amazon Books

"Jason Reynold. Jason Griffin. One a poet. One an artist. One Black. One white. Two voices. One journey. To move to New York, and make it in New York. Best friends willing to have a hard life if it meant a happy life. All they needed was a chance. A reissue of a memoir of a moment in time within a lifetime of friendship" (description from publisher)

"A powerful biography in poems about Augusta Savage, the trailblazing artist and pillar of the Harlem Renaissance-with an afterword by the curator of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture"-- (description provided by publisher)

"Pretending to be someone they're not, Delilah, who is unable to open up, and Reggie, a D&D Dungeon Master who is role-playing someone confident, fall for a version of each other that doesn't really exist when fate keeps throwing them together." (Description from NoveList)

As high school junior Michie plans for her future and explores a new relationship, she tries to reconcile with some uncomfortable truths about her life which becomes more complicated when she is contacted by her estranged mother.

"In 1930s Jackson, Mississippi, quiet, studious and naïve girl Lamb tentatively accepts the friendly overtures of a white girl, which sets in motion a series of events that end in tragedy." (description from catalog)

"Told from multiple points of view, Ardith and Hollis Blackwood's lives are upended when their great-grandmother, legendary actress Blossom Blackwood, passes away, and family secrets emerge" - Provided from Catalog

"When the future of her family's masquerade band, Grandeur, nears the brink of collapse, Tess Crawford is forced to team up with popular social media influencer, Brandon Richards, the bane of her existence, in a desperate attempt to revive the company." Provided from Catalog

"As Koffi and Ekon race to the Kusonga Plains--and try to garner the help of Eshōza's ancient gods along the way--they must face a slew of dangerous beasts old and new. In the end, destiny may unite Koffi and Ekon for the last time--or tear them apart for good"-- Provided by publisher.

"To win the grand prize at the end of their survival course, ex-best friends Claire and Bradley trudge through mud, dirt and their messy past to find the adventure bringing them closer together, sparking a whole new kind of relationship" (description from publisher.)

A confrontation with a teacher and a family crisis force high school senior Cerulean Gene to drop out of twelfth grade and derails their dreams of moving cross-country and living off the grid.--Provided by catalog

Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried. As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone? (description adapted from publisher)

"A high school junior teams up with a hacker during a police brutality protest to shut down a device that creates an impenetrable dome around Baltimore that is keeping the residents in and information from going out" (description from Novelist)

"Seventeen-year-old Ross Quest, a master thief, enters the Thieves' Gambit, a competition consisting of dangerous, international heists, in order to save her mother's life." (Description from catalog)

Joining a secret group called the "Minus-One Club," whose members have all suffered the tragic loss of someone they loved, fifteen-year-old Kermit finds his crush Matt's headstrong approach to life helping to relieve his constant despair

"The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in 1910 Chicago, and the two daughters, Olivia and Helen, are finding their way and finding love--even where they are not supposed to." (Description from catalog)

"Seventeen-year-old Aaliyah is trying to survive her last years of high school, but things become much more complicated after she is outed by a church elder and Aaliyah must navigate new friends, old flames, and nosy school counselors during her senior year." (Description from catalog)

When her mother disappears, Nigeria Jones, the daughter of the leader of a Black liberation group, searches for her, uncovering a shocking truth which leads her to question everything she thought she knew about her life and her family.

Collects essays, poetry, and images that expose the racial tensions in twenty-first century life, highlighting the slights, slips of the tongue, and intentional offensives that pervade the home, school, and popular media. (Description from NoveList)

A Black woman recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums. (Description from NoveList)

Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn't exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward and passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride's daughter, Caroline, goes missing-and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.
(Description from catalog)

A dazzling story of modern Nigeria and two people caught in the riptides of wealth, power, poverty, and corruption.
(Description from catalog)

Follows four generations of the Montrose family, who have been living with a curse that leaves any person they fall in love with dead, stemming back to a Voodoo sorceress in 1950s New Orleans' French Quarter.
(Description from catalog)

Born in Philadelphia in the late 1800s, Hannah Elias has done things she's not proud of to survive. Shedding her past, Hannah slips on a new identity before relocating to New York City to become as rich as a robber baron. Hannah quietly invests in the stock market, growing her fortune with the help of businessmen. As the money pours in, Hannah hides her millions across 29 banks. Finally attaining the life she's always dreamed, she buys a mansion on the Upper West Side and decorates it in gold and first-rate décor, inspired by her idol Cleopatra.
(Description from catalog)

A Virginia slave narrowly escapes a drowning death through the intervention of a mysterious force that compels his escape and personal underground war against slavery. (Description from NoveList.)

Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
(Description from Amazon)

Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greenehas always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming a children's book editor, but she's been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years without a promotion in sight.
(Description from catalog)

Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman. It's fair to say that Maddie's life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson's. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living.
(Description from catalog)

Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother's disappearance, including that she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behavior raises suspicions and a woman can find herself on trial for witchcraft. But fourteen years have passed since her mother’s disappearance, and now Jo is finally ready to let go of the past, yet her future is in doubt. The State mandates that all women marry by the age of 30 or enroll in a registry that allows them to be monitored, effectively forfeiting their autonomy.
(Description from Amazon)

Takes readers into the dark underbelly of New York City where a roiling, ancient evil stirs in the halls of power, threatening to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars. (Description from NoveList.)

Fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.
(Description from catalog)

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It's locked at all times. Because when the trunk is opened, people around her start to disappear. The year is 1914, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, and forced her to flee her hometown of Redondo, California, in a hellfire rush, ready to make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will be one of the "lone women" taking advantage of the government's offer of free land for those who can cultivate it-except that Adelaide isn't alone.
(Description from catalog)

It's 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. She falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup's status quo and could lead to the young couple's expulsion-or worse-from the home they hold dear.
(Description from catalog)

Two sisters on the run from Jim Crow justice in 1964 Jackson, Mississippi, flee to separate parts of the country, unaware that they are both being pursued by someone with dark secrets and a disturbing motive for finding them that is unknown to anyone but himself.
(Description from catalog)

Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies. But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, she's shocked to learn that her new patients, India and Erica, are children--just eleven and thirteen years old.
(Description from catalog)

Traveling along the path of the Underground Railroad from Virginia to Michigan, from the Indigenous nations around the Great Lakes, to the Black refugee communities of Canada, In the Upper Country weaves together unlikely stories of love, survival, and familial upheaval that map the interconnected history of the peoples of North America in an entirely new and resonant way.
(Description from catalog)

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
(Description from Amazon)

It’s 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It’s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him — until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.
(Description from Amazon)