#africanamerican #childrens #childrensnonfiction #picturebook

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Illinois

This powerful picture book introduces young readers to a key event in the struggle for Civil Rights. Winner, Coretta Scott King Honor Award.

In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, thousands of African American children volunteered to march for their rights after hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak. They protested the laws that kept black people separate from white people. Facing fear, hate, and danger, these children used their voices to change the world.

Frank Morrison's emotive oil-on-canvas paintings bring this historical event to life, while Monica Clark-Robinson's moving and poetic words document this remarkable time.

I couldn't play on the same playground as the white kids. 

I couldn't go to their schools.  

I couldn't drink from their water fountains.  

There were so many things I couldn't do.

Let the Children March

5baffc83-c681-4e74-a5d3-69e0347c9955-1

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Oregon

More Than Anything Else 

David Manning Thomas

Light damage on dust sleeve. The book is mint. C

Texas

A Child's First Book of African-American Spirituals

Raise your voice with this musical illustrated songbook of traditional African American spirituals including instructions for piano accompaniment and guitar chords.

Many songs performed at churches, schools, camps, or clubs are African American spirituals. This lively and inspirational picture book shines a light on twenty of the thousand songs that have been collected since the Civil War, including "All Night, All Day," "This Little Light of Mine," "When the Saints Go Marching In," and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

All Night, All Day

2327d6c0-9970-4682-8304-ac85da4e91fe-1

Florida

Friends With Benefits

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New Jersey

A Novel





Hope and circumstance define a young woman's life in this heartbreaking tale of lost innocence, set in politically volatile 1990s Nigeria, from an exciting and fresh voice in global literature. 

For as long as she can remember, Patience Adewale, the eldest daughter of Chief Kolade Adewale, has been waiting for confirmation that she is loved, that there is a place where she truly belongs. Patience lives a sheltered life within the secure walls of the family's mansion in Ibadan, but finds no comfort from her distant father and stepmother Modupe. Her only ally is her younger sister, yet even Margaret's love and support cannot overcome Patience's insecurity and uncertainty.

More than anything, Patience wants to know why her father and uncle banished her mother from their compound years ago--and whether her mother is even alive. Determined to discover the truth, Patience embarks on a desperate search to find her mother. Answers begin to surface when she moves to Lagos for university and unexpectedly reconnects with her cousin Kash.

Kash and his friend Emeka are petty thieves with an opportunity to make a big score. To pull it off they need help--and enlist Patience and Emeka's straight-arrow brother, Chike, to become partners in their scheme. The thieves' plan is to quit after this job. But unforeseen events lead to unexpected consequences--and demand a price from Patience that may be too steep to pay.

Suspenseful and evoking the subtleties of Nigerian life in an fresh and unexpected way, Patience Is a Subtle Thief is a heart-wrenching story of one young woman's precarious journey to adulthood, and the risks and sacrifices it takes to follow her heart.

Patience Is a Subtle Thief

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Jesmyn Ward

Thrift store/second hand copy with some wear to dust jacket/outer binding and an award label affixed to opening page (see attached photos)

Massachusetts

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey through Mississippi's past and present"--

Sing, Unburied, Sing

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Nevada

Traces the story of Great Migration-era mother Hattie Shepherd, who in spite of poverty and a dysfunctional husband uses love and Southern remedies to raise nine children and prepare them for the realities of a harsh world. A first novel.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

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Paterson Joseph

It's finally time for Charles Ignatius Sancho to tell his story, one that begins on a slave ship in the Atlantic and ends at the very center of London life. . . . A lush and immersive tale of adventure, artistry, romance, and freedom set in eighteenth-century England and based on a true story

It's 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man. Charles Ignatius Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse, and his main ally--a kindly duke who taught him to write--is dying. Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the king, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight to end slavery? Through every moment of this rich, exuberant tale, Sancho forges ahead to see how much he can achieve in one short life: "I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more."

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho

695ba994-e425-4208-b0ac-a5608c22c034-1

Arizona

Poems

William Evans, the award-winning poet and cofounder of the popular culture website Black Nerd Problems, offers an emotionally vulnerable poetry collection exploring the themes of inheritances, dreams, and injuries that are passed down from one generation to the next and delving into the lived experience of a black man in the American suburbs today. In We Inherit What the Fires Left, award-winning poet William Evans embarks on a powerful new collection that explores the lived experience of race in the American suburbs and what dreams and injuries are passed from generation to generation. Fall under the spell of Evans’s boldly intimate, wise, and emotionally candid voice in these urgent, electrifying poems. This eloquent collection explores not only what these inheritances are composed of, but what price the bearer must pay for such legacies, and the costly tolls exacted on both body and spirit. Evans writes searingly from the perspective of the marginalized, delivering an unflinching examination of what it is like to be a black man raising a daughter in predominantly white spaces, and the struggle to build a home and a future while carrying the weight of the past. However, in beautiful and quiet scenes of domesticity with his daughter or in thoughtful reflection within himself, Evans offers words of hope to readers, proving that resilience can ultimately bloom even in the face of prejudice. Readers of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Hanif Abdurraqib will find a brilliant, fresh new talent to add to their lists in William Evans.

We Inherit What the Fires Left

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All-Black Combat Squadrons of World War II

"Sandler does a fine job of emphasizing the unjustness of the segregation policy as well as the excellence of the men who flew in segregated skies. He provides a good look at this lesser known aspect of (World War II).--"Retired Officer". 38 photos.

Segregated Skies

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Nikki Grimes

New York

This thought-provoking companion to Nikki Grimes’ Coretta Scott King Award-winning Bronx Masquerade shows the capacity poetry has to express ideas and feelings, and connect us with ourselves and others. Darrian dreams of writing for the New York Times. To hone his skills and learn more about the power of words, he enrolls in Mr. Ward’s class, known for its open-mic poetry readings and boys vs. girls poetry slam. Everyone in class has something important to say, and in sharing their poetry, they learn that they all face challenges and have a story to tell—whether it’s about health problems, aging out of foster care, being bullied for religious beliefs, or having to take on too much responsibility because of an addicted parent. As Darrian and his classmates get to know one another through poetry, they bond over the shared experiences and truth that emerge from their writing, despite their private struggles and outward differences.

Between the Lines

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#hardcover #africanamerican #abuse #tonimorrison

Ohio

"Vivid," hailed the New York Times Book Review of Sugar, Bernice L. McFadden's bestselling debut novel. This beloved new writer returns to the Brooklyn of her childhood in The Warmest December, a triumphant coming-of-age novel. Childhood can be rough, but for Kenzie growing up in the Lowe home means opening the bottom drawer of her father's dresser to choose which of the three belts coiled, waiting like snakes, she wants to get whipped with; trips to Bee Hive Liquor for her father's vodka; and dreaming of the day she can escape apartment A5. Buoyed by the graceful voice that has become McFadden's trademark, The Warmest December is the incredibly moving story of one family and the alcoholism, that determined years of their lives. Narrated by a young woman reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, and moving from the Brooklyn of the 1970's to 90's, Kenzie Lowe discovers as she visits her dying father that choices she once thought beyond her control are very much hers to make.Praise for Bernice L. McFadden's bestselling debut, Sugar:"A literary explosionÉMcFadden reveals amazing talent and promise that the literary world can revel in and look forward to hopefully well into the next century." --Chicago Defender"She's a writer on the caliber of Toni Morrison. Very rich, very woven, and very layered."--The Dallas Morning News

The Warmest December

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#hardcover #fiction #romance #africanamerican #womenslit  364 pages

Washington

The perfect wife and mother of three grown children, Marilyn Grimes copes with the problems of midlife as she struggles to recall some of her own postponed dreams and reinvent her marriage, friendships, family, and herself.

The Interruption of Everything

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Brandy Colbert

From award-winning YA author Brandy Colbert comes a debut middle-grade novel about the only two Black girls in town who discover a collection of hidden journals revealing shocking secrets of the past. 

Beach-loving surfer Alberta has been the only Black girl in town for years. Alberta's best friend, Laramie, is the closest thing she has to a sister, but there are some things even Laramie can't understand. When the bed and breakfast across the street finds new owners, Alberta is ecstatic to learn the family is black—and they have a 12-year-old daughter just like her.

Alberta is positive she and the new girl, Edie, will be fast friends. But while Alberta loves being a California girl, Edie misses her native Brooklyn and finds it hard to adapt to small-town living.

When the girls discover a box of old journals in Edie's attic, they team up to figure out exactly who's behind them and why they got left behind. Soon they discover shocking and painful secrets of the past and learn that nothing is quite what it seems.

Michigan

A Bank Street Best Book of 2021!



From award-winning YA author Brandy Colbert comes a debut middle-grade novel about the only two Black girls in town who discover a collection of hidden journals revealing shocking secrets of the past.



Beach-loving surfer Alberta has been the only Black girl in town for years. Alberta's best friend, Laramie, is the closest thing she has to a sister, but there are some things even Laramie can't understand. When the bed and breakfast across the street finds new owners, Alberta is ecstatic to learn the family is black--and they have a 12-year-old daughter just like her.



Alberta is positive she and the new girl, Edie, will be fast friends. But while Alberta loves being a California girl, Edie misses her native Brooklyn and finds it hard to adapt to small-town living.



When the girls discover a box of old journals in Edie's attic, they team up to figure out exactly who's behind them and why they got left behind. Soon they discover shocking and painful secrets of the past and learn that nothing is quite what it seems.

The Only Black Girls in Town

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Casey Gerald

A Memoir

There Will Be No Miracles Here

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A powerful work of Afro-magic realism that interrogates the legacy of slavery and roots of poverty, witnesses the beauty and power in survival, and asks whether belief, magic, and intention can forge new realities



Blue's daughter, Tsitra, is dying a horrific death. Thousands of miles away, Blue feels time slowing and hears voices, followed by an 18-month stillness. More than a century before, Blue's grandparents, Amanda and Palmer, attend a salon party in New Orleans. It's a veritable array of who's-who within pre-Civil War social circles. Conversations get heated quickly as Ismay, the hostess who hails from French royalty, antagonizes Palmer, a landowner whose parents had been sold into American slavery and who's there to seek revenge, and Amanda, a shapeshifter and puzzlemaker who had been enslaved until this very gathering. At this party, Amanda learns of a plot that will doom a line of her--and Palmer's--family to poverty. She devises her own counter-plot to undo the damage.



Meanwhile, Blue comes out of her stillness, broke and devoid of inspiration. In profound grief and consumed by guilt, Blue travels to The Ranch where the voices grow louder and she has visions of two women from the distant past. As time collapses and Blue and Amanda meet in the space of possibility, Blue feels the spark of a power and creative energy she has only glimpsed. A novel of invention but grounded in the real, The Blue Is Where God Lives is a dual-timeline, time-bending novel of undeniable beauty, magic, and possibility.

The Blue Is Where God Lives

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Venise Berry

Pennsylvania

Conflicting desires for independence and security mark the actions and relationships of Lisa, Danielle, and Sundi, three Washington, D.C., women whose rapport sees them through difficult demands of love, commitment, family, career, and friendship. A first novel. 20,000 first printing. Tour.

So Good

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Kiese Laymon

Alabama

An American Memoir

*Named a Best Book of 2018 by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Critics* *WINNER of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and FINALIST for the Kirkus Prize * In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse. Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been. In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.

Heavy

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Omar R. Tyree

Louisiana

Keeping close tabs on a range of unsuspecting no-strings-attached and ruthlessly private boyfriends, Tabitha Night is offered a large sum of money to reveal her secrets by a banker who believes one of Tabitha's conquests molested his daughter.

Diary of a Groupie

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#hardcover #fiction #africanamerican #crossover #kwamealexander #newberry #ya #youngadult 

A middle-grade novel in verse follows the experiences of twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan, who struggle with challenges on and off the court while their father ignores his declining health. 20,000 first printing.

The Crossover

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Iowa

#hardcover #rosaparks #Alabama #civilrights #African-American #African-Americanwomen #history 

The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation

On June 15, 1999, Mrs. Rosa Parks was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor-a tribute to the power of one solitary woman to influence the soul of a nation. But awards and influence were far from her mind when, on December 1, 1955, she refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of social injustice and did not think a woman should be forced to stand so that a man could sit down. Yet her simple act of courage set in motion a chain of events that changed forever the landscape of American race relations. Quiet Strength celebrates the principles and convictions that have guided her through a remarkable life. It is a printed record of her legacy-her lasting message to a world still struggling to live in harmony. Book jacket.

Quiet Strength

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#Gullah #Beaufort #SouthCarolina #family #autobiography #history #Creole #AfricanAmerican #islanders #EvaSegar

Maryland

More Songs to Sing, Stories to Tell: Growing Up Gullah 2

Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book's main characters is also named City Coldson--but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan.

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Monica Clark-Robinson; Frank Morrison (Illustrator)

Let the Children March

Marie Bradby

More Than Anything Else

David Manning Thomas

All Night, All Day

Lawrence Ross

Friends With Benefits

Abi Ishola-Ayodeji

Patience Is a Subtle Thief

Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Ayana Mathis

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Paterson Joseph

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho

William Evans

We Inherit What the Fires Left

Stanley Sandler

Segregated Skies

Nikki Grimes

Between the Lines

Bernice L. McFadden

The Warmest December

Terry McMillan

The Interruption of Everything

Brandy Colbert

The Only Black Girls in Town

Casey Gerald

There Will Be No Miracles Here

Sharon Sochil Washington

The Blue Is Where God Lives

Venise Berry

So Good

Kiese Laymon

Heavy

Omar R. Tyree

Diary of a Groupie

Kwame Alexander

The Crossover

Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Rosa Parks; Gregory J. Reed

Quiet Strength

Eva Segar

More Songs to Sing, Stories to Tell: Growing Up Gullah 2

Kiese Laymon

Long Division