Sharon M. Draper

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Utah

A young girl who loves Double Dutch is caught in the crossfire of the secrets she, her best friend, and the school bullies are keeping in this emotional middle grade novel. Delia loves Double Dutch more than just about anything, and she’s really good at it—so good she and her teammates have a shot at winning the World Double Dutch Championships. Delia would die if she couldn’t jump—but she’s hiding something could keep her off the team next year. Delia’s friend Randy has a secret too, one that has him lonely and scared. And while Delia and Randy struggle to hide parts of themselves, their school is abuzz with rumors about what malicious mischief the terrible Tolliver twins—who just may have a hidden agenda of their own—are planning. Delia and Randy’s secrets collide on what should be the happiest day of Delia’s life, and the collision threatens to destroy their friendship. Why can’t life be as easy for Delia as Double Dutch?

Double Dutch

26545174-f56a-427a-a1ec-2b7892840a14-1

Rated 3.9 on Goodreads.
The charming real-life fairy tale of an American secretary who discovers she has been chosen king of an impoverished fishing village on the west coast of Africa.
 
King Peggy chronicles the astonishing journey of American secretary, Peggielene Bartels, who suddenly finds herself king to a town of 7,000 people on Ghana's central coast, half a world away. Upon arriving for her crowning ceremony in beautiful Otuam, she discovers the dire reality: there's no running water, no doctor, no high school, and many of the village elders are stealing the town's funds. To make matters worse, her uncle (the late king) sits in a morgue awaiting a proper funeral in the royal palace, which is in ruins. Peggy's first two years as king of Otuam unfold in a way that is stranger than fiction. In the end, a deeply traditional African town is uplifted by the ambitions of its decidedly modern female king, and Peggy is herself transformed, from an ordinary secretary to the heart and hope of her community.

Maryland

An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village

King Peggy

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Tennessee

The thing was that me and Rise were blood brothers, but sometimes I really didn't know him. . . .

And so Jesse fills his sketchbook with drawings and portraits of his blood brother, Rise, and his comic strip, Spodi Roti and Wise, as he makes sense of the complexities of friendship, loyalty, and loss in a neighborhood where drive-bys, vicious gangs, and abusive cops are everyday realities.

Printz Award winner Walter Dean Myers delivers an unforgettable novel about life's hardest lessons, illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Christopher Myers.

Autobiography of My Dead Brother

b23acfdd-2e8a-4fdc-9f24-2531e10cf532-1

Colson Whitehead

Arkansas

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Their first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels.

The Underground Railroad (Television Tie-In)

f7216fcb-eb32-4aa2-bbb7-d3181b9a5bcb-1

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Darryl Pickney

Jonathan Arac

Texas

The iconic abolitionist novel-in a striking new package

By exposing the extreme cruelties of slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe explores society's failures and asks- "What is it to be a moral human being?" This is a powerful, triumphant work that is an essential part of the collective experience of the American people.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

a62bbc6b-21e7-4a91-80f6-4eeec37ed954-1

Gordon Parks

Oregon

"A fine novel." THE BOSTON HERALD Photographer, writer, and composer, Gordon Parks has written a moving, true-to-life novel of growing up as a black man in this country in this century. Hailed by critics and readers alike, THE LEARNING TREE tells the extraordinary journey of a family as they struggle to understand the world around them and leave their mark a world that is better for their having been in it.

Learning Tree

fb243428-d113-4db0-ac30-f82ec64dbf2d-1

Sharon Flake

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Minnesota

Bang! Guns really sound like that, you know. Bang! And people bleed from everywhere, and blood is redder than you think. And little kids look funny in caskets. That's 'cause they ain't meant to be in one, I guess. Mann is only thirteen, yet he has already had to deal with more than most go through in a lifetime. His family is still reeling from the tragic shooting death of his little brother, Jason, each person coping with grief in his or her own way. Mann's mother has stopped eating and is obsessed with preserving Jason's memory, while his father is certain that presenting a hard edge is the only way to keep his remaining son from becoming a statistic. Mann used to paint and ride horseback, but now he's doing everything he can to escape his emotions: getting involved in fights at school, joyriding at midnight, and much worse. His father, at his wit's end, does the only thing he thinks will teach his son how to be a man: he abandons him and his friend Kee-Lee in the woods, leaving them to navigate their way home, alone. Now Mann, struggling to find his way back to civilization, must also reconcile himself to the realities of a world that has stolen his little brother, and that isn't even sure it still wants Mann in it. One wrong turn and it could all be over for him, too. Bang.

Bang!

3d28d1d1-5a96-43f6-b80f-5b2378c83f31-1

Emmanuel Acho

Virginia

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An urgent primer on race and racism, from the host of the viral hit video series
"Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man"

"You cannot fix a problem you do not know you have." So begins Emmanuel Acho in his essential guide to the truths Americans need to know to address the systemic racism that has recently electrified protests in all fifty states. "There is a fix," Acho says. "But in order to access it, we're going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations."

In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are afraid to ask--yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than ever. With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and "reverse racism." In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both. He asks only for the reader's curiosity--but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight.

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

5030c4d6-28f1-4dae-966b-1a2282e490f1-1

Rita Williams-Garcia

Pennsylvania

After travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, Delphine and her two sisters discover that their mother, a dedicated poet, wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

One Crazy Summer

ade3e44b-96a2-481f-8276-98652ee88e73-1

Ohio

Jesmyn Ward

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

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

Sing, Unburied, Sing

b6556e5d-d0fb-44ab-9acd-1f97969f2b23-1

#paperback #fiction #africanamerican #historical #bestseller #newyork #mystery #literary 

Illinois

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction Winner of the Gotham Book Prize One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year" Oprah's Book Club Pick Named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and TIME Magazine A Washington Post Notable Novel From the author of the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, comes one of the most celebrated novels of the year. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride’s funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion. Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.

Deacon King Kong

2be7d449-35a2-4739-b5a3-9182b5990342-1

V. Floumoy

Gift message on inner cover. Sticker residue on back cover. Light signs of use.

A young girl dreams of flying above her Harlem home, claiming all she sees for herself and her family. Based on the author's quilt painting of the same name.

Tar Beach

ad57e72c-5cdf-496b-b452-53e341020978-1

Delores Phillips

New Jersey

Fourteen-year-old Tangy Mae tells of the brutal physical and mental abuse that her mother inflicts on her and her ten siblings.

The Darkest Child

11c944a8-e502-43cc-bb4a-286b49d5fc4c-1

Washington

This is my America

James Weldon Johnson

This remarkable novel documents the life of an American of mixed ethnicity who moves freely in society — from the rural South to the urban North and eventually, Europe. A revolutionary work which not only probes the psychological aspects of "passing for white" but also examines the American caste and class system.

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

ad18681e-7315-4cf3-a732-568e9b9a1c45-1

Robert G. O'Meally

Frederick Douglass

Arizona

An American Slave

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

7e429ba3-a732-4de5-99f5-ce238234e9a1-1

Gloria Naylor

New Mexico

In a small Georgia town, Mama Day, uses her gifts as a seer and healer, but her powers are ultimately tested when her beloved niece's life hangs in the balance

Mama Day

a6232313-686c-4d17-916b-16951870a0d6-1

James McBride

New York

#paperback #fiction #secretlifeofbees #family #africanamerican #bestseller #friendship #contemporary 

Florida

The multi-million bestselling novel about a young girl's journey towards healing and the transforming power of love, from the award-winning author of The Invention of Wings and The Book of Longings Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sister, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

The Secret Life of Bees

80b7e115-7a80-452e-84cc-b5a40d2b6af8-1

#hardcover #fiction #africanamerican #urban #hotjohnny #sandrajacksonopoku #opoku

The life and times of Hot Johnny are seen through the eyes of the women who loved him, including Peaches, the prostitute who names him; his college soulmate Tree; Etta, the older woman who teaches him about love; and Destiny, his young wife.

Hot Johnny (And the Women Who Loved Him)

458b0af4-ce32-4ab0-bc6b-25678a6af206-1

Ishmael Reed

West Virginia

The classic freewheeling look at race relations through the ages.

Mumbo Jumbo is Ishmael Reed's brilliantly satiric deconstruction of Western civilization, a racy and uproarious commentary on our society. In it, Reed, one of our preeminent African American authors, mixes portraits of historical figures and fictional characters with sound bites on subjects ranging from ragtime to Greek philosophy. Cited by literary critic Harold Bloom as one of the five hundred most significant books in the Western canon, Mumbo Jumbo is a trenchant and often biting look at black-white relations throughout history, from a keen observer of our culture.

Mumbo Jumbo

13d7c960-1359-4737-8aa9-ffd91fa33b6d-1

Naima Coster

Instant New York Times bestseller and Read with Jenna Today Show book club pick, a multigenerational novel of motherhood, race and the American family. A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the span of the next twenty years. On one side of the integration debate is Jade, Gee's steely, ambitious mother. In the aftermath of a harrowing loss, she is determined to give her son the tools he'll need to survive in America as a sensitive, anxious, young Black man. On the other side is Noelle's headstrong mother, Lacey May, a white woman who refuses to see her half‑Latina daughters as anything but white. She strives to protect them as she couldn't protect herself from the influence of their charming but unreliable father, Robbie. When Gee and Noelle join the play meant to bridge the divide between new and old students, their paths collide, and their two seemingly disconnected families begin to form deeply knotted, messy ties that will shape the trajectory of their adult lives. And their mothers--each determined to see her child inherit a better life--will make choices that will haunt them for decades to come. As love is built and lost, and the past never too far behind, What's Mine and Yours is an expansive, vibrant tapestry that moves between the years, from the foothills of North Carolina, to Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Paris. It explores the unique organism that is every family: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Sharon M. Draper

Double Dutch

Peggielene Bartels; Eleanor Herman

King Peggy

Walter Dean Myers; Christopher Myers (Illustrator)

Autobiography of My Dead Brother

Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad (Television Tie-In)

Harriet Beecher Stowe; Darryl Pickney; Jonathan Arac

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Gordon Parks; Gordon Parks

Learning Tree

Sharon Flake

Bang!

Emmanuel Acho

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

Rita Williams-Garcia

One Crazy Summer

Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad (Television Tie-In)

Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing

James McBride

Deacon King Kong

V. Floumoy

Tar Beach

Delores Phillips

The Darkest Child

Kim Johnson

This is my America

James Weldon Johnson

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Robert G. O'Meally; Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Gloria Naylor

Mama Day

James McBride

Deacon King Kong

Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees

Sandra Jackson Opoku

Hot Johnny (And the Women Who Loved Him)

Ishmael Reed

Mumbo Jumbo

Naima Coster

What's Mine and Yours

Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing