african american biography books

40 best African American books, according to the NAACP

Image: 40 best African American and black books, according to the NAACP

On Saturday night, the NAACP celebrated the winners of its annual Image Awards event, spanning music, film and literature. We had shared all 40 nominees in the latter category last week and are back with an update on the winners below (you can also scroll through winners of all Image Awards categories ). Anthony Anderson hosted the event and some big names won some significant honors: Rihanna was awarded the 2020 President's Award, Lizzo was awarded the Entertainer of the Year Award, Michael B. Jordan won Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture and Just Mercy won Outstanding Motion Picture, Tracee Ellis Ross won the Actress in a Comedy — to name a few highlights.

Prepare to be moved!… 👑 Rihanna accepts the President’s Award honor at the 51st #NAACPImageAwards ! pic.twitter.com/cx91nLpMv3 — BET (@BET) February 23, 2020

Even before the awards were announced, there was plenty to celebrate: The majority of the NAACP’s annual Image Awards nominees this year were black women telling stories about black women, from Oscar winner Lupita N’yongo to Grammy winner Erica Campbell . And this year’s Black History Month is likewise celebrating other substantial moments, including the launch of the first-ever 24-hour news channel “by and for” African Americans, the largest propotion of African American members in the Super Bowl’s officiating crew than any NFL game ever, and Howard University’s largest ever donation for its STEM program.

This year, 40 books were nominated in the literature category, its genres running the gamut from fiction and YA to poetry and biography. Common themes among the nominees include police brutality, black identity in America, privilege, colorism, inherited generational trauma and the impact slavery carries still for today’s black population. A nominating committee numbering about 250 decide whom to award from the pool of candidates, much like the Oscars.

"The critical and awe-inspiring works of Black literature serve as the narration of and an outlet to share the achievements, trials, and victories of our community,” says Marc Banks, the NAACP’s national press secretary. “As early as 1915's “ Birth of A Nation ”, Banks explained, the NAACP had been recognizing the "power and sway of media."

"With that, the organization created partnerships with major studios and elected officials to monitor the image and portrayal of African Americans on the screen," Banks told NBC News. "The Image Awards has also been at the forefront of ensuring inclusion of all Americans, regardless of race, is a mainstay in the entertainment industry.”

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“The NAACP recognizes the importance of honoring those that use their pen to uplift, celebrate, and call attention to our culture, journey, and struggles,” Banks said. “As a people, so much of our history would be forgotten or altered without black writers to put our story on paper."

The Image Awards aired Feb. 22 on BET — the event’s first time airing on the network. Whether they win or not, these are the most important works of literature from and for the black community in 2020, according to the NAACP. If you’ve been looking to add to your reading list, this might be a good place to start.

Image Awards 2020 fiction winners and nominees

1. " new daughters of africa " by margaret busby.

A companion to Busby’s 1992 anthology “ Daughters of Africa ,” this compilation of literature comprises writing from 200 women of African descent including Andrea Levy, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ayòbámi Adébáyò, Warsan Shire and Zadie Smith.

New Daughters of Africa

2. " out of darkness, shining light: a novel " by petina gappah.

The story of how David Livingstone’s body was carried across Africa by those who accompanied him on his journey, sharing the stories of his travels and his death.

Out of Darkness, Shining Light: A Novel

3. "red at the bone: a novel" by jacqueline woodson.

Woodson, a celebrated black writer , follows three generations in Brooklyn and how their lives are impacted by a teenage pregnancy.

Red at the Bone

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4. "the revisioners: a novel" by margaret wilkerson sexton (winner).

Telling the story of two related black women, separated by 100 years, but related, “The Revisioners” displays the life of both a slave and her descendant.

The Revisioners

5. "the water dancer: a novel" by ta-nehisi coates.

Coates won the 2015 National Book Award for his previous “ Between The World And Me ,” as well as a MacArthur grant — he's also penned several Black Panther graphic novels.

The Water Dancer

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Image awards 2020 nonfiction nominees, 6. "breathe: a letter to my sons" by imani perry.

Scholar Imani Perry writes a letter to her children, a call for society to see black children as what they are: deserving of humane treatment.

7. "Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Gates won last year in the fiction category for “ The Annotated African American Folktales .” In this year’s entry, he tells a history of black Americans fighting for equality in post-Civil War America while also fighting the onslaught of White supremacy and supremacist propaganda through the 19th and 20th centuries.

Stony the Road

8. " the source of self-regard: selected essays, speeches, and meditations " by toni morrison (winner).

The late writer , Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner presents a new nonfiction collection of essays, speeches, and nonfiction writing on society, culture, and art from throughout her extensive 40-year career.

The Source of Self-Regard

9. " the yellow house: a memoir " by sarah m. broom.

A memoir about one hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in New Orleans East, Broom compiles oral history, cultural history, and admiration in her National Book Award-winning book.

The Yellow House

10. " what doesn't kill you makes you blacker: a memoir in essays " by damon young.

From the cofounder and editor-in-chief of VerySmartBrothas.com , Young presents a series of essays about how “existing while Black is an extreme sport.” Humorous, intelligent, and entertaining, this memoir takes you through the ever-changing idea of being a black man in America.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

Image awards 2020 debut author nominees, 11. " american spy: a novel " by lauren wilkinson.

Wilkinson’s novel follows an undervalued black American FBI agent who is recruited by the CIA to help overthrow a charismatic dictator in Burkina Faso.

American Spy

12. “ i am dance: words and images of the black dancer " by hal banfield and javier vasquez (winner).

The authors present the stories of black dancers and what being a dancer of color means to them.

13. " More Than Pretty: Doing The Soul Work To Uncover Your True Beauty " by Erica Campbell

Grammy-winning gospel singer Erica Campbell of singing group Mary Mary wants people to embrace their inner beauty and build confidence through the power of God.

More Than Pretty

14. " such a fun age " by kiley reid.

A New York Times bestseller, Reid delivers a send-up of identity politics and wokeness in this novel about privilege in America.

Such a Fun Age

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15. " the farm: a novel " by joanne ramos.

There’s a reason the book is being compared to The Handmaid’s Tale — it follows desperate women who have been allowed the chance to live in luxury in exchange for being surrogates for the world’s wealthiest people.

Image Awards 2020 biography/ autobiography nominees

16. " finding my voice: my journey to the west wing and the path forward " by valerie jarrett.

Jarrett was the longest serving senior adviser to President Barack Obama, and this biography touched on her life as a public servant, government leader, wife, lawyer and mother.

Finding My Voice

17. " free cyntoia: my search for redemption in the american prison system " by cyntoia brown-long.

Cyntoia Brown-Long was sentenced to life in prison for a murder she committed at the age of sixteen, becoming national news when activists worked to make the hashtag #FreeCyntoia go viral, leading to her eventual freedom. This is the story of her road to redemption.

Free Cyntoia

18. " more than enough: claiming space for who you are (no matter what they say) " by elaine welteroth (winner).

Welteroth’s memoir follows her life as she shattered glass ceilings on the road to becoming one of the most powerful black women in media.

More Than Enough

19. " my name is prince " by randee st. nicholas.

Longtime Prince photographer Nicholas shares stories of his 25 years following the musician, sharing intimate moments of their history.

My Name Is Prince

20. " the beautiful ones " by prince and dan piepenbring.

Piepenbring was set to co-write Prince’s biography before the musician’s unexpected death in 2016, and this memoir makes up the 30 pages Prince had finished.

The Beautiful Ones

Image awards 2020 instructional nominees, 21. " inspire your home: easy, affordable ideas to make every room glamorous " by farah merhi.

Instagram star and founder of Inspire Me! Home Décor , Merhi shares her tips and tricks to making your house a fabulous home without breaking the bank.

Inspire Your Home

22. " letters to the finishers (who struggle to finish) " by candace e. wilkins.

Not quite a self-help book, Wilkins doesn’t claim to be perfect — she’s a work in progress, and this book is a love letter to all of the people who start projects but struggle to get them done.

Letters to the Finishers

23. " more than pretty: doing the soul work to uncover your true beauty " by erica campbell.

In her second nomination on this list, Grammy-winning gospel singer Erica Campbell of singing group Mary Mary wants people to embrace their inner beauty and build confidence through the power of God.

24. " Vegetables Unleashed " by José Andres

Chef, restaurateur, and philanthropist Andres wants to change the way you eat vegetables.

Vegetables Unleashed

25. " your next level life: 7 rules of power, confidence, and opportunity for black women in america " by karen arrington (winner).

Looking to find your #BlackGirlMagic? Arrington is set to inspire you to get to your next level.

Your Next Level Life

Image awards 2020 poetry nominees, 26. " a bound woman is a dangerous thing: the incarceration of african american women from harriet tubman to sandra bland " by damaris b. hill.

Hill presents a collection of poems about black women who have struggled for the pursuit of protest, and honors them while unflinchingly discussing the American shame that accompanies their treatment.

A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing

27. " felon: poems " by reginald dwayne betts (winner).

Betts’ third collection of poems touches on the world of incarceration and what comes afterward. Betts was just 16 when he was charged with carjacking in Virginia, and was in prison for more than eight years before his release in 2005.

28. " Honeyfish " by Lauren K. Alleyne

Alleyne’s collection of poetry memorializes and mourns black men and women who have been the victims of police brutality.

29. " Mistress " by Chet'la Sebree

This book of poems serves a conversation across generations between Sally Hemings and a contemporary narrator about the way black women walk through the world and the overly simplistic way we talk about them.

30. " The Tradition " by Jericho Brown

This poetry collection touches on the normalization of evil, and the question of who is safe and who is not — it was nominated for a National Book Award for Poetry .

The Tradition

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Image awards 2020 children's nominees, 31. " a place to land: martin luther king jr. and the speech that inspired a nation " by barry wittenstein and jerry pinkney.

A children’s biography of activist Martin Luther King Jr. and how he wrote his famous speech for the 1963 March on Washington.

A Place to Land

32. " hair love " by matthew a. cherry and vashti harrison.

Based on the Academy Award-winning short of the same name, “Hair Love” is an ode to loving natural hair and to black daddies and daughters everywhere.

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33. " parker looks up: an extraordinary moment " by parker curry, jessica curry and brittany jackson.

The photo of the two-year-old admiring Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of Michelle Obama at the National Portrait Gallery that went viral gets the novel treatment.

Parker Looks Up

34. " ruby finds a worry " by tom percival.

Ruby is an excitable and adventurous child until she finds a Worry, and that slowly becomes all she can think about — before she meets a boy with a Worry of his own.

Ruby Finds a Worry

35. " sulwe " by lupita nyong'o and vashti harrison (winner).

Sulwe has skin as dark as midnight, and just wants to be seen as beautiful. Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o wrote this children’s novel about colorism, loving your skin and self-confidence.

Image Awards 2020 youth/teens nominees

36. " around harvard square " by c.j. farley (winner).

A Jamaican student-athlete at Harvard has one goal: writing for the famous humor magazine “The Harvard Lampoon” — he must overcome race and class issues to get there.

Around Harvard Square

37. " her own two feet: a rwandan girl's brave fight to walk " by meredith davis and rebeka uwitonze.

Rebeka Uwitonze was born in Rwanda with curled and twisted feet and must take extreme risks to walk on the bottoms of her feet for the first time.

Her Own Two Feet

38. " hot comb " by ebony flowers.

This graphic novel gives a glimpse into black hair salon culture through this coming-of-age story about a girl’s first perm.

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39. " i'm not dying with you tonight " by kimberly jones and gilly segal.

Two girls with very different lives and backgrounds must rely on each other to survive the race riot that takes over their town.

I'm Not Dying with You Tonight

40." the forgotten girl " by india hill brown.

Part ghost story, part historical novel, this book follows a young girl as she tries to reclaim an abandoned segregated cemetery and change the legacy of racism.

The Forgotten Girl

Black History Month NBC BLK Ignite: stories that provide historical context for the black experience in America.

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20 of the Most Essential Books on Black History

With the indomitable power of their words, Black writers have changed the world, battling the most pressing social justice issues of their time while also telling arresting stories about how Black people live and love.

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Simply put—28 days does not cut it. Nor does any one list of books . To try and simplify the Black experience into one exhaustive list is as misguided as the notion that only one month should revere the wit, wisdom, and artistry of those Black trailblazers who have altered history. This list of essential books is by no means encyclopedic, but we’ve sought to include classic must-reads, as well as works by contemporary and emerging writers who are well on their way to reimagining the canon.

Dive into these books to enrich your understanding of the Black experience, in all its glorious intersections. And remember: Black history month is every month.

Algonquin Books Libertie, by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Inspired by the life of one of the first Black female physicians in the United States, this mesmerizing novel begins in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, where Libertie Sampson is expected to follow her mother’s path in the medical field, despite her musical calling. When a Haitian doctor proposes marriage, promising to live as her equal in Haiti, she elopes with him, only to discover that colorism and sexism reign supreme on the island. Freedom in all its forms comes under Greenidge’s powerful lens: freedom from oppression, freedom to choose one’s own destiny, freedom to love and forgive. What emerges from her careful study is a powerful, transporting story about self-determination in an oppressive world.

Little, Brown and Company How the Word Is Passed, by Clint Smith

One of the decade's most visionary works of nonfiction is this radical reckoning with slavery, as represented in the nation’s monuments, plantations, and landmarks. As he tours the country, Smith observes the wounds of slavery hiding in plain sight, from Confederate cemeteries to plantations turned tourist traps, like Monticello. As he considers how the darkest chapter of our nation’s past has been sanitized for public consumption, Smith explores how slavery has shaped our collective history, and how we might hope for a more truthful collective future.

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones

In this groundbreaking compendium of essays, poems, works of fiction, and photography, Hannah-Jones expands on her Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Magazine project about the “unparalleled impact” of chattel slavery on American life. These bracing and urgent works, by multidisciplinary visionaries ranging from Barry Jenkins to Jesmyn Ward, build on the existing scholarship of The 1619 Project , exploring how the nation’s original sin continues to shape everything from our music to our food to our democracy. This collection is an extraordinary update to an ongoing project of vital truth-telling.

Atria Books The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this blistering work of semi-autobiographical fiction about Nella, the lone Black employee at Wagner Books. The arrival of Hazel, another Black editorial assistant, seems like the answer to Nella’s prayers—but Hazel isn’t the ally she seems to be. When Nella begins to receive threatening anonymous notes demanding that she leave Wagner, she immediately suspects Hazel. The truth is far more sinister, exposing Nella to a dangerous conspiracy that alters her worldview forever. In this powerful story of racism, privilege, and gatekeeping’s damage to the Black psyche, Harris puts corporate America on blast.

Read an exclusive interview with Harris here at Esquire .

Crossing Press Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, by Audre Lorde

In this unforgettable meditation on women and love, Lorde pioneered the genre she called biomythography: an evocative blend of history, biography, and mythmaking. Lorde poignantly recounts moving through the world as an outsider, a queer Black woman longing for the unknown home of her West Indian parents. Tracing her youth in the bohemian lesbian bar scene circa 1950s New York, Lorde illuminates how the love of women saved her, chasing away her loneliness to leave a renewed wellspring of humanity, identity and community. In these lyrical pages, Lorde goes from lost to found, writing, “Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me.”

Vintage Jazz, by Toni Morrison

History is a living wound in Jazz , a sensuous masterpiece that hopscotches through time from the Great Migration to the Harlem Renaissance. The novel opens with a funeral where Violet, a middle-aged New Yorker, mutilates the corpse of teenaged Dorcas, the lover and murder victim of her unfaithful husband, Joe. From that inflection point of passion and brutality, Morrison looks backward into the past, exploring how the nation’s reprehensible inheritance of racism and colorism informs Black urban life. Morrison’s language, evocative and sensually stylized as ever, shapes the novel like a jazz arrangement, with the solo voices of ancillary characters blotting out the mysterious narrator, then coalescing to form a mellifluous symphony. Masterfully constructed from history, legend, and myth, Jazz locates humanity within tragedy, birthing a bittersweet love story from the ashes of suffering.

Harper Perennial Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

In her much-lauded masterwork, Hurston lyrically captures one woman’s lifelong search for independence and self-actualization, tracing her journey through three tumultuous marriages and an ultimate return to her Florida roots. In Janie Crawford, Hurston’s indomitable protagonist, we see the forebearer of Toni Morrison’s Sethe and Alice Walker’s Celie. Hurston’s prose approaches the sublime, blending luscious poetry with southern vernacular, earning her the title that has long stuck to her name: “Genius of the South.” Though Hurston’s work slid into obscurity for decades, Their Eyes Were Watching God now looms rightfully large in the American canon, enduring in the hearts of readers as an unforgettable story of a vibrant Black woman determined to choose her own destiny.

imusti Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of Between the World and Me , a lyrical, landmark meditation on Blackness in contemporary America, and the book that announced the arrival of Ta-Nehisi Coates as a once-in-a-generation talent. In a luminous epistolary voice, Coates shares painful, radical truths with his fifteen-year-old son, speaking powerfully about the racist violence baked into American culture. Ever since Between the World and Me , Coates’ status as a major writer and thinker—one of our last true public intellectuals—has been undeniable.

Vintage The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

In this masterpiece of epic, Steinbeckian scale, woven in an ageless voice brimming with lyricism and folk wisdom, Wilkerson chronicles The Great Migration, a decades-long exodus of Black Americans from the Jim Crow South to the cities of the North and West. Drawing on a staggering volume of research, including over a thousand interviews and newly released public records, Wilkerson chronicles a national movement through the grueling journeys of three subjects, who risked everything to put down roots far from home. Through their food, faith, and culture, these migrants shaped American cities in their own image, transforming them into the vibrant places where we live today. In these towering, compulsively readable pages, Wilkerson makes visible the “unrecognized immigration” that has shaped our modern nation.

Scribner The Fire This Time, edited by Jesmyn Ward

"’The world is before you,’ I want to tell my daughters,” writes Edwidge Danticat in this blistering collection, "’and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.’" In these galvanizing essays and poems, framed as a response to James Baldwin’s seminal 1963 collection, The Fire Next Time , some of the most preeminent Black intellectuals of Ward’s generation shine a light into the state of race in America. In her introduction, Ward tasks each writer with examining "the ugly truths that plague us in this country"; the writers anthologized here explore such subjects as white rage, walking while Black, public mourning, and national amnesia over slavery, among other topics. With searing new work from Claudia Rankine, Natasha Trethewey, Isabel Wilkerson, Kiese Laymon, and more, this anthology demands that the country confront the stains of racism baked into so much of American life.

Graywolf Press Don't Call Us Dead, by Danez Smith

“I spent my life arguing how I mattered until it didn’t matter,” writes Smith in this radiant, combustive collection of poems, wherein they confront the myriad forms of violence America visits on the bodies and souls of Black people. Don’t Call Us Dead opens with “summer, somewhere,” a gutting poem imagining an afterlife for the Black men murdered by police officers; Smith goes on to write about living with an HIV positive diagnosis, while also celebrating the joy and eroticism of queer love. Woven through with beauty, brutality, and heartbreak, this collection is an unmissable achievement from a singular poetic talent.

Scribner Heavy, by Kiese Laymon

In his searing, fearless memoir, Laymon tells the story of his body, from his adolescent obesity to his early experiences of sexual violence to the racist politicization of Black bodies in America. Writing to and for his mother, Laymon recounts his childhood in Jackson, Mississippi, where his brilliant but struggling single mother was the center of his world, embracing him with one arm and beating him with the other. Throughout his journey to become a college professor, Laymon wrestled with disordered eating and body dysmorphia; meanwhile, shame, confusion, and trauma inhibited his ability to form healthy relationships. These haunted pages illuminate how systemic failures give rise to personal traumas, yet all of it is threaded through with complicated, enduring tenderness for the places and people who made Laymon.

The Feminist Press at CUNY But Some of Us Are Brave, edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith

Originally published in 1982, this indispensable volume revolutionized women’s studies; as Audre Lorde described the book’s impact, it was “the beginning of a new era, where the ‘women’ in women’s studies will no longer mean ‘white.’” But Some of Us Are Brave confronts the absence of Black feminist scholarship in women’s studies, demanding a more robust intersectional feminism, while also challenging racism and advocating for Black female scholars to have their rightful place in the social sciences. With contributions by Alice Walker, Michele Wallace, and dozens of other distinguished writers, But Some of Us Are Brave remains an invaluable resource, even decades after its publication.

Balzer & Bray/Harperteen Felix Ever After, by Kacen Callender

In this big-hearted young adult novel authored by last year’s winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, we meet a beguiling protagonist for the ages: Felix, an artistic transgender Black teen, who dreams of a great love story while fearing he’ll never meet The One. At a prestigious summer arts program, Felix is devastated when an anonymous bully publicizes pre-transition photos of him, captioned with his deadname. His catfishing revenge plot sends him down a path of questioning and self-discovery, all punctuated by falling in love for the first time. Overflowing with heartfelt teen firsts, like forgiveness, heartbreak, and self-discovery, Felix Ever After excavates the messy glories of love, both for others and for ourselves.

The University of North Carolina Press Remaking Black Power, by Ashley D. Farmer

In this comprehensive scholarly analysis, Farmer challenges long-held misconceptions about the role of women in the Black Power movement, complicating the assumption that sexism routinely sidelined female activists. Farmer depicts the radical strides these women made in dismantling racism, sexism, and classism, while also illustrating how that radical activism has continued to reverberate in the decades since. Through a rigorous multimedia analysis encompassing artwork, political cartoons, and manifestos, Farmer illuminates just how essential the women of the Black Power movement were, tracing their efforts in decades past to the continued centrality of Black women in the fight for social justice.

Simon & Schuster How We Fight for Our Lives, by Saeed Jones

Written with the fierce, blistering sensuality characteristic of his poetry, this bracing memoir of Jones’ coming-of-age follows his serpentine journey of self-discovery, from unrequited lust to furtive sexual encounters to hurtful censure from loved ones. Jones recounts growing up as a queer Black boy in Texas, where his family preferred not to have its secrets spoken aloud, but where the influences of his mother and grandmother shaped him profoundly. In these laser-sharp pages, Jones examines the fraught intersection between race and queerness, making for a layered meditation on self-actualization that’s at once tender and brutal.

Bloomsbury USA Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward

In this National Book Award-winning novel, one of our finest storytellers unspools the miraculous story of Esch, a pregnant, motherless teenager living in generational poverty with her three brothers and her hard-drinking father. As Hurricane Katrina barrels toward their ramshackle home in coastal Mississippi, it’s the tender, sinewy bonds of family that rescue these characters from the storm. Viscerally crafted and soaked to its loamy bones in Southern Gothic sorrow, this novel is at once a poignant study of a dispossessed girl stepping into motherhood and a lyrical portrait of Black life in the rural south. Ward writes of Esch, “She made things happen that had never happened before.” The same could be said of Ward, who volcanically reinvents what the novel can do and be with her every publication.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Luster, by Raven Leilani

Raw, racy, and utterly mesmerizing, Luster marks the arrival of a major new voice in American letters. Twenty-something Edie is drifting ever closer to self-destruction; after losing her dead-end admin job in a publishing office rife with racism and misogyny, she turns to delivering takeout by bike in order to make the rent on her squalid Bushwick apartment, where she spends her nights growing in fits and starts in her development as a painter. Meanwhile, she’s sleeping with a much-older man in an open marriage, whose carefully constructed boundaries come crashing down when his enigmatic wife invites a destitute Edie to stay in their suburban home. There Edie meets Akila, the couple’s recently adopted Black daughter, to whom Edie grows close when she realizes that she may be the only Black woman in this young teenager’s life. Leilani brings painterly precision and biting humor to a feverish novel where each pyrotechnic sentence is a joy to experience. Dreamlike, tender, and big-hearted, Luster is a must-read from an immeasurably talented young writer.

Knopf Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi

In Homegoing , Gyasi masterfully maneuvered a multi-generational story through three hundred years of Ghanaian and American history; in her sophomore effort, Transcendent Kingdom , she narrows her narrative scope without sacrificing any of her storytelling heft. Gyasi’s inimitable protagonist is Gifty, a neuroscience PhD candidate studying depression and addiction. Gifty’s research hits close to home, as she’s seeking to solve the suffering in her own family, shattered by her brother’s fatal drug overdose and her mother’s subsequent bottomless depression. As she searches for meaning in meaningless tragedy, Gifty questions the evangelical faith she was raised in, making for a powerful novel about the push and pull between science and spirituality, as well as a heartbreaking meditation on the ties that bind.

VIKING What We Lose, by Zinzi Clemmons

This slim, spectacular novel, told in searing vignettes, is the story of Thandi, the Pennsylvania-born daughter of a South African mother and an American father, who moves through the world as “a strange in-betweener”—caught between Black and white, American and not. Clemmons masterfully traces Thandi’s becoming, from awakening to her privileges to grieving her mother’s death to becoming a mother herself. Through Thandi’s gripping, intimate thoughts, Clemmons shapes a masterful meditation on biracial identity, while also evoking bittersweet insights about the relationship between love and loss.

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50 Outstanding Black History Month Books

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Get inspired and informed by the lives, experiences, struggles, achievements, and contributions of Black individuals throughout history to the present day. Teachers, parents, & librarians, you’ll find the best r ead-aloud Black History Month books with this list of picture book biographies for February and all year round.

Up until now, I haven’t written a post with a list of picture book biographies for kids to read for Black History Month because it worries me to think that there would be only one month out of the year in which we read biographies about amazing African Americans. The only reason I’m writing this list now is with the hope that this is not the case. Just like I review books year-round, this list will help teachers, parents, and librarians find excellent children’s book biographies to read any time of the year. Right?

That being said, let’s talk about Black History Month for a minute. It is celebrated during the month of February in the United States and was started by Black United Students. Black History Month was officially recognized month in February 1976. It’s a chance to stop and reflect, honor and celebrate.

I’ve organized the books into sections related to their impact on the world: scientists, artists, activists, leaders, athletes, and more . Also, the people in these books are mostly African Americans, but there are some international Black history biographies as well.

Many of these children’s books are about regular people who did amazing things. Some are famous. Most aren’t. I love that biographies like these teach children how we can all change the world. One person at a time is all it takes.

I hope these children’s books will give your preschool and elementary-age readers knowledge of the contributions of incredible folks as well as new ideas for ways that they can make a difference in the world, too!

Read the Black History Month books any time, ask questions, connect to your own life, and discuss!

Table of Contents:

Artists, Actors, & Writers

Other Black Biographies and Biography Collections

Picture Book Biographies for Black History Month

George Washington Carver Loved Plants (Little Naturalists) by Kate Coombs, illustrated by Seth Lucas SCIENTIST A simple but informative biographical board book shares the inspiring story of George Washington Carver. Kids will learn how people called George “Plant Doctor” even as a boy , and that he went to college to study agriculture, taught at an all-black college, and helped people rotate crops and plant things like peanuts. Inviting earth-toned illustrations helps capture this man’s inspiring life story.

Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed, illustrated by Stasia Burrington SCIENTIST Beautifully illustrated and inspirationally written! Little Mae dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Her parents told her she could do it if she worked hard, taking Mae to the library to find information and encouraging her astronaut pretend play after dinner. Despite her teacher’s discouragement (“ Nursing would be a good profession for someone like you, “) Mae listened to her mom while sticking to her dream. Mae kept dreaming, believing, and working hard. Finally, she became the first African American female astronaut in space.

Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, illustrated by Laura Freeman MATHEMATICIANS An essential book for Black History Month, learn about Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden who worked for NASA during a time when being women and black was a lot harder than in today’s world. It’s really cool to learn about the work they did, providing calculations that made a difference in the world and set a new standard for other black women.

The Doctor With an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia Bath by Julia Finley Mosca, illustrated by Daniel Rieley SCIENTIST Read how Patricia, despite being a girl and African American, stood firm in her goal to become a doctor. She became a doctor and later invented the laser probe to heal eyes.

What Color is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld, illustrated by Ben Boos & A.G. Ford SCIENTISTS Twins, Herbie and Ella, move into a new house where they meet Mr. Mital, a handyman who surprises the kids with fascinating information about African-American scientists. Throughout the narrative are non-fiction lift-the-flap sidebars and two-page spread biographies of people like James E. West who invented a compact microphone used in race cars or Frederick McKinley Jones, Dr. Percy Lavon Julian, George Crum, Dr. Valerie L. Thomas, and many others. The large size of the book, the fold-out parts, and bright illustrations make it an appealing design for kids.

Counting the Stars: The Story of Katherine Johnson NASA Mathematician by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by Raul Colon STEM You can’t help but be inspired by Katherine’s life story. Katherine, after zipping through her schooling early because she is so smart, finds a job as a teacher. But she’s most well known for her next job as a human calculator for NASA’s space program , helping the first American travel to space.

Activist Biographies

IBlack History Month Picture Book Biographies

I am Martin Luther King, Jr. by Brad Meltzer, illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos ACTIVIST This nonfiction picture book biography series for young readers is absolutely fantastic. The book about Martin Luther King, Jr. shows a white friend who wouldn’t play with Margin because he was Black and how it hurt his feelings. The biography does NOT end with his death but ends on a positive note of standing strong and facing struggles.

Wangari Maathai Planted Trees (Little Naturalists) by Kate Coombs, illustrated by Seth Lucas ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST A board book biography perfect for preschool readers. Learn about environmentalist and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai. While she studied at school in America, men cut down trees in her homeland. When she returned home, she wondered where all the birds and streams had gone so she asked other women of Kenya to help her plant new trees — and they planted 50 million trees. Lovely earth-toned illustrations.

The Escape of Robert Smalls A Daring Voyage Out of Slavery by Jehan Jones-Radgowski, illustrated by Poppy Kang ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY Don’t miss this heart-stopping, inspiring story of a daring escape from slavery on a Confederate ship . It’s a true story of a heroic man!

Black History Month Picture Book Biographies

Let The Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson, illustrated by Frank Morrison ACTIVIST You’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect historical picture book. The author shares the events leading up to a Birmingham, Alabama march with only of children and teens. The illustrations are dynamic, too, showing expressive children and passionate adults — each two-page spread evokes an emotion. I LOVE this book so much.

Someday is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-Ins by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, illustrated by Jade Johnson ACTIVIST With captivating folk-art style illustrations, this biography narrates the story of an amazing woman named Clara who advocated for justice and equality during a time when Black people weren’t permitted the same rights as white people. As a teacher, she inspired her students to believe that change was possible. For example, Clara and her students went to the Katz drugstore and asked to be served — even though the store didn’t serve Black people.

Ona Judge Outwits the Washingtons: An Enslaved Woman Fights for Freedom by Gwendolyn Hooks, illustrated by Simone Agoussoye ACTIVIST Ona Judge’s life is captured in this picture book biography, introducing younger readers to Ona, the personal slave to Martha Washington, who eventually escaped to freedom . Not only will it give readers a sense of life as a slave, but it will also show that George Washington owned slaves who were treated like property and not paid.

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Kadir Nelson ACTIVIST / LEADER I love this beautifully illustrated, lyrically written picture book biography book that shows how incredibly brave and determined Harriet Tubman was and how her faith in God was part of everything she did.

Lilian’s Right To Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Shane W. Evans ACTIVIST Blueish-tinted illustrations capture the somber mood of Lillian’s memories in this historical nonfiction picture book. Lilian’s memories begin with her great-great-grandparents who were slaves, sold, and separated from each other. As Lillian remembers all people who struggled to gain equal rights and all who have gone before her, she walks slowly up a steep hill to cast her vote. Gaining the right to vote was a journey, somewhat like her steep climb up the hill, and is an important part of Black History Month.

Chasing Freedom by Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Michele Wood ACTIVIST This lovely picture book is about Susan B. Anthony and Harriet Tubman — two women who changed the world — and are important in understanding black history in the United States.

Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass by Dean Robbins, illustrated by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko ACTIVIST You’ll find this to be a fascinating glimpse of two activists who are both fighting for their rights — one for women and one for black Americans.

Mambo Mucho Mambo the Dance That Crossed Color Lines by Dean Robbins, illustrated by Eric Velasquez ACTIVIST In 1940s New York, a dance called the Mambo helped to desegregate dance halls. When Machito and His Afro-Cubans brought the Mambo to New York, dancers from all backgrounds loved it. Their exuberance brought them together at the Palladium Ballroom which made a daring move to open to all races and ethnic groups who wanted to dance.

Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Eric Shabazz Larkin ACTIVIST Most people don’t have Will Allen’s vision. Instead of an abandoned city lot, he saw a farm. In fact, he figured out how to create an innovative urban farm despite huge obstacles. Very inspiring.

Rosa Parks & Claudette Colvin: Civil Rights Heroes by Tracey Baptiste, illustrated by Shauna J. Grant ACTIVISTS Learn more about the important contributions of women like Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, and Jo Ann Robinson to the Civil Rights Movement. Because before Mrs. Parks, there was a girl named Claudette Colvin who also refused to move to the back of the bus and was arrested. When Rosa Parks also got arrested for not moving to the back of the bus, another woman named Jo Ann Robinson thought of the bus boycott idea. The bus boycott dragged on and on — but through the actions of so many individuals who bravely stood up against injustice, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was illegal.

Magic Trash by J.H. Shapiro, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton ARTIST This is the true story of artist Tyree Guyton who made his own crime-ridden Detroit neighborhood into an urban canvas in the 1980s. His grandfather told him to “paint the world” and that’s exactly what Guyton did using houses, trash, found objects, and more. As a result, Guyton created magic and healing for the community. Read more at the Heidelberg Project website .

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet ARTIST Horace loved to draw. He liked to paint exactly what he saw. Even after a wound in WWI prevented him from using his right arm without help from his left, he began painting as an adult again, paintings that are now hung in museums. I adore the whimsy of Melissa Sweet’s illustrations in this inspiring biography.

Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks by Suzanne Blade, illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera POET Talk about a growth mindset! Gwendolyn loved words and poetry and from a young age, wrote poetry of her own. She never had monetary success but with persistence and dedication, she eventually found success as an adult with publications and winning the Pulitzer Prize.

Stitch by Stitch Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly Sews Her Way to Freedom by Connie Schofield-Morrison, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon SEAMSTRESS & DESIGNER Stunning mixed-media illustrations add so much to this story of Lizzy who was born into slavery and worked as a successful seamstress to support her owners. A group of Lizzy’s patrons and friends in St. Louis helped Lizzy buy her own freedom for $1,200 and which Lizzy paid back, stitch by stitch. Once free, Lizzy’s clients grew and included the wives of Senator Jefferson Davis and President Abraham Lincoln, who she fit in elegant gowns that were admired by all.

Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton by Don Tate WRITER George loved words and even though he was a slave, he taught himself to read and began composing verses. When students at Chapel Hill began to pay George for his poetry, a professor helped him learn to write which led to his poems protesting slavery being published in the newspaper. But his owner would never sell George, no matter how what George’s fans and friends offered. It took until George was 66 years old to be freed from slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation.

You Gotta Meet Mr. Pierce: The Storied Life of Folk Artist Elijah Pierce by Chiquita Mullins Lee and Carmella Ven Vlett, illustrated by Jennifer Mack-Watkins ARTIST I love this clever biographical format where the subject of the biography tells a boy about his life. When a boy’s dad takes him to a barber named Mr. Pierce, who is also a wood carver, Mr. Pierce tells the boy about how he learned to carve wood and how he tells stories with each carving. Notice how the illustrations look like wood carving folk art!

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe ARTIST This picture book biography won the Caldecott award for illustration in 2017. The illustrations are painted (and collaged) on found wood and are EPIC! You could frame every single page! The story is about the sometimes challenging young life of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat .

Take a Picture of Me, James VanDerZee! by Andrea J. Loney, illustrated by Keith Mallett PHOTOGRAPHER James VanDerZee got his first camera by winning a contest where he had to sell the most perfumed sachets. From that moment on, h e worked hard to be the best photographer he could be , even moving to New York City where he eventually opened his own photography studio. His story is fascinating, as are the people whom he captured in photographs during the Harlem Renaissance, many of which were displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a special exhibit.

Salt in His Shoes by Deloris Jordan & Roslyn M. Jordan, illustrated by Kadir Nelson ATHLETE Mike wants to grow taller so he’ll be better at basketball. His mom tells him to put salt in his shoes and say a prayer every night. But his father also tells young Michael that it also takes hard work and patience. It’s an optimistic, growth mindset perspective.

Muhammad Ali: A Champion Is Born by Gene Barretta, illustrated by Frank Morrison ATHLETE Kids should all learn the story of Muhammad Ali because his determination and grit are so inspiring. And to think, it all started with a stolen bicycle! Read how a police officer got Ali into boxing as well as about his never-waning confidence and the grueling workouts. Superbly done. He’s a hero to many.

Marvelous Mabel by Crystal Hubbard, illustrated by Alleanna Harris Mabel’s early life was difficult, and sometimes she was homeless. She dreamed of ice skating despite the restrictions on where she could skate as a Black girl. Mabel skated and practiced and because of other shows’ racism, created her own touring show. Inspirational.

Wilma Unlimited by Kathleen Kull, illustrated by David Diaz ATHLETE After having polio as a child, Wilma was told she wouldn’t walk again, let alone run. But Wilma was determined. She worked hard, becoming the first American woman to win three gold medals at the Olympics. This is a favorite picture biography about an athlete.

Stephen Curry: The Boy Who Never Gave Up by Anthony Curcio ATHLETE People said Steph Currey was too short, too weak, and not good enough. But he followed his dreams and proved everyone wrong. This picture book biography will be popular with sports lovers.

Above the Rim How Elgin Baylor Changed Basketball by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Frank Morrison ATHLETE Elgin grew up during segregation which dictated where he was allowed to play basketball and attend college. Despite this, he was the top recruit for the NBA but traveling with his basketball team, he was often turned away from hotels because of the color of his skin. Eglin protested the discrimination by sitting out of basketball games. His activist actions worked. The NBA put out a statement that they would not give their business to hotels and restaurants that discriminated against Black people. Rich, evocative illustrations and lyrical writing perfectly capture the importance of Eglin’s life and impact.

Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews, illustrated by Bryan Collier MUSICIAN Growing up in New Orleans is a life filled with music. Troy sees his musician family members and follows the bands in parades. One day he finds an old trombone that he dedicates himself to learning. And as you might have guessed, that’s how he got his nickname, Trombone Shorty. Gorgeous Caldecott-winning illustrations!

A Voice Named Aretha by Katheryn Russell-Brown, illustrated by Laura Freeman SINGER This picture book shares the story of how Aretha used her pain and passion to become a world-known soul singer. After reading about this iconic, groundbreaking singer, listen to some of her greatest hits.

When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop by Laban Carrick Hill, illustrated by Theodore Taylor III MUSICIAN Clive loved music. He really wanted to be a DJ. After moving to the Bronx from Jamaica, he eventually became DJ Kool Herc, known for playing records differently. He had two turntables so he could have breaks for hip-hop dancing. Because of this innovation, he is credited with helping start the movement of hip-hop.

Nina A Story of Nina Simone by Traci N. Todd, illustrated by Christian Robinson MUSICIAN Eunice, the daughter of a female minister, grew up immersed in music. Due to racism, she was denied entry to Julliard and she stopped playing music for a while. But not long. She started playing and then, singing in a bar but she gave herself a stage name so her mom wouldn’t find out– Nina Simone. Not only did Nina become a hugely popular singer despite the racism she faced, but she also used her music as activism. Beautiful artwork throughout.

Sonny Rollins Plays the Bridge by Gary Golio, illustrated by James Ransome MUSICIANS Lyrical and poetic, the writing in this gorgeous picture book brings Sunny Rollins’s passion for his saxophone to life. Rollins, a man who believed in honing his craft, decided to forgo performing and spend his days playing more. With saxophone in hand, he walks to the Williamsburg Bridge where he plays anything and everything just as loud as he wants. He’s accompanied by the noises of the city like clanking clanging subway cars, bass notes from tugboats, and squeaking, squawking seagulls.

Little Melba and Her Big Trombone by Katheryn Russell-Brown, illustrated by Frank Morrison MUSICIAN Little Melba Doretta Liston was something special! She loved music and taught herself to play the trombone. Her gift led her to become a famous trombone player and arranger. A delightful musician picture book biography for black history month or anytime!

Rule the Music Scene Like Queen Beyonce Knowles by Caroline Moss, illustrated by Sinem Erkas MUSICIAN You’ll zip through this impressive biography with information, history, conversation, and short chapters all accompanied by cool graphic illustrations. You don’t have to be a Beyonce fan to enjoy this biography because it’s so well-written and appealing.

Black Leaders

Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson Growing up in the prejudicial apartheid South Africa, Nelson Mandela faced horrible racism and a long time in prison. Despite all of this, his spirit continued to be strong. He eventually realized his dream to improve the country and give equal rights to all people by becoming a strong leader and president of his country. This isn’t an American Black History Month book but equally important in world history.

The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson This moving, emotionally compelling poem celebrates the strong, unforgettable, hard-working black Americans who persevered through slavery, prejudice, war, civil rights, and who rise up, cool and unbending. The lush, realistic illustrations feel transcendent. A must-read for Black History Month or any time of year.

Lift Every Voice and Change: A Celebration of Black Leaders and the Words that Inspire Generation by Charnaie Gordon, illustrated by Aeron Cargill One page of biographical text plus an illustration features important Black leaders like Booker T. Washington, Jay-Z, James Baldwin, Katherine Johnson, and Ayo Tometi. Press the buttons in the back to hear the Black leader’s actual voice speaking — which is really cool. This book will educate and inspire you!

Anthologies & More Good Children’s Books (Black History Month)

The ABCs of Black History by Rio Cortez, illustrated by Lauren Semmer This book marches through the letters of the alphabet, giving children information about black history, black lives, and inspiration. Colorful and chock-full of information and inspiration!

How Do You Spell Unfair? MacNaolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Frank Morrison MacNolia spelled her way to the National Spelling Bee finals despite the challenges she faced, including discrimination at the host hotel and an unfair word given to her that wasn’t on the list and lost her the winning spot. Repetition of the phrase “How do you spell” grounds us in the spelling theme, and Frank Morrison’s beautiful, expressive illustrations add emotional resonance.

Young, Gifted, and Black, Too by Jamia Wilson, illustrated by Andrea Pippins Read about 52 black icons from the past and the present. Each biography includes a bold, graphic illustration. Well written, these short biographies will inspire and educate readers.

Bessie the Motorcycle Queen by Charles R. Smith Jr., illustrated by Charlot Kristensen Lyrical, poetic writing and lush, inviting illustrations tell about an independent Black woman named Bessie, a stunt-riding, long-distance motorcycle rider in the 1920s. Bessie loves traveling on her motorcycle throughout the U.S., where she meets mostly curious and kind people, except for in the south with its Jim Crow segregation, meaning she has to be careful about where to get gas and where to stop. Nevertheless, Bessie loves her life on the road and flips a coin to decide where to travel next.

A Black Woman Did That: 42 Boundary-Breaking, Bar-Raising, World-Changing Women by Malaika Adero, illustrated by Chante Timothy (ages 9 – 12) In this celebration of Black women, you’ll meet women and girls who will inspire you . Read the biographies about fascinating and admirable women who are scientists, models, athletes, politicians, dancers, and more. Fascinating writing and fascinating people with impactful, vivid illustrations.

Little Leaders Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison (ages 8 – 12) Beautifully designed and illustrated, Little Ladies shares 40 one-page biographies of inspiring African-American women. This Black History (Month) book shares about women like Marcelite Harris, Mamie Phipps Clark, and Phillis Wheatley. It’s a superb, inspiring must-read book.

Tani’s New Home by Tanitoluwa Adewumi In this true story, Tani Adewumi lives in Nigeria with his family. But one day, terrorists threaten his father so the family escapes to the U.S. where they live in a homeless shelter. Tani doesn’t love his new home but when he discovers chess, it helps everything. He dedicates himself to the game and goes on to win the New York State Chess Championships.

For Black History Month activities, visit Here We Read .

KEEP READING

Activism Biographies and Books for Kids

Valentine’s Day Books

Growth Mindset Picture Books

Women’s History Month Biographies

Favorite Children’s Books by Black Authors

Melissa Taylor, MA, is the creator of Imagination Soup. She's a mother, former teacher & literacy trainer, and freelance education writer. She writes Imagination Soup and freelances for publications online and in print, including Penguin Random House's Brightly website, USA Today Health, Adobe Education, Colorado Parent, and Parenting. She is passionate about matching kids with books that they'll love.

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11 GREAT AFRICAN AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY BOOKS

By: Author Agnes Hsu

Posted on Last updated: March 18, 2021

Categories Latest , Learn

We grew up commemorating Black History Month in our homes and schools. Indeed, the national celebration has been around since 1976, when President Gerald Ford decreed it an annual American observance. His goal? To honor the often neglected accomplishments of black men and women in the United States.

Throughout our childhoods, many of us learned about the groundbreaking and world-changing accomplishments of important social justice advocates such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. But black Americans were doing so much more than leading the fight for civil rights. Simply put, their other contributions to society were nothing short of phenomenal— yet they are so frequently overlooked. From artists to engineers , dancers to doctors, the stories of black men and women who continuously and tenaciously broke boundaries and challenged societal norms are not just inspiring, but necessary to the American tapestry. I am so grateful that we are finally starting to see these thrilling stories come to life through picture books.

While the children’s publishing industry still has a ways to go to infuse the market with quality diverse books, there is a concentrated effort to get more representative stories – and more biographies of important black Americans – on our shelves. The results are beginning to show up in our homes, schools, libraries and bookstores, and the smiles that light up children’s faces when they find these stories for the first time is nothing short of magical.

In honor of Black History Month, here are eleven of our favorite picture book biographies about black men and women whose determination and accomplishments have left indelible contributions on our society. Happy reading!

Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History , by Vashti Harrison: I had to start with this stunning anthology featuring 49 black women who, in their own various ways, helped change the world. From poets to pilots to politicians, the fascinating stories combined with stunning illustrations make this book a winner, conveying to our children how people can break barriers when they dream, persevere and never stop believing in themselves.

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library , by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Eric Velsquez: This book absolutely blew me away. Schomburg tells the story of Arturo Schomburg, an Afro-Puerto Rican man who was astonished that people of African descent had no historians to bring their stories to life. Schomburg became determined to correct history, and his quest led him to curate a remarkable collection at the New York Public Library that became the cornerstone of the new Negro Division. I can’t rave enough about this fascinating story – undoubtedly my favorite picture book biography of 2017.

Mae Among the Stars , by Roda Ahmed and illustrated by Stasia Barrington: Women in space? Yes, please. A child with a big heart and bigger dreams, who would stop at nothing to achieve her goal? Yes, yes, YES, please! This is the sweet story of the brilliant Dr. Mae Jemison, who not only enrolled at Stanford University when she was only sixteen, but eventually went onto become a doctor and then the very first African-American female astronaut. STEM, anyone?!?

Champion: The Story of Muhammad Ali , by Jim Haskins and illustrated by Eric Velasquez: Sure there have been books about the great Muhammad Ali, but this brand new one is a gem. With beautiful illustrations that at times are so real they look like photographs, this stunning biography of the great boxer and his commitment to social justice touches upon the struggles, successes and set backs of Muhammad Ali. It truly shines a light on his great legacy and will be a treasure for fans new and old.

Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race , by Margot Lee Shetterly and illustrated by Laura Freeman: Did you love this movie? Well now you can share the inspiring story of these four brilliant women with your kids and students. Hidden Figures is the remarkable true story of four black American women who lived at a time when being black— and being women- limited their abilities to do what they wanted to do: math. And they were really good at math. Did they let societal and gender norms stand in their way? Absolutely not… and so they broke boundaries. This book is outstanding.

Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson , by Leda Schubert and illustrated by Theodore Taylor III: So many young girls today know of- and hope to emulate- the great Misty Copeland. But they likely don’t know about the famous ballerina who inspired Misty herself. Meet Raven Wilkinson, the first African-American woman to dance for a major classical ballet company. Though she faced racism and derision, she never let it hold her back. Raven was persistent, and this persistence led her to dance for royalty in Holland and at the New York City Opera after that— until she was fifty years old. A must have for your little dancers.

What are your favorite books featuring Black Americans?

Lauren Bercuson Davis lives in Miami with her family. After twelve years as an attorney, Lauren gave up the law to pursue her passion for children’s literature. She is now an elementary library media specialist, and after her two boys are tucked away in bed, she is an aspiring writer, avid reader, and blogger. Lauren has a not-so-secret obsession with books of all kind, and her greatest joy is watching her kids fall in love with wondrous stories. She shares children’s literature reviews and other bookish fun on Instagram @happily.ever.elephants , her blog Happily Ever Elephants , Twitter @KidLitLaure n, and Facebook . ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive a small affiliate commission. Regardless, we give our promise that we only recommend products or services we would use personally and believe will add values to our readers.

Agnes Hsu is a mom of three and has been inspiring parents and kids to get creative with easy activities and family friendly recipes for over 10 years. She shares her love for creative play and kids food to her 2MM+ followers online. Agnes' commitment to playful learning and kindness has not only raised funds for charity but also earned features in prestigious nationwide publications.

Agnes Hsu https://www.hellowonderful.co/post/author/timhsu/ Q-Tip Rainbow Craft - Cute Rainbow Art For Kids
Agnes Hsu https://www.hellowonderful.co/post/author/timhsu/ How To Make An Easy Paper Shamrock Craft
Agnes Hsu https://www.hellowonderful.co/post/author/timhsu/ Cute and Clever Bunny Handprint Craft - Easter Craft For Kids
Agnes Hsu https://www.hellowonderful.co/post/author/timhsu/ St. Patrick's Day Handprint Art With Printable Templates

70 Must-Read Books by Black Authors in 2023

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Blog – Posted on Tuesday, Sep 29

70 must-read books by black authors in 2023.

The re-energized efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 shone a light on many corners of Black culture. For lots of readers, this moment provided fresh inspiration to seek out new Black authors and to explore the rich variety of Black literature, whose stories span both borders and generations, illuminating a huge variety of experiences.

From 20th century classics that crystallized pivotal moments in the fight for civil rights, to hilarious novels, gripping fantasy, and 2020 bestsellers that continue to navigate complex social tensions — we’ve gathered together seventy of the best books by Black authors that belong on your ‘TBR’.

Our hand-picked list includes several famous black authors you might recognize — Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin — as well as some of the most promising up-and-coming names. Within our ‘Fiction’ section, you’ll find Black voices represented in a huge range of genres; and we’ve devoted additional sections to nonfiction , poetry , and Young Adult fiction (we know how important it is for young people to be represented in the books they read). So let’s dive in!

1. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

In The Sellout , Paul Beatty introduces us to a young, Black watermelon-and-weed grower, named Me. When Me’s father is gunned down by police, and his hometown Dickens is erased from the map, he decides to face one injustice by burying it beneath another. In one of the book’s many absurdist twists, Me hires a Black slave to serve as his footstool and lobbies in America’s highest court for the reinstatement of segregation. Powered by a wicked wit, this caustic but heartfelt satirical novel turns themes of racism and slavery inside out in service of a devastatingly clever message.

2. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Jemisin’s unmissable, triple Hugo-Award-winning trilogy, The Broken Earth , takes place in the Stillness — a world in which society is structured around surviving nuclear winters. The Orogenes, who wield the power of the earth, are the reason for life’s survival; yet, they are shunned and exploited by society. In The Fifth Season , a red rift tears through the land, spewing enough ash to darken the sky for years. Without the resources necessary to get through the long, dark night, there will be war all across the Stillness — and Essun must pursue her missing daughter through this deadly, dying land.

3. Beloved by Toni Morrison

The seminal work from a giant of modern literature, Beloved chronicles the experiences of Sethe, an ex-slave living with her daughter in a house haunted by secrets. Sethe is held captive by the memories of her plantation; and when a fellow slave’s arrival heralds the mysterious coming of a woman — who calls herself Beloved — Sethe’s hideous past explodes into the present. A landmark depiction of the legacy of slavery, an engrossing ghost-story, and a reflection on motherhood and family, Beloved is so much more than the sum of its parts.

4. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Originally published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God was out of print for nearly 30 years, due to its readers’ initial rejection of its strong, Black, female protagonist. Janie Crawford is sixteen when her grandmother catches her kissing a shiftless boy and marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. The quest for independence which ensues sees Janie through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots. Rigorous, dazzling, and emotionally satisfying, when Hurston’s classic was reissued in 1978, it became one of the most highly acclaimed and widely read novels within African American literature .

5. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

On December 3rd, 1976, seven gunmen stormed Bob Marley’s house, machine guns blazing. Though the reggae star survived, the gunmen were never caught. A Brief History of Seven Killings is James’s fictional exploration of this event’s bloody aftermath, and of Jamaica, during one of its most unstable and violently defining moments. Spanning decades, leaping continents, and crowded with unforgettable voices, this ambitious and mesmerizing novel secures James’ place among the great literary talents of his generation — and more importantly on our list of must-reads by Black authors.

6. Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Black Leopard, Red Wolf follows Tracker, renowned for (you guessed it) his ability to track people. Hired to find a missing boy, along with a motley crew of supernatural mercenaries, Tracker uncovers a conspiracy in the process. The first in a planned trilogy, this epic has been called the “ African Game of Thrones ”, because it honors African mythology with the same sense of adventure and mystery. Not to mention, it’s immensely violent. However, the fantasy plotline is transformed by James’ hallucinatory and confounding prose. Warning: it’s already optioned for film rights, so read it before it hits the silver screen!

7. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah follows two Nigerian characters, Ifemelu and Obinze, teenagers in love who drift apart when Ifemelu moves to America. This novel wears its politics on its sleeve, acutely describing how it feels to try and navigate multiple cultures — a feeling that is endemic to being an immigrant — and openly debating the lived experiences of Black people, American or not. This discussion is at its most overt in Ifemelu’s blog posts, scattered throughout the novel. The overt nature of the politics does not come at the cost of plot of characterization, however, and Adichie writes with sagacious humor.

8. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Walker unapologetically writes Southern Black women into world literature in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple . It tells the tale of Celie, a young African-American woman growing up in poverty in segregated Georgia. Raped by the man she calls “father”, Celie is separated from her children and her beloved sister Nettie, and trapped into an ugly marriage. Then, she meets Shug, a singer and magic-maker who helps her discover the power of her own spirit. Walker’s novel doesn’t soften its blows, but is courageous enough to hold on to its faith in forgiveness and hope.

9. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

It’s 2025 and the world is descending into anarchy. In America, violence rules and only the rich are safe. But one woman has the power to change everything. Lauren’s life is altered beyond recognition when a fire destroys her home and kills her family. Along with a handful of refugees, she is forced to go on a dangerous journey North — and on the way, she comes up with a revolutionary idea that might just save mankind. There’s nothing scarier than a dystopian novel that’s already coming true, and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower ’s exploration of climate change, inequality, and racism is alarmingly prescient.

10. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward’s freighted novel is a portrait of a broken Mississippi family: a young mother, (Leonie) hooked on drugs, and a husband completing a jail sentence. Hearing he’s about to be released, Leonie takes her two children and her friend Misty on a road trip to meet him. In this amusingly banal odyssey full of gas station lethargy and dodgy drug deals, Ward transplants the road novel into twenty-first century America, imbuing it with ancestral voices, mythical tropes, and hypnotic lyricism. Sing, Unburied, Sing is a harrowing and majestic work from an extraordinary author.

11. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Salvage the Bones tells the story of a desperately poor family in the Mississippi backwoods, as hurricane Katrina approaches. 14-year-old Esch, her three wayward brothers, and their alcoholic father scrabble against the clock to prepare their rotting junkyard of land and stockpile food. But with Esch pregnant, and her brother sneaking scraps for his pit-bull’s litter, these motherless children must protect and nurture one another to survive. Hopefully, if you pick this book up, you’ll forgive us for including two Jesmyn Ward novels among our must-reads by Black authors — it’s hard not to read it in a greedy frenzy.

12. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Effia and Esi are half-sisters, born in 18th century Ghana. When one is sold into slavery and the other marries a slaver, their paths diverge. Homegoing follows their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the missionary schools of Ghana to Jazz Age Harlem. Gyasi shares Morrison’s ability to crystallize slavery’s fallout, yet she is unique in her ability to connect it to the present day, illustrating how racism has become institutionalized. Epic in its canvas, yet intimate in its portraits, Homegoing is a searing historical fiction debut from a masterly new Black author.

13. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Published in 1952, Invisible Man was immediately hailed as a seminal work of American fiction. From the Deep South, to the streets of Harlem; expulsion from college, to lightning success as the leader of a communist organization — Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh relief. Journeying across the racial divide, he realizes that he’s an “invisible man”: people see only a reflection of their preconceived ideas, deny his individuality, and ultimately do not see him at all. Ellison’s theme reveals unparalleled truths about the nature and effects of bigotry.

14. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Whitehead’s bravura novel is based on the true story of a reform school, which operated for 111 years, committed devastating atrocities against boys of color, and warped the lives of thousands of children. This is where Elwood Curtis — a Black boy growing up in Jim Crow-era Florida — finds himself in The Nickel Boys . Elwood’s only salvation at the perilous Academy is Turner, a fellow ‘delinquent’ who challenges his ideals of how the world should work. Rising tension between the two friends leads to a decision with repercussions that will echo through the ages.

15. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a plantation in Georgia. An outcast among her fellow Africans and quickly approaching womanhood, she’s desperate for freedom. So, when Caesar tells her about an underground railroad, they decide to escape North, only to be pursued by a relentless slave-master. Whitehead’s novel is a pulsating story about a woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage. But, it’s also a powerful meditation on history, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, The Underground Railroad is a tour de force.

16. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

As one of the greatest Black authors, Baldwin published a slew of novels, biographies, and essays in his lifetime. But there’s no better place to start than his first book, Go Tell It on the Mountain . Drawing on his boyhood, Baldwin tells the story of Johnny Grimes growing up in 1930s Harlem, grappling with his religion, his sexuality, and his abusive minister father. Though this novel has a lot to say about race, religion, class, and sexuality, it does so in a way that acknowledges the nuance of the human experience. This is a blazing, enduring, hymn of a novel.

17. Swing Time by Zadie Smith

A “best friend bildungsroman” in the Elena Ferrante mould, Swing Time tells the story of two brown girls from neighbouring housing estates in London, who both dream of being dancers. It's a close but complicated friendship that ends abruptly in their twenties, never to be rekindled, but never quite forgotten. Beneath the virtuosic plot lies a keen social commentary on betterment: Smith asks us to consider whether the ability to change is really a form of power. With shifting identities, our narrator seeks, above all, a place where she belongs. Could that place be a best friend?

18. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

A morbidly funny mixture of family saga and slashfest set in Lagos, Nigeria, My Sister, the Serial Killer is a satirical thriller about how blood is thicker (and harder to get out of the carpet) than water. Korede's life is constantly upended as she's forced to clean up after her sister Ayoola, who has a tendency to kill her boyfriends. But things get complicated when Ayoola starts dating Korede’s colleague, with whom she’s long been in love. This debut novel from Black author Oyinkan Braithwaite is as smart and addictive as Killing Eve .

19. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Vignes sisters will always be identical. But when they run away from the southern Black community where they were raised, they choose to live in very different worlds. One returns to her hometown with her Black daughter, while the other decides to live her life passing as a white woman. Though they're separated, their lives are still very much intertwined. Weaving together multiple generations and their stories, The Vanishing Half looks well beyond issues of race, to consider the lasting influence of our pasts, and to explore why people are compelled to live as someone other than themselves.

20. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Born on a Virginia plantation named “Lockless”, Hiram is the son of a slave master and a slave. When his mother is sold “down river” and he is left orphaned, he is robbed of his memories of her, but gifted with a mystical power. When this mysterious ability saves him from drowning, Hiram and fellow slave Sophia run away to freedom in the North. Though Coates illuminates the violent degradations heaped upon generations of runaways who waged war to make lives with the people they loved, he does so while ensuring they retain their dignity.

21. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

First published in 1958, Chinua Achebe's stark, coolly ironic masterpiece has sold over ten million copies in forty-five languages. It tells the story of Okonkwo: the greatest fighter alive, his fame is spreading like wildfire throughout West-Africa. But when he accidentally kills a clansman his life begins to fall apart. Often compared to the great Greek tragedies, Things Fall Apart is an arresting parable about a proud but helpless man witnessing the collapse of his village, as old ways come into contact with new. An eye-opening and compelling read, Achebe’s first novel is a must-read.

22. Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Drawn from Taylor’s own experiences, the queer, Black protagonist of this campus novel, Wallace, struggles to navigate the prejudgments and biases of the white cohorts in his PhD program. As a form of self-preservation, Wallace enforces a wary distance within his circle of friends, neglecting even to tell them of his father’s recent death. But over the course of a blustery end-of-summer weekend, a series of confrontations expose hidden currents of hostility and desire, forcing him to grapple with the long shadows of his childhood. This quiet, intimate and queer novel , from an electric new Black author, strives to make Black readers feel seen.

23. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Delving into relationships, identity politics, and one woman’s search for belonging, Queenie is a characterful, topical and bracingly real debut by Carty-Williams. Caught between a Jamaican-British family that doesn’t understand her, a job that isn’t all it was meant to be, and a messy break-up she can’t seem to get over, Queenie Jenkins seeks comfort in all the wrong places, including more-than-a-few problematic men. Her missteps and misadventures are snort-your-tea-out funny one moment and utterly heart-breaking the next.

24. Lot by Bryan Washington

Washington’s collection of short stories follows the son of a Black mother and a Latino father as he comes of age in an apartment block in Houston. As he explores his sexuality and tries to find a place among his family, the community swells around him, their stories woven into his: a young woman caught in an affair, a rag-tag baseball team, a drug-dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, and a camera-shy mythical beast. Washington’s viscerally drawn Houston leaps off the page with energy, wit, and the infinite longing of people searching for home.

25. Erasure by Percival Everett

Everett’s Erasure is a watertight satire of the publishing industry and the issue of being “Black enough” in America. Monk Ellison is a novelist whose career has bottomed out. While his manuscript is rejected by publishers who say it “has nothing to do with the African-American experience”, We’s Lives in Da Ghetto — a novel by a Black author who "once visited some relatives in Harlem" — enjoys meteoric success. Enraged, and despairing at his personal life, Monk dashes off a novel he insists is “offensive, poorly written, racist and mindless”. But of course, it’s the Next Big Thing...

26. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Odd-mannered and obsessive, Aster lives a lonely life in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda , a generational starship ferrying the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. Its leaders — a white supremacy cult called the Sovereignty — run the ship on the labor and intimidation of dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. But, when the autopsy of Matilda 's sovereign reveals a link between his death and her mother's suicide, Aster discovers that there might be a way out — if she’s willing to take on her brutal overseer and sow the seeds of civil war.

27. Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

From the National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming comes a striking new exploration of identity, class, race, and status. Taking sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming-of-age party as the jumping off point, Red at the Bone unfurls with verve and urgency the story of three generations, revealing their dreams, ambitions, and the tolls they’ve paid to escape the pull of history. Woodson deftly considers the ways in which young people are so often pushed into making life-changing decisions before they even know who they are.

28. The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

Adunni’s mother told her that the only way to get a “louding voice” is to have an education. But at fourteen, Adunni’s father sells her to a local man desperate for an heir. Then, when tragedy strikes, she is sold again, trapped in subservience, this time to a wealthy household in Lagos, where no one speaks about the disappearance of her predecessor, Rebecca. Through it all, Adunni will not be silenced. In a whisper, in song, in broken English — she finds a way to speak for herself, for Rebecca, and for all those who struggle to be heard.

29. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

A page-turning debut about the messy dynamics of privilege, Such a Fun Age introduces us to cash-strapped babysitter Emira Tucker and her employer Alix Chamberlain. When Emira is racially profiled by a security guard and accused of kidnapping Alix’s daughter, Alix, with the best of intentions (and a ‘personal brand’ to protect), resolves to make things right. The two women could not be more different — one trying to figure out her next life move, the other a successful feminist blogger — but Alix’s efforts to right the situation reveal a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.

30. Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Rooted in Igbo cosmology, Freshwater charts the extraordinary journey of a broken, young Nigerian woman called Ada with and towards her many different, even divergent, selves. Told from a shape-shifting perspective — the mythic and assured ‘We’, the intimate and distinctively Nigerian Ashagura, and Ada’s own tortured, tentative voice — this surreal novel is innovative and daring, disorienting yet stunning. Gripping from the very first sentence, Amazi’s debut novel will forge a path to your very core.

31. It's Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan

At 68, Loretha Curry is far from thinking that her best days are behind her. She may be carrying a few more pounds than she’d like, but she has a booming business, ride-or-die friends, and a husband whose moves in the bedroom still surprise. But when an unexpected loss turns her world upside down, Loretha’s optimism begins to falter. With the help of her friends, she’ll have to gather all her strength to push through heartbreak and chart new paths. Bestselling author Terry McMillan brings her signature wit and wisdom to It’s Not All Downhill From Here .

32. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Weaving through time and space with crackling energy, Girl, Woman, Other tracks the lives of a dozen Black, British women, and the people they have loved and unloved, through generations and across social classes. However, with prose rhythms that feel like the wilful impulses of inner thought, Evaristo manages to make readers feel intimately connected to twelve different characters, each with a distinctive and vibrant voice. This 2019 Man Booker Prize-winner is a vibrantly contemporary kind of history — a love song to modern Britain and Black womanhood.

33. Closure: Contemporary Black British Short Stories

From a wide range of British Black authors — award-winning to previously unpublished — the stories in this stand-out anthology offer contemporary conversations around different experiences of being British. The breadth of this experience is evident in the rich variety of styles, forms and themes. Raw realism gives way to pure lyricism; tender unrequited yearnings rub shoulders with humorous moments of epiphany. The title Closure is a subversive one, for, much like life, the stories in this anthology rarely end the way we imagine they will.

34. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

This is a love story. But one that centres on an appalling miscarriage of justice. Newlyweds, Celestial and Roy, are the embodiment of the American Dream, until Roy is wrongly accused of rape and sentenced to twelve years. Jones doesn’t elaborate; the reader simply understands that a Black man, in the wrong place at the wrong time, will find retribution meted out swiftly and unquestioningly. What follows is a tender, rousing account of three people who are at once bound together and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage probes important ideas with emotional intelligence and a colossal heart.

35. Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat

Everything Inside is a short story collection set in the Caribbean, Miami, and Port-au-Prince. Danticat’s prose shines a light on the intricacies of human relationships, as she knowingly observes the balance of a family at a christening, the clash between ambition and survival, and the blossoming and withering of romantic relationships, among other things. Reading this collection, you’ll feel that you’ve laid yourself in the hands of a discerning, careful, and quiet force — and that’s exactly where you’ll want to stay.

36. Deacon King Kong by James McBride

James McBride’s novel Deacon King Kong begins with a shooting. This is 1969 Brooklyn, and a very drunk deacon ‘Sportcoat’ shoots a drug dealer. The rest of the novel examines the effects of this singular event on a number of characters: the church members, the neighbors, the mafia, the witnesses, and the police officers called to the scene. In an ambitious novel bursting with energy, McBride makes the case for the humanizing power of trust, love, and hope, all against the vibrant backdrop of 1960s New York.

37. Nudibranch by Irenosen Okojie

Irenosen Okojie’s Nudibranch is a collection of short stories that delves into the realm of the surreal. Though the stories are set in real places, includingLondon and Berlin, they chart a movement into the fantastic and peculiar. In these vividly imagined, somewhat abstract stories, bizarre, unexplained, and downright weird things begin to happen, as reality slowly metamorphoses into something new... This striking, original, and ever-unpredictable collection stands out for its poetic evocation of all things odd and beautiful. So take a dive into Okojie’s world — it’s nothing short of memorable.

38. Hold by Michael Donkor

Michael Donkor’s Hold is about three young girls: Belinda, Amma, and Mary. Belinda is a housegirl in Ghana, and is growing closer to 11-year-old Mary when she is suddenly summoned to live in London with Amma. Amma’s parents are hoping Belinda will be a positive influence on their rebellious daughter. The two teenagers are vastly different, but together, they grapple with shared questions about their identities, their sexualities, and the pressure of growing up. This refreshing coming-of-age novel is a touching tribute to the tentative reach for freedom of queer adolescence, rich with sensitive observations about the two girls.

39. Bone Readers by Jacob Ross

This breathtaking, Jhalak-prize-winning crime thriller , set in the Caribbean island of Camaho, follows Michael ‘Digger’ Digson as he enters the police force. Digger uses his skill for bone-reading (passed down by his grandmother), and for recognizing voices, to contribute to the missing person cases in Camaho. Face-to-face with the corrupt underbelly of the island, Digger and his intelligent colleague Kathleen Stanislaus pursue a cold case into the dark corners of the criminal world. This tightly-plotted and suspenseful literary novel is a masterclass in crime writing, and features powerful characters who will really get under your skin.

40. Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton

Long-listed for the 2019 Women’s Prize in Fiction, Remembered ventures into 1910 Philadelphia, amid flaring racial tensions. With her son on the brink of death, the narrator begins to tell a story about the past, travelling back in time to 1843. Charting the life of Ella from slavery to emancipation, narrator Spring also recalls the complicated narrative of her own life. In this parallel examination of slavery and its many ongoing and refracted legacies, freedom and motherhood lie quietly at the heart of the story.

41. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

This is New York during the 2008 financial crisis. Behold the Dreamers bears witness to the lives of two families: a Cameroonian family of immigrants and a wealthy family of Americans. Their distant worlds collide when Jende Jonga, of the former family, is employed as chauffeur by Edward Clark, of the latter. The book juggles sadness with hope, held in ambivalent balance as Mbue expertly breathes new life into the American Dream. Behold the Dreamers draws its characters with warmth and sensitivity, astutely capturing the friction between privilege and need.

42. Small Island by Andrea Levy

Andrea Levy’s classic is a polyphonic novel of compassion and tenderness. It reaches readers in the voices of four characters: Hortense Joseph, and her husband Gilbert, their white landlady, Queenie, and her husband Bernard. Hortense and Gilbert are part of the Windrush Generation, Caribbean immigrants who reached London aboard the ship HMT Empire Windrush in 1948. In their struggle to belong in London, the novel finds a rich trove of emotion, taking a sensitive and careful look at the implications of race, ethnicity, and social class. Levy’s masterpiece is an undisputed must-read.

43. Loving Day by Mat Johnson

TItled after the US Supreme Court ruling that legalized interracial marriage, Loving Day is a celebration of mixed-race identity. Warren Duffy finds himself in Philadelphia, where he meets his long-lost daughter Tal at a comic convention. Despite being mixed-race, Tal has been raised white. In this semi-autobiographical novel, which the author calls his own “coming out as a mulatto”, Tal’s struggle to reconcile herself to her identity becomes the focus of the narrative. This is a heartwarming, often funny, and always thought-provoking book to add to your list.

44. We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s dystopian novel We Cast a Shadow is a biting satire of the enduring racism in contemporary America. To help his biracial son access a new medical procedure that will save his life by turning him white, the novel’s unnamed narrator must pass a series of truly crazy tests and qualify as a partner at the law firm where he works. This darkly comic and thoroughly unsettling book will stay with you — surreal, clever, and tinged with horror throughout, We Cast a Shadow is a must-read.

45. That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu

Derek Owusu’s debut novel That Reminds Me is told in poetic fragments following a young British-Ghanaian man, elusively named K., as he journeys from birth to tentative adulthood. This lyrical, sensitive book explores the protagonist’s consciousness one memory at a time, taking readers from personal questions of belonging and family to wider social issues, like addiction and violence. Raw, honest, and original, this is a brilliant literary debut, from a voice to watch out for in the future. With its delicate descriptions of mental health, That Reminds Me is a truly remarkable feat.

46. Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird is an ambitious and loose retelling of the famous Snow White fairytale that boldly introduces a racial dimension. This is the 1950s and the protagonist, Boy Novak, moves to a small Massachusetts town, where she grows attached to a local named Arturo, and is introduced to his daughter, Snow. Unlike Arturo and the rest of his light-skinned African-American family, Snow cannot ‘pass’ for white, prompting a radical reevaluation of them all. Unique and compellingly told, Oyeyemi’s book shimmers with literary magic.

47. The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

The Black Flamingo tells the story of Michael, a mixed-race, half-Jamaican, half Greek-Cypriot boy living in the UK. Michael’s already working to come to terms with the fact that he’s gay, when he takes flight as a drag artist while attending university. He becomes the Black Flamingo, in a brilliant story about self-emancipation and self-acceptance, all told in verse. This fabulous, glamorous, and absolutely celebratory novel about finding and championing your real self at the intersection of multiple identities deserves a space on your shelf.

48. Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence

Set on an estate in Hackney, London, Patrice Lawrence’s Orangeboy follows Marlon, a 16-year-old who’s determined to resist his brother’s bad influence and make his widowed mum proud. But when Marlon goes on a date with Sonya, his life reaches a turning point: suddenly it’s impossible to stay away from his brother’s world of street gangs and drugs. In this action-packed, fast novel, you’ll watch Marlon adapt, changing completely while, in many ways, remaining the same. Don’t miss out on this grippingly modern novel!

49. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Tomi Adeyemi’s debut fantasy novel features a set of richly drawn characters, and blends Nigerian Yoruba mythology with established tropes and elements of fantasy. The protagonist, Zélie Adebola, is fighting to restore magic to the land of Orïsha, after the king ordered all the magicians killed. Epic high fantasy worldbuilding (complete with snow leopards), meets intelligent analysis of social power, racial tensions, and prejudice, in a debut that grips readers from page one. The good news? This is the first in a fantasy series , so there’s plenty more to read...

50. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Angie Thomas’s wildly successful The Hate U Give (now adapted by Netflix!) begins with a shooting. Starr Carter’s best friend, Khalil, is killed by police. As Khalil’s death makes national news, and the public question who’s to blame, Starr must provide answers. In this poignant, thoughtful, and inspirational novel, Angie Thomas tells a tale of the Black Lives Matter age, but make no mistake: this is no temporary trend, but a literary masterpiece.

51. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

This breathtaking novel is told in 60 fragments of verse, each representing the passage of one second in the single minute teenage Will has to decide whether he’s going to shoot his brother’s killer. This sparse, quick-paced book will have you on the edge of your seat, as it cleverly exposes the complexities of teenage violence. Long Way Down is YA genius — originally told and utterly heartbreaking, this narrative will stay with you despite the speed with which you’ll read it.

52. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses imagines a world where Noughts, who are white, are enslaved by the Crosses, who are Black. In a deliberate reversal of our own society’s history and social dynamics, Blackman tells the story of Sephy, a Nought, and Callum, a Cross. The two have been friends for a long time, but their blossoming romance is absolutely forbidden. This beautiful, intelligent, and devastating book has earned its place as a Young Adult fiction classic, and it has never been more timely.

53. The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney by Okechukwu Nzelu

For Nnenna, growing up means reaching for her Igbo-Nigerian heritage, inherited from her father. The only problem is, she’s never met him. Nnenna is nearly seventeen and living in Manchester, with her white mother, who is resistant to questioning. This is a novel that’s easy to read, but that doesn’t mean that its subject matter is ‘light’. Despite its funny outlook, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney is engaged in asking serious questions about race, growing up, sexuality, and personal heritage. This intelligent and moving book is sure to warm your heart!

54. Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

12-year-old Sunny was born in New York, but when her parents move back to their native Nigeria, so does she. At school, her new classmates call her “akata”, a wild animal, because of her albino features and American childhood. But her friends also show her that she has greater powers than she realizes: the magical powers of the Leopard People. Alongside her friends, Sunny must find a way to stop Black Hat Otokoto, a child kidnapper and magician, before it’s too late. With brilliantly detailed worldbuilding that’s been compared to Harry Potter and a rich mythological background of West African mythology, Akata Witch is a truly spell-binding book.

55. Citizen by Claudia Rankine

Citizen is a book you’ll sometimes encounter on lists of essays, but its subtitle, ‘An American Lyric’, firmly sets it into the world of poetry. Rankine’s brilliant 2014 book takes a deeply incisive look at modern society’s racism by directing the reader’s attention to singular moments that add up to a breathtaking totality. Powerful and devastating, Citizen shines a light on daily microaggressions and wider social phenomena alike. It leaves readers with a new and unsettling clarity — the mark of a masterpiece.

56. Kumukanda by Kayo Chingonyi

‘Kumukanda’ is the name the Zambian tribe of Luvale gives to their coming-of-age ceremony, and so Chingonyi, who is himself of Zambian heritage, sets the scene for a collection of nostalgia, loss, and transition. This Dylan Thomas Prize-winning collection touches on subjects like family, negotiating belonging between countries, racism, and music. Chingonyi’s expertly-crafted verse echoes the cadences and rhythms of grime and rap music, and assumes a youthful velocity of a distinctly modern British association. This deeply affecting collection will move and affect you.

57. A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson

‘And if I speak of Paradise, / then I’m speaking of my grandmother’: so begins Roger Robinson’s poem ‘A Portable Paradise’, the work that gives its name to his T.S. Eliot Prize-winning collection. This moving and tender book looks at subjects as wide-ranging as family, the Windrush generation, slavery, racism, joy for life, heritage, and class. Robinson’s poems move carefully and powerfully, with the lyricism and emotional clarity of a talented writer. This is a book to hold close to your heart.

58. The Collected Poems by Langston Hughes

‘I’ve known rivers: / I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the / flow of human blood in human rivers’. From his most well-known poems, like ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, to his lesser known poems for children, this comprehensive collection contains all of Langston Hughes’ brilliant published poetry, composed over fifty years. The Harlem Renaissance leader’s work has not aged one bit: it is just as fresh, modern, and arresting as it was when it was originally published. Reading Hughes’ poetry will leave you with a sense of awe and the knowledge that you’ve been blessed to know the work of a great mind.

59. Surge by Jay Bernard

Jay Bernard’s Surge asks crucial questions about personal memory and the way we choose to collectively remember historical events. For Bernard, these are issues integral to understanding their place in contemporary British society, as a queer Black person. Seeing a connection between Grenfell and the 1981 New Cross fire, Surge penetrates time to highlight the lack of progress made. Heartbreaking, poignant, and ambitiously conceived, this collection is an important addition to the British poetry scene.

60. The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus

Another brilliant poetry collection from modern Britain, Raymond Antrobus’s The Perseverance is an eye-opening book. The poet, who is deaf himself, writes elegantly and affectingly about the d/Deaf experience: “the raveled knot of tongues, / of blaring birds, consonant crumbs / of dull doorbells, sounds swamped / in my misty hearing aid tubes”. This incredible collection is a song to identity, to the poet’s own British-Jamaican heritage, to the world of noise that we all navigate in different ways. For a little while, let Antrobus guide you through it, and show you the world in a whole new way.

61. The Adoption Papers by Jackie Kay

A masterclass in writing from different perspectives, The Adoption Papers is about a Black girl adopted by a white Scottish couple. Juggling the points of view of the child, mother, and biological mother, this sensitive collection is able to capture the emotional intricacies and complexities of adoption in heartbreaking verse. This brave, witty, and honest book is an adoption literature classic, and a must-read literary achievement.

62. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Many saw the election of Barack Obama as reason to immediately proclaim America a ‘post-racial’ society. But the justice system has always had a different story to tell. In this searing account of structural racism in the justice system, legal scholar Michelle Alexander shows that preventing the mass incarceration of people of colour (especially Black men) should be an utmost priority. This is a book that calls the nation to come to terms with its own past of slavery, and to take action to recognize and battle its surviving legacies. Without a doubt, one of the most important nonfictional works of recent decades.

63. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is a historical account of a large part of the 20th century. For decades, Black Americans left the south, searching for better prospects in the western and northern states. This epic tale of the Great Migration, exhaustively researched by its Pulitzer-winning author, is told through the life stories of three African Americans: Robert Foster, Ida Mae Gladney, and George Starling, who left Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida respectively, to pursue new lives. This major historical book is a beautifully-told, enlightening portrait of American history.

64. Becoming by Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama’s memoir became a literary sensation when it was published in 2018, and for good reason. The former First Lady’s incredible optimism, pragmatism, and tireless energy pour right out of the book and into the reader, with one central message: you matter, and you can accomplish anything. In sharing her own life story, Michelle Obama becomes both role model and champion — a force of inspiration for every woman and young people worldwide. Without a doubt, she’s the kind of person who comes along once in a generation.

65. Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga

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The Book of Awesome Black Americans: Scientific Pioneers, Trailblazing Entrepreneurs, Barrier-Breaking Activists and Afro-Futurists (Teen and YA ... African-American Biographies) (Awesome Books)

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The Book of Awesome Black Americans: Scientific Pioneers, Trailblazing Entrepreneurs, Barrier-Breaking Activists and Afro-Futurists (Teen and YA ... African-American Biographies) (Awesome Books) Paperback – Illustrated, January 14, 2020

Purchase options and add-ons, black heroes who have made us a better america.

Activists and rap stars, abolitionists and pioneers, inventors and scientists surge with life throughout this thrilling and comprehensive work.” ― Jennifer Maritza McCauley , National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and author of Scar On / Scar Off

#1 Best Seller in Teen & Young Adult 21st Century U.S. History

Black Americans who have shaped their country and beyond. We are familiar with a handful of African Americans who are mentioned in American history books, but there are also countless others who do not get recognized in mainstream media. Their biographies vary greatly, but each one contributes to the course of Black history and its influence on America and the greater world. Their stories encourage teenage boys and girls, to find their own path to change.

Celebrate the successes made possible by diversity. African Americans have made history by challenging and changing the American landscape. This was accomplished not by shedding layers of originality, but by wearing their colors proudly and openly in the world. Growth has been made possible by a resistance to conformity and a fusing of cultures, African and American alike.

Monique L. Jones’s The Book of Awesome Black Americans is more than a Black history book. It’s a celebration of Black people. In this book, you will find:

Amazing role models who brought on change by using their gifts and passions to overcome societal barriers
Stories mainstream media failed to mention that are sure to inspire, motivate, and educate readers of all backgrounds
Testimonies that demonstrate how American culture thrives when it celebrates diversity and promotes inclusiveness

If you enjoyed books such as 100 African-Americans Who Shaped American History , Bedtime Inspirational Stories , Black Pioneers of Science and Invention , or Becca Anderson’s The Book of Awesome Women , then The Book of Awesome Black Americans should be your next read!

Reading age 12 - 16 years
Print length 256 pages
Language English
Grade level 7 - 9
Dimensions 5 x 1 x 8 inches
Publisher TMA Press
Publication date January 14, 2020
ISBN-10 1642501476
ISBN-13 978-1642501476
See all details

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The Book of Awesome Black Americans: Scientific Pioneers, Trailblazing Entrepreneurs, Barrier-Breaking Activists and Afro-Fut

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The Great Book of Black Heroes: 30 Fearless and Inspirational Black Men and Women that Changed History

Editorial Reviews

" The Book of Awesome Black Americans belongs on every coffee table in America. Monique Jones packs her book with astonishing stories of bravery, grit, and joy. The astonishing anecdotes of overlooked personalities and heroes will ensure you never look at history the same again. Who says history has to be boring?" ―Li Lai, founder of Mediaversity Reviews

"Monique Jones digs deep to provide little known facts and context for a marvelous assemblage of our unsung heroes.” ―Trey Mangum, The Hollywood Reporter contributor

“Monique L. Jones is my go-to for witty, bold and compassionate takes on pop culture. In The Book of Awesome Black Americans , Jones brings her impressive breadth of knowledge and slick style to this well-researched and endlessly exciting collection of Black American stories. The Book of Awesome Black Americans sheds new light on familiar heroes and showcases Black Americans we should be talking about more. Activists and rap stars, abolitionists and pioneers, inventors and scientists surge with life throughout this thrilling and comprehensive work. Read this book! It’s awesome.” ―Jennifer Maritza McCauley, National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and author of SCAR ON/SCAR OFF

“Black history has always been more than one month, more than one chapter in a history book. Monique L. Jones’ Book of Awesome Black Americans shows us that and more. Black people built America, despite being ripped from Africa via the act of global terrorism called the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. In her vital and thorough book, Jones writes the history we don’t learn in school, the history we need to truly understand the multitudes we contain as Black people. This is a textbook in Black excellence and contribution, and it begins a conversation many are too eager to stifle. Black people’s history did not begin in 1619, and our place in this country will continue to evolve for many years to come.” ―Ashley Jones, recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and author of the award-winning poetry collections, Magic City Gospel and dark // thing

"Monique Jones strikes the balance of fun and learning with her fantastic debut. The Book of Awesome Black Americans gives us an upbeat but necessary lesson on our unsung heroes." ―Joi Childs, Brand Marketer and Film/TV Critic

About the Author

Product details.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ TMA Press; Illustrated edition (January 14, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1642501476
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1642501476
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 12 - 16 years
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 9
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1 x 8 inches
#162 in Teen & Young Adult Cultural Heritage Biographies
#193 in Teen & Young Adult 20th Century United States History
#287 in Teen & Young Adult Historical Biographies

Important information

To report an issue with this product or seller, click here .

About the author

Monique Jones

Monique Jones is an entertainment and pop culture writer, media critic, and TV/Film reviewer. Jones has written for ShockYa, TV Equals, Racialicious, Black Girl Nerds, The Nerds of Color, Tor, Ebony, Entertainment Weekly, Shadow And Act, SlashFilm, The Birmingham Times and The Miami New Times. She also writes about pop culture and media as it relates to race, culture, and representation at JUST ADD COLOR (colorwebmag.com).

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