Celebrating Black History Month with YA


Showing 1 - 20 of 28  There are a total of 33 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "All American boys"
Star rating for All American boys
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered....
Book cover for "All boys aren't blue"
Star rating for All boys aren't blue
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
Book cover for "The awakening of Malcolm X"
Star rating for The awakening of Malcolm X
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"In Charlestown Prison, Malcolm Little struggles with the weight of his past. Plagued by nightmares, Malcolm drifts through days, unsure of his future. Slowly, he befriends other prisoners and writes to his family. He reads all the books in the prison library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm grapples with race, politics, religion, and justice in the 1940s. And as his time in jail comes to an end, he begins to awaken — emerging...
Book cover for "The beautiful struggle"
Star rating for The beautiful struggle
Description:
"As a child, Ta-Nehisi Coates was seen by his father, Paul, as too sensitive and lacking focus. Paul Coates was a Vietnam vet who'd been part of the Black Panthers and was dedicated to reading and publishing the history of African civilization. When it came to his sons, he was committed to raising proud Black men equipped to deal with a racist society, during a turbulent period in the collapsing city of Baltimore where they lived. Coates details...
Book cover for "The Black friend"
Star rating for The Black friend
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Writing from the perspective of a friend, Frederick Joseph offers candid reflections on his own experiences with racism and conversations with prominent artists and activists about theirs--creating an essential read for white people who are committed anti-racists and those newly come to the cause of racial justice. Features conversations with Jemele Hill, Angie Thomas, Naima Cochrane and others.
Book cover for "The black kids"
Star rating for The black kids
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
With the Rodney King riots closing in on high school senior Ashley and her family, the privileged bubble she has enjoyed, protecting her from the difficult realities most black people face, begins to crumble.
Book cover for "Blackout"
Star rating for Blackout
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Six critically acclaimed, bestselling, and award-winning authors bring the glowing warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of charming, hilarious, and heartwarming stories that shine a bright light through the dark. A summer heatwave blankets New York City in darkness. But as the city is thrown into confusion, a different kind of electricity sparks… A first meeting. Long-time friends. Bitter exes. And maybe the beginning...
Book cover for "Caste"
Star rating for Caste
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Masterful narratives about real people that reveal an insidious phenomenon in the United States: a hidden caste system. Caste is not only about race or class; it is about power—which groups have it and which do not. Isabel Wilkerson explores historical social hierarchies, including those in India and Nazi Germany, and explains how perpetuating these rankings dehumanizes vast sections of society. Once we learn the reasons behind caste and see the...
Book cover for "Claudette Colvin"
Star rating for Claudette Colvin
Description:
Presents the life of the Alabama teenager who played an integral role in the Montgomery bus strike, once by refusing to give up a bus seat, and again, by becoming a plaintiff in the landmark civil rights case against the bus company.
Book cover for "Concrete rose"
Star rating for Concrete rose
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Maverick feels strongly about family ties, making choices he feels necessary to help support his mom while his King father serves time, and leave him literally holding his son in a doctor's waiting room after he gets paternity test results back and his babymomma ghosts. Now the child he's raising is impacting the lives of his family and his girlfriend, and the gang life he led to support them all financially could leave them all bearing his responsibilities...
Book cover for "The crossover"
Star rating for The crossover
Series:
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Basketball star Josh Bell and his twin brother, Jordan, are kings on the court. When Jordan meets the new girl in school, the brothers' bond is tested. Basketball and brotherhood intertwine to show them that life doesn't come with a playbook.
Book cover for "Dear Martin"
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Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.
Book cover for "Freedom!"
Star rating for Freedom!
Description:
There is a saying: knowledge is power. The secret is this. Knowledge, applied at the right time and place, is more than power. It's magic. That's what the Black Panther Party did. They called up this magic and launched a revolution. In the beginning, it was a story like any other. It could have been yours and it could have been mine. But once it got going, it became more than any one person could have imagined. This is the story of Huey and Bobby....

14. Ghost

Book cover for "Ghost"
Star rating for Ghost
Series:
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
"Ghost, a naturally talented runner and troublemaker, is recruited for an elite middle school track team. He must stay on track, literally and figuratively, to reach his full potential"--
Book cover for "A good kind of trouble"
Star rating for A good kind of trouble
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
"Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. All she wants to do is to follow the rules. (Oh, and she'd also like to make it through seventh grade with her best friendships intact, learn to run track, and have a cute boy see past her giant forehead.) But in junior high, it's like all the rules have changed. Now she's suddenly questioning who her best friends are and some people at school are saying she's not black enough. Wait, what? Shay's sister,...
Book cover for "The hate u give"
Star rating for The hate u give
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters...
Book cover for "Lifting as we climb"
Star rating for Lifting as we climb
Description:
"For African American women, the fight for the right to vote was only one battle. An eye-opening book that tells the important, overlooked story of Black women as a force in the suffrage movement--when fellow suffragists did not accept them as equal partners in the struggle." -- Publisher's description.
Book cover for "Light for the world to see"
Star rating for Light for the world to see
Description:
Presents a collection of three powerful poems that take on racism and Black resistance in America.
Book cover for "Okoye to the people"
Star rating for Okoye to the people
Description:
"Okoye is going on her first trip to America with King T'Chaka, who has been tasked with joining other African leaders as a special envoy to the World Humanitarian Aid Council. But when Okoye arrives in New York, she realizes the city-and her mission-are not what she expects. Thrown into conflict in Brownsville, a neighborhood struggling with gentrification, Okoye must find her place in the Dora Milaje, and the world." --Provided by publisher.
Book cover for "Piecing me together"
Star rating for Piecing me together
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Tired of being singled out at her mostly-white private school as someone who needs support, high school junior Jade would rather participate in the school's amazing Study Abroad program than join Women to Women, a mentorship program for at-risk girls.