Part autobiography and part civil rights primer, March chronicles Rep. John Lewis’ childhood on an Alabama farm and his involvement with the civil rights movement. Artist Nate Powell powerfully captures the tension of this period in stark black and white illustrations. The complete trilogy spans the civil rights movement up to the inauguration of President …
So sweet! As someone who had not experienced this tradition, I loved being welcomed into Amira’s family’s culture and seeing family and friends celebrating her new baby sister in such a loving way. This would make a great baby shower gift. –Tegan, Queen Anne Book Company, Seattle, WA Celebrate life with books from Queen Anne …
Here is Moses Ose Utomi’s The Lies of the Ajungo, a novella about a boy who leaves home to fetch water. Naturally, there’s more to it than that, and Utomi’s vision of the City of Lies is a world filled with danger and magic. As the boy ventures out of the city and into the …
Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson is a staff pick at Annie Bloom’s Books in Portland, OR. From the publisher: New to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he’s landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: …
I […] read this YA fantasy book for a book club I am a part of and I thought it was so good! In this world, every 16 year-old girl goes through a Purity Ritual in which the purity of their blood is revealed. Red blood means you’re human, golden blood means you are not. …
This entry comes from a National Book Award-winning novel that investigates familial and social trauma in the Black communities of rural Mississippi, wrapping its plot in layers of beautiful, magical realist prose. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward “I like to think I know what death is. I like to think it’s something I could …
This is the very entertaining second book in Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy that started with Harlem Shuffle. It’s New York in the ’70s: more and more garbage in the streets, increasing crime and continuing graft. Carney has a thriving furniture business and strives to be a family man. But he can’t stay away from crime, with …
In true Egan narrative, he navigates through the brutal history of the Ku Klux Klan and their subterfuge into homes and the United States government and the woman who dismantled them. Egan has a way of pulling you into a story only for you to come out of it realizing that history can be more …
A beautiful collection of nature essays from an array of black essayists & poets– A Darker Wilderness is a literary treasure trove. As each writer sets about drawing upon an archival object to use as a portal for their own ruminations on the American natural world & memory, the sum of these personal histories & …
Avery hardly knows a thing about her estranged grandmother, Mama Letty. When her family relocates from DC to Georgia, Avery is set on uncovering the unspoken mysteries that tore her family apart– only she has no idea how far back they go. We Deserve Monuments is a phenomenal and emotionally captivating debut that weaves together small town …
