Black History Month: Reading List
Rep. Lisa Borowski February 1, 2024 | 11:31 AM
Marie, our office's Chief of Staff, worked with Newtown Public Library and Radnor Memorial Library to curate a list of recommended books for Black History Month they have available for our community to borrow.
The lists are comprised of 3 categories of Black voices: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Children / Middle Grade / Young Adult.
Below each collage is a list of the included books; each with a link to its page on Goodreads, a free book tracker & review website.
Americanah – Chimamanda Noozi Adiche
Friday Black – Nana Kwame
Black Girls Must Have it All – Jayne Allen
Black Buck – Mateo Askaripour
The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
Witness – Jamel Brinkley
Black Candle Women – Diane Marie Brown
The New Naturals – Gabriel Bump
All the Sinners Bleed – S.A. Cosby
The Mayor of Maxwell Street – Avery Cunningham
The Girl with the Louding Voice – Abi Daré
The Reformatory – Tananarive Due
Coleman Hill – Kim Coleman Foote
Life and Other Love Songs – Anissa Gray
Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
The Sweetness of Water – Nathan Harris
Time’s Undoing – Cheryl A. Head
Moon Witch, Spider King – Marlon James
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois – Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The House of Eve – Sadeqa Johnson
An American Marriage – Tayari Jones
Flipping Boxcars – Cedric “The Entertainer” Kyles
Fifty Words for Rain – Asha Lemmie
The Unsettled – Ayana Mathis
Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store – James McBride
His Only Wife – Peace Adzo Medie
One Blood – Denene Millner
Love, Honor, Betray – Mary Monroe
Touched – Walter Mosley
Every Man a King – Walter Mosley
Nightcrawling – Leila Mottley
Wade in the Water – Nyani Nkrumah
My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? – Crystal Smith Paul
Night Wherever We Go – Tracey Rose Peyton
You Were Always Mine – Christine Pride & Jo Piazza
Everything’s Fine – Cecilia Rabess
Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid
The Overnights – Ian K. Smith
Hush Harbor – Anise Vance
Let Us Descend – Jesmyn Ward
Holler, Child: Stories – LaToya Watkins
Crook Manifesto – Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead
Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson
Seven Days in June – Tia Williams
Decent People – De’Shawn Charles Winslow
Sing a Black Girl’s Song: The Unpublished Work of Ntozake Shange – Imani Perry (editor)
Wildflower: A Memoir – Aurora James
Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden – Camille T. Dungy
Belonging – Michelle Miller
How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, & Skill – Jericho Brown, Darlene Taylor (editors)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song – Kevin Young (editor)
Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping – Shane McCrae
Why Fathers Cry at Night – Kwame Alexander
Congratulations, the Best is Over! – R. Eric Thomas
The Love You Save: A Memoir – Goldie Taylor
I Am Debra Lee: A Memoir – Debra Lee
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 – Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain (editors)
All About Love: New Visions – bell hooks
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation – Imani Perry
Thicker than Water: A Memoir – Kerry Washington
Quietly Hostile: Essays – Samantha Irby
Above Ground: Poems – Clint Smith
Up Home: One Girl’s Journey – Ruth J. Simmons
I Wasn’t Supposed to be Here: Finding My Voice, Finding My People, Finding My Way – Jonathan Conyers
Year of Yes – Shonda Rhimes
Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir – Ashley C. Ford
Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song – Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Bird Brother: A Falconer's Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife – Rodney Stotts
Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine – Dr. Uché Blackstock, MD
Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School – Kendra James
Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America – Michael Harriot
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir – Ben Greenman
Hidden Figures – Margot Lee Shetterly
From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home – Tembi Locke
Dreams From My Father – Barack Obama
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness – Austin Channing Brown
The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature – J. Drew Lanham
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake – Tiya Miles
Becoming – Michelle Obama
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X., & James Baldwin Shaped a Nation – Anna Malaika Tubbs
Just As I Am – Cicely Tyson
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Children:
Bedtime for Sweet Creatures – Nikki Grimes, Elizabeth Zunon (illus.)
Time for Kenny – Brian Pinkney
I Am Every Good Thing – Derrick Barnes, Gordon C. James (illus.)
Saturday – Oge Mora
Your Name Is a Song – Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, Luisa Uribe (illus.)
A Walk in the Woods – Nikki Grimes, Jerry Pinkney & Brian Pinkney (illus.)
Cape – Kevin Johnson, Kitt Thomas (illus.)
Big – Vashti Harrison
Stacey’s Remarkable Books – Stacey Abrams
Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem – Amanda Gorman, Loren Long (illus.)
There Was a Party for Langston (King O’ Letters) – Jason Reynolds, Jerome Pumphrey & Jarrett Pumphrey (illus.)
How to Write a Poem – Kwame Alexander, Deanna Nikaido, Melissa Sweet (illus.)
Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life – Jerry Pinkney
Shirley Chisholm Dared: The Story of the First Black Woman in Congress – Alicia D. Williams & April Harrison
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History – Yashti Harrison
Middle Grade:
Ways to Grow Love (A Ryan Hart Story) - Renée Watson, Niña Mata (illus.)
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky – Kwame Mbalia
On Air with Zoe Washington – Janae Marks
Stuntboy, in the Meantime – Jason Reynolds, Raúl the Third (illus.)
New Kid – Jerry Craft
Anne of West Philly – Ivy Noelle Weir, Myisha Haynes (illus.)
Swim Team – Johnnie Christmas
Rooting for Plants: The Unstoppable Charles S. Parker, Black Botanist & Collector – Janice N. Harrington, Theodore Taylor III (illus.)
Young Adult:
Ace of Spades – Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Nigeria Jones – Ibi Zoboi
Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre – Brandy Colbert
Children of Blood & Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1) – Tomi Adeyemi
Charming as a Verb – Ben Philippe
Nubia: Real One – L.L. McKinney, Robyn Smith (illus.)
The Weight of Blood – Tiffany D. Jackson
Rust in the Root – Justina Ireland