Collection: Shop Black

A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book
A Best Book of 2021 by BuzzFeed and Real Simple

An "unmissable" (Vogue), "exceptional" (The Washington Post), and "evocative" (Chicago Tribune) memoir about three Black girls from the storied Bronzeville section of Chicago that offers a penetrating exploration of race, opportunity, friendship, sisterhood, and the powerful forces at work that allow some to flourish...and others to falter.

They were three Black girls. Dawn, tall and studious; her sister, Kim, younger by three years and headstrong as they come; and her best friend, Debra, already prom-queen pretty by third grade. They bonded--fervently and intensely in that unique way of little girls--as they roamed the concrete landscape of Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, the destination of hundreds of thousands of Black folks who fled the ravages of the Jim Crow South.

These third-generation daughters of the Great Migration come of age in the 1970s, in the warm glow of the recent civil rights movement. It has offered them a promise, albeit nascent and fragile, that they will have more opportunities, rights, and freedoms than any generation of Black Americans in history. Their working-class, striving parents are eager for them to realize this hard-fought potential. But the girls have much more immediate concerns: hiding under the dining room table and eavesdropping on grown folks' business; collecting secret treasures; and daydreaming about their futures--Dawn and Debra, doctors, Kim a teacher. For a brief, wondrous moment the girls are all giggles and dreams and promises of "friends forever." And then fate intervenes, first slowly and then dramatically, sending them careening in wildly different directions. There's heartbreak, loss, displacement, and even murder. Dawn struggles to make sense of the shocking turns that consume her sister and her best friend, all the while asking herself a simple but profound question: Why?

In the vein of The Other Wes Moore and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Three Girls from Bronzeville is a "deeply personal" (Real Simple) memoir that chronicles Dawn's attempt to find answers. It's at once a celebration of sisterhood and friendship, a testimony to the unique struggles of Black women, and a tour-de-force about the complex interplay of race, class, and opportunity, and how those forces shape our lives and our capacity for resilience and redemption.

Mo may not be the biggest, the strongest, or the fastest football player, but he won't let that stop him from playing! The Geisel Award Winning reader from David Adler is now in Step into Reading!

Mo is the youngest kid on the Robins football team. The kids on the rival team tease him for being a "butterfingers" who's too tiny to catch the ball. But Mo's coach has a plan up his sleeve to turn Mo's little size into a big win for the Robins.

Step 2 readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories. They are perfect for children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help.

From the authors of The New York Times bestseller Empty Bottles Full of Stories comes a brand-new collection of compelling poetry and prose.

The heart will ache, the soul will feel weary, and the mind will be weighed down by the things you wish to forget. There will be nights when all you have is yourself and the moon. There will be nights when silence will exist in abundance. And even though you may feel lonely at first. You must understand that the solitude is a gift; you must understand that even when alone, you are more than enough.

In this fourth installment of the Five Families of New York, C. N. Phillips explores just how far a person will go to keep things together when their life is crumbling.

With death nipping at his neck like cold in the winter, Lorenzo "Zo" Alverez is faced with the inevitable fate of stepping into his late father's shoes. With enemies coming at him from all sides, Zo doesn't know who he can trust. But when the light at the end of the tunnel comes in the form of family, he discovers secrets about his father that he never knew. These secrets threaten to pull him away from the other powerful families in New York and people that would risk their lives for his. When the time comes to decide where his loyalty will lie, he is unaware that the price for that choice is the heads of the people he loves the most.

A brilliant picture book biography about Thurgood Marshall, who fought for equality during the Civil Rights Movement and served as the first Black justice on the Supreme Court, from Coretta Scott King Honor winners Kekla Magoon and Laura Freeman.

Growing up in Baltimore, Thurgood Marshall could see that things weren't fair. The laws said that Black and white people couldn't use the same schools, parks, or water fountains.

When Thurgood had to read the Constitution as punishment for a prank at school, his eyes were opened. It was clear to him that Jim Crow laws were wrong, and he was willing to do whatever it took to change them.

His determination to make sure all Americans were treated equally led him to law school and then the NAACP, where he argued cases like Brown v. Board of Education in front of the Supreme Court. But to become a Justice on the highest court in the land, Thurgood had to make space for himself every step of the way.

Readers will be inspired by Kekla Magoon's concise text and Laura Freeman's luminous illustrations, which bring Thurgood Marshall's incredible legacy and achievements to life.

* An SLJ Best Book of the Year * A Bank Street Best Book of the Year * A Jane Addams Children's Book Award Finalist * A Texas Topaz Nonfiction Selection * Wisconsin State Reading Association's 2022 Picture This Recommendation List * Indiana Authors Award Shortlist *

Take a trip around the world in this fascinating lift-the-flap book. With over 80 flaps to lift, intrepid explorers can discover our world, from the layers that make up planet Earth to the tiniest insects in the rainforest and the creatures who live at the very bottom of the sea. Includes pages about the hottest and coldest parts of the world, and a map with lift-the-flap details about each continent. A colorful and fun introduction to geography with internet links to find out more.

The inspirational story of George Washington Carver and his childhood secret garden is brought to life in this picture book biography by the author-illustrator team behind Muhammad Ali: A Champion Is Born.

When George Washington Carver was just a young child, he had a secret: a garden of his own.

Here, he rolled dirt between his fingers to check if plants needed more rain or sun. He protected roots through harsh winters, so plants could be reborn in the spring. He trimmed flowers, spread soil, studied life cycles. And it was in this very place that George's love of nature sprouted into something so much more--his future.

Gene Barretta's moving words and Frank Morrison's beautiful paintings tell the inspiring life and history of George Washington Carver, from a baby born into slavery to celebrated botanist, scientist, and inventor. His passion and determination are the seeds to this lasting story about triumph over hardship--a tale that begins in a secret garden.

* A Texas Bluebonnet Award Book of the Year *

From bestselling, award-winning creators Renée Watson and Bryan Collier comes a stunningly crafted picture book chronicling the life of poet and activist Maya Angelou.

This unforgettable picture book introduces young readers to the life and work of Maya Angelou, whose words have uplifted and inspired generations of readers. The author of the celebrated autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya was the first Black person and first woman to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration, and her influence echoes through culture and history. She was also the first Black woman to appear on the United States quarter.

Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award winner Renée Watson uses Angelou's beloved medium of poetry to lyrically chronicle her rich life in a deeply moving narrative. Vivid and striking collage art by Caldecott Honor recipient and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner Bryan Collier completes this unforgettable portrait of one of the most important American artists in history.

Maya's momma was right.

Maya was a preacher, a teacher.

A Black girl whose voice

chased away darkness, ushered in light.

A family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present.

In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington, DC. That man was Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician, a writer of almanacs, and one of the greatest astronomers of his generation. Banneker then wrote what would become a famous letter to Jefferson, imploring the new president to examine his hypocrisy, as someone who claimed to love liberty yet was an enslaver. More than two centuries later, Rachel Jamison Webster, an ostensibly white woman, learns that this groundbreaking Black forefather is also her distant relative.

Acting as a storyteller, Webster draws on oral history and conversations with her DNA cousins to imagine the lives of their shared ancestors across eleven generations, among them Banneker's grandparents, an interracial couple who broke the law to marry when America was still a conglomerate of colonies under British rule. These stories shed light on the legal construction of race and display the brilliance and resistance of early African Americans in the face of increasingly unjust laws, some of which are still in effect in the present day.

Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth is an inspiring picture book biography of the groundbreaking journalist and civil rights activist as told by her great-granddaughter Michelle Duster and illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award Honoree artist Laura Freeman.

Ida B. Wells was an educator, journalist, feminist, businesswoman, newspaper owner, public speaker, suffragist, civil rights activist, and women's club leader.

She was a founder of the NAACP, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, the Alpha Suffrage Club, and the Negro Fellowship League.

She wrote, spoke, and traveled, challenging the racist and sexist norms of her time.

Faced with criticism and threats to her life, she never gave up.

This is her extraordinary true story, as told by her great-granddaughter Michelle Duster and beautifully brought to life by Coretta Scott King Award Honoree artist Laura Freeman.

This book brings together chapters authored by leading African American Studies/Black Studies scholars in the USA and the UK. It focuses on the roots of the discipline, reaching back to early brilliant Black intellectuals, discusses the historical and epistemological development of formal Black Studies, setting these in their socio-political contexts, and presents research methodologies and guidelines that are appropriate and valid for people of African descent. A number of chapters direct attention to the discipline's longstanding commitment to social responsibility with chapters that focus on arts and activism, service learning and civic engagement, and present tangible examples for students. The book concludes with chapters on diverse research topics inclusive of history and gender, literature, sport, music, representation in comic books, afrofuturism, and the Black Studies Movement in the UK.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War rocketed the question of Israel and Palestine onto the front pages of American newspapers. Black Power activists saw Palestinians as a kindred people of color, waging the same struggle for freedom and justice as themselves. Soon concerns over the Arab-Israeli conflict spread across mainstream black politics and into the heart of the civil rights movement itself. Black Power and Palestine uncovers why so many African Americans--notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, among others--came to support the Palestinians or felt the need to respond to those who did.

Americans first heard pro-Palestinian sentiments in public through the black freedom struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Michael R. Fischbach uncovers this hidden history of the Arab-Israeli conflict's role in African American activism and the ways that distant struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality. Black Power's transnational connections between African Americans and Palestinians deeply affected U.S. black politics, animating black visions of identity well into the late 1970s. Black Power and Palestine allows those black voices to be heard again today.

In chronicling this story, Fischbach reveals much about how American peoples of color create political strategies, a sense of self, and a place within U.S. and global communities. The shadow cast by events of the 1960s and 1970s continues to affect the United States in deep, structural ways. This is the first book to explore how conflict in the Middle East shaped the American civil rights movement.

The African diaspora--a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade and Western colonialism--has generated a wide array of artistic achievements, from blues and reggae to the paintings of the pioneering American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner and the music videos of Solange. This study concentrates on how these works, often created during times of major social upheaval and transformation, use Black culture both as a subject and as context. From musings on "the souls of black folk" in late-nineteenth-century art to questions of racial and cultural identities in performance, media, and computer-assisted arts in the twenty-first century, this book examines the philosophical and social forces that have shaped Black presence in modern and contemporary visual culture.

Renowned art historian Richard J. Powell presents Black art drawn from across the African diaspora, with examples from the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe. Black Art features artworks executed in a broad range of media, including film, photography, performance art, conceptual art, advertising, and sculpture.

Now updated and expanded, this new edition helps to better understand how the first two decades of the twenty-first century have been a transformative moment in which previous assumptions about race and identity have been irrevocably altered, with art providing a useful lens through which to think about these compelling issues.

Winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Translation

Mahmoud Darwish was that rare literary phenomenon: a poet both acclaimed by critics as one of the most important poets in the Arab world and beloved by his readers. His language--lyrical and tender--helped to transform modern Arabic poetry into a living metaphor for the universal experiences of exile, loss, and identity. The poems in this collection, constructed from the cadence and imagery of the Palestinian struggle, shift between the most intimate individual experience and the burdens of history and collective memory.

Brilliantly translated by Fady Joudah, If I Were Another--which collects the greatest epic works of Darwish's mature years--is a powerful yet elegant work by a master poet that demonstrates why Darwish was one of the most celebrated poets of his time and was hailed as the voice and conscience of an entire people.

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book - School Library Journal Best Book of the Year - Booklist Editors' Choice - Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Book - Booklist Top 10 Diverse Books for Middle Grade or Older Readers - Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books

This award-winning book will help kids understand the life and legacy of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

★"(A) history that everyone should know: required and inspired." --Kirkus Reviews

This picture book tells the story of a nine-year-old girl who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final stand for justice before his assassination - when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest.

In February 1968, two African American sanitation workers were killed by unsafe equipment in Memphis, Tennessee. Outraged at the city's refusal to recognize a labor union that would fight for higher pay and safer working conditions, sanitation workers went on strike. The strike lasted two months, during which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was called to help with the protests. While his presence was greatly inspiring to the community, this unfortunately would be his last stand for justice. He was assassinated in his Memphis hotel the day after delivering his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" sermon in Mason Temple Church. Inspired by the memories of a teacher who participated in the strike as a child, author Alice Faye Duncan reveals the story of the Memphis sanitation strike from the perspective of a young girl with a riveting combination of poetry and prose.

From award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford comes a captivating picture book biography about the incredible life of esteemed author, editor, and activist Toni Morrison, featuring gorgeous illustrations by debut artist Khalif Tahir Thompson.

How do you tell a story?

Before Toni Morrison was a Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel Prize-winning author, she was Chloe Ardelia Wofford, a little girl in Ohio who was both the only Black child in her first-grade classroom and the only student who was able to read.

This is the true story of how that young girl learned from her upbringing, surrounded herself with stories, and made a tremendous impact on the world. Toni Morrison's pen was her sword, and she grew to be a titan of the arts. Her legacy is one that still touches readers to this day.

Expertly and evocatively told by award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford, with beautiful painted illustrations by Khalif Tahir Thompson, this is a must-have picture book biography for any collection. It celebrates Toni Morrison's legacy while inspiring readers to create art, believe in themselves, and strive for greatness.