Collection: Shop Black

Meet Raye Montague―the hidden mastermind who made waves in the U.S. Navy!

After touring a German submarine in the early 1940s, young Raye set her sights on becoming an engineer. Little did she know sexism and racial inequality would challenge that dream every step of the way, even keeping her greatest career accomplishment a secret for decades. Through it all, the gifted mathematician persisted―finally gaining her well-deserved title in history: a pioneer who changed the course of ship design forever.

The Girl With a Mind for Math: The Story of Raye Montague is the third book in a riveting educational series about the inspiring lives of amazing scientists. In addition to the illustrated rhyming tale, you'll find a complete biography, fun facts, a colorful timeline of events, and even a note from Montague herself!

In the latest Lola Reads book, Lola welcomes a special visitor--her grandmother Nana-Bibi!

Lola's grandmother is coming to visit, and Lola can't wait for all the family fun. Nana-Bibi will stay in Lola's room, so Lola gets to sleep on a special blow-up bed. The family spends the week doing different activities, like shopping for presents for family back in Tanzania, having dance parties, and making special mandazi doughnuts. Nana-Bibi and Lola share a special time as Nana-Bibi remembers all the things she used to do with her nana.

This multigenerational celebration of grandmas, moms, and grandaughters will reassure all children preparing for a visit from a faraway relative.

Six-time Coretta Scott King Award winner and four-time Caldecott Honor recipient Bryan Collier brings this classic, inspirational poem to life, written by poet Useni Eugene Perkins.

Hey black child,

Do you know who you are?

Who really are?Do you know you can be

What you want to be

If you try to be

What you can be?

This lyrical, empowering poem celebrates black children and seeks to inspire all young people to dream big and achieve their goals.

A first-of-its-kind compelling exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in higher education.

Black women are heading to college in record numbers, and more and more Black women are teaching in higher education. But increasing numbers in college don't guarantee our safety there. Willpower and grit may improve achievement for Black people in school, but they don't secure our belonging. In fact, the very structure of higher education ensures that we're treated as guests, outsiders to the institutional family--outnumbered and unwelcome.

Dr. Jasmine Harris shares her own experiences attempting to be a Vassar girl and reckoning with a lack of legacy and agency. Moving beyond the "data points", Dr. Harris examines the day-to-day impacts on Black women as individuals, the longer-term consequences to our professional lives, and the generational costs to our entire families.

"I want to arm as many Black girls and women as I can with the knowledge about these spaces that I lacked," says Dr. Harris. "By laying bare my own traumas, and those of Black women before me, I am providing them the tools to protect themselves, with an understanding of how deliberately many institutions will try to undercut them."

Trial and error has been required of Black students to navigate systems of discrimination and disadvantage. But this book now offers useful support, illuminating the community of Black women dealing with similar issues. The author's story is not unusual, nor are her interactions anomalies. Black Women, Ivory Tower explores why.

Bookworms big and small will be charmed by lovable Lola in this delightful sequel to LOLA AT THE LIBRARY that celebrates imagination and the love of reading.

Lola loves to go to the library with her daddy. Every night she reads a new story, and the next day, she acts it out. One day she's a fairy princess, the next day she goes on a trip to Lagos! She becomes a tiger, a farmer, a pilot. . . . what will Lola be next?

Children and adults will love following along with Lola's adventures. LOLA LOVES STORIES is a wonderful introduction to the power of reading and how it can inspire young minds at the earliest ages.

When the Grand Design is finally revealed, it will spell the last ride for Mr. Armed and Brokenhearted.



The table is set finally set, and the meal is served. Pull up a chair, because this will be the "Last Supper."

In this final installment of the widely popular Animal series, we find our anti-hero on a hunt for the woman who forced him to pick his guns back up when she burned his entire world down: the traitorous Red Sonja. She alone holds the key to saving his children and avenging his murdered wife, Gucci. But first, he has to find her.

To do this, Animal reassembles his old gang, The Dog Pound, for what will prove to be their most dangerous mission yet. The stakes are higher than ever, and not everyone is expected to make it, but the members of The Pound readily accept the task and the risks that come with it. With his old friends and a few new ones, Animal is on the hunt for his elusive prey. Then the unthinkable happens, and an earth-shattering discovery will change everything, including loyalties.

Meanwhile, the Black Lotus finds herself a prisoner in a place she had once called home. Having been branded a traitor by the Brotherhood of Blood, she is remanded to the mountain fortress while awaiting trial for the crimes she stands accused of. Unbeknownst to her, there are some within the Brotherhood who would rather see her dead than exonerated. Kahllah has unearthed a dark conspiracy that could clear her name, but at the cost of destroying the Brotherhood of Blood, which makes her a threat to the conspirators and a moving target. The hunter finds herself the hunted, and her only chance of surviving the mountain will be to place her fate in the hands of an unlikely champion.

Based on Theresa Wilson's (a.k.a. Theresa tha S.O.N.G.B.I.R.D.'s) beautiful, viral spoken word poem of the same name, You So Black is a picture book celebration of the richness, the nuance, and the joy of Blackness.

Black is everywhere, and in everything, and in everyone--in the night sky and the fertile soil below. It's in familial connections and invention, in hands lifted in praise and voices lifted in protest, and in hearts wide open and filled with love. Black is good.

Accompanied by powerful yet tender illustrations by award-winning illustrator London Ladd, Theresa tha S.O.N.G.B.I.R.D. has adapted her poem, full of gorgeous lyricism and imagery, to show readers the love, joy, resilience, and universality in the beauty of Blackness.

No one knows where the term Underground Railroad came from--there were no trains or tracks, only "conductors" who helped escaping slaves to freedom. Including real stories about "passengers" on the "Railroad," this book chronicles slaves' close calls with bounty hunters, exhausting struggles on the road, and what they sacrificed for freedom. With 80 black-and-white illustrations throughout and a sixteen-page black-and-white photo insert, the Underground Railroad comes alive!

A revelatory new volume on the American modernist's lesser-known works on paper, reuniting many serial works for the first time

Recalling a charcoal she made in 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe later wrote, "I have made this drawing several times--never remembering that I had made it before--and not knowing where the idea came from." These drawings, and the majority of O'Keeffe's works in charcoal, watercolor, pastel and graphite, belong to series in which she develops and transforms motifs that lie between observation and abstraction. In the formative years of 1915 to 1918, she made as many works on paper as she would in the next 40 years, producing sequences in watercolor of abstract lines, organic landscapes and nudes, along with charcoal drawings she would group according to the designation "specials." While her practice turned increasingly toward canvas in subsequent decades, important series on paper reappeared--including charcoal flowers of the 1930s, portraits of the 1940s and aerial views of the 1950s.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this richly illustrated volume highlights the drawings of an artist better known as a painter, and reunites individual sheets with their contextual series to illuminate O'Keeffe's persistently sequential practice.
Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) first received critical attention when her breakthrough charcoal drawings were exhibited in New York in 1916. Two years later, she moved to the city to work full time on her art. Beginning in 1929, O'Keeffe spent summers in New Mexico, where she would relocate in 1949. The most famous female artist of her age, she thought of herself not as "the best woman painter" but as "one of the best painters."

In Trace Evidence, the urgent follow-up to his award-winning debut Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan continues his piercing meditations on the intricacies of mixed-race identity, queer desire, time, mortality, and the legacies of anti-Blackness in the US and abroad. At the collection's center sits "On the Overnight from Agadir," a poem that chronicles Shanahan's survival of a devastating bus accident in Morocco, his mother's birth country, and ruminates on home, belonging, and the mysteries of fate. With rich lyricism, power, and tenderness, Trace Evidence centers the racial periphery and excavates the vestiges of our violent colonial past in the most intimate aspects of our lives. In a language yoked equally to the physical and metaphysical worlds, the poet articulates the need we all share for real intimacy and connection, and proves, time and again, that the true cost of our separateness is the love that our survival requires.

Granny teaches her grandson to cook the family meal in author Winsome Bingham and illustrator C. G. Esperanza's picture book Soul Food Sunday, a loving celebration of food, traditions, and gathering together at the table.

A 2022 Coretta Scott King Book Award Illustrator Honor Book

On Sundays, everyone gathers at Granny's for Soul Food.
But today, I don't go to the backyard or the great room.
I follow Granny instead.
"You're a big boy now," Granny says. "Time for you to learn."

At Granny's, Sunday isn't Sunday without a big family gathering over a lovingly prepared meal. Old enough now, our narrator is finally invited to help cook the dishes for the first time: He joins Granny in grating the cheese, cleaning the greens, and priming the meat for Roscoe Ray's grill. But just when Granny says they're finished, her grandson makes his own contribution, sweetening this Sunday gathering--and the many more to come.

Evocatively written and vividly illustrated, this mouthwatering story is a warm celebration of tradition and coming together at a table filled with love and delicious food.

"Esperanza's vibrant illustrations are awash in saturated colors, photo-realistic facial expressions, and pronounced outlines, and they positively radiate this family's joy and love for one another . . . Food-related words and onomatopoeia are called out in large, colorful fonts, adding to the reading fun." --Booklist (Starred Review)

"This nourishing story will gratify soul food aficionados, as well as anyone who's experienced how bonds strengthen through food and traditions." --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Untold until now, here is the story of Black sprinter and long-jumper Willye B. White, who went from picking cotton as a child in Mississippi to competing and winning in the 1956 and 1964 Olympics.

Future Olympian Willye B. White was born in 1939 in Money, Mississippi--but money was exactly what she didn't have. Abandoned by both her parents, she worked alongside her grandparents in the cotton fields. Willye had big dreams, though. So when her cousin noticed she was the fastest runner around, Willye jumped at the chance to put on her traveling shoes and run her way to better opportunities. And run Willye did, first for the Tennessee State Tigerbelles and then for the US Olympic team. Her struggles weren't over though--time and again, Willye had to remind herself, "I believe in me," whether she was running and jumping or witnessing the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement.

Through Alice Faye Duncan's signature combination of poetry and prose and Keith Mallett's lifelike illustrations, readers will be inspired by Willye White's persistence and will learn how she contributed to Black progress with muscle and grit.

Publishers Weekly's "Top 10" Spring 2024

This groundbreaking book tracks the massive wealth amassed from slavery from pre-Civil War to today, showing how our modern economy was built on the backs of enslaved Black people--and lays out a clear argument for reparations that shows exactly what was stolen, who stole it, and to whom it is owed.

In this timely, powerful, investigative history, The Stolen Wealth of Slavery, Emmy Award-nominated journalist David Montero follows the trail of the massive wealth amassed by Northern corporations throughout America's history of enslavement. It has long been maintained by many that the North wasn't complicit in the horrors of slavery. The truth, however, is that large Northern banks--including well-known institutions like Citibank, Bank of New York, and Bank of America--were critical to the financing of slavery; that they saw their fortunes rise dramatically from their involvement in the business of enslavement; and that white business leaders and their surrounding communities created enormous wealth from the enslavement and abuse of Black bodies.

The Stolen Wealth of Slavery grapples with facts that will be a revelation to many: Most white Southern enslavers were not rich--many were barely making ends meet--with Northern businesses benefitting the most from bondage-based profits. And some of the very Northerners who would be considered pro-Union during the Civil War were in fact anti-abolition, seeing the institution of slavery as being in their best financial interests, and only supporting the Union once they realized doing so would be good for business. It is a myth that the wealth generated from slavery vanished after the war. Rather, it helped finance the industrialization of the country, and became part of the bedrock of the growth of modern corporations, helping to transform America into a global economic behemoth.

In this remarkable book, Montero elegantly and meticulously details rampant Northern investment in slavery. He showcases exactly what was stolen, who stole it, and to whom it is owed, calling for corporate reparations as he details contemporary movements to hold companies accountable for past atrocities.

A stunning graphic novel adaptation of Walter Dean Myers's New York Times bestseller Monster.

Monster is a multi-award-winning, provocative coming-of-age story about Steve Harmon, a teenager awaiting trial for a murder and robbery. As Steve acclimates to juvenile detention and goes to trial, he envisions how his ordeal would play out on the big screen.

Guy A. Sims, the acclaimed author of the Brotherman series of comic books, collaborated with his brother, the illustrator Dawud Anyabwile, in this thrilling black-and-white graphic novel adaption of Monster.

Monster was the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award recipient, an ALA Best Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor selection, and a National Book Award finalist. Monster is also now a major motion picture called All Rise starring Jennifer Hudson, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Nas, and A$AP Rocky.

Fans of Monster and of the work of Walter Dean Myers--and even kids who think they don't like to read--will devour this graphic adaptation.

Kai is the only member of his family who can't get the dance steps to the Electric Slide right. But Kai is determined to bust a move in this fun and sweet celebration of African American families.

Kai's aunt is getting married, and everyone in the Donovan family is excited about the wedding ... except Kai. The highlight of every Donovan occasion is dancing the electric slide--a groovy line dance with footwork that Kai can't quite figure out. More than anything, he wants to prove that he can boogie with the rest of his family and earn a cool nickname from his granddad. Can Kai break through his nerves and break it down on the dance floor?

Told with humor and heart by author Kelly J. Baptist and lively illustrations from debut picture book artist Darnell Johnson, The Electric Slide and Kai is a funky celebration with all the right moves!

"The power of George Jackson's personal story remains painfully relevant to our nation today, with its persistent racism, its hellish prisons, its unjust judicial system, and the poles of wealth and poverty that are at the root of all that. I hope the younger generation, black and white, will read Soledad Brother." --Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States

A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, Soledad Brother is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life.
Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.