by Lauren Fox and Samantha Totman
February is Black History Month. We’ve picked out just a few suggestions of books by Black authors and/or about Black people and characters. We recommend reading these books all year long, but February is a great time to start!
Children
African Icons: Ten People Who Shaped History by Tracy Baptiste, illustrated by Hillary D. Wilson
King of Ragtime: The Story of Scott Joplin by Stephen Costanza
Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne
Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free: The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth by Alice Faye Duncan
When The School Shut Down: A Young Girl’s Story of Virginia’s “Lost Generation” and the Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka Decision by Yolanda Gladded, as told to Dr. Tamara Pizzoli, illustrated by Keisha Morris
Timelines from Black History: Leaders, Legends, Legacies by Mireille Harper
Have I Ever Told You Black Lives Matter by Shani Mahiri King, illustrated by Bobby C. Martin, Jr.
Ruby Bridges (She Persisted) by Kekla Magoon
More Than Just a Game: The Black Origins of Basketball by Madison Moore, illustrated by Lonnie Ollivierre
Stitch by Stitch: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly Sews Her Way to Freedom by Connie Schofield-Morrison, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon
What Was the Harlem Renaissance by Sherri L. Smith, illustrated by Tim Foley
Florence Griffith Joyner (She Persisted) by Rita Williams-Garcia, illustrated by Gillian Flint
Young Adult
Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre by Brandy Colbert
Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African-American Voting Rights by Lawrence Goldstone
Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance by Nikki Grimes
We Are Not Broken by George M. Johnson
Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People by Kekla Magoon
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
They Better Call Me Sugar: My Journey from the Hood to the Hardwood by Sugar Rodgers
The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Alexander
Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi
Adult
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and illustrated by Hugo Martínez
The 1619 Project:A New Origin Story, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
Run: Book One by John Lewis
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education by Mychal Denzel Smith
The Radical King, edited by Cornel West
The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Survived Slavery and Became Millionaires by Shomari Wills
