BIOGRAPHIES
Between
the Lines: How Ernie Barnes went from the football field to the art gallery. By
Sandra Neil Wallace; illustrated by Bryan Collier
BIO BARNES
Discover the true story of NFL star Ernie
Barnes---a boy who followed his dreams and became one of the most influential
artists of his generation.
Warriors Don’t Cry: a searing memoir of the battle to integrate Little
Rock’s Central High
by Melba Pattillo Beals
BIO BEALS
Beals chronicles her harrowing junior year at Central High where she
underwent the segregationists' brutal organized campaign of terrorism which
included telephone threats, vigilante stalkers, economic blackmailers, rogue
police, and much more.
War in the Ring: Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, and
the fight between America and Hitler by John Florio
BIO LOUIS
Joe Louis was born in a
sharecropper's shack in Alabama and raised in a Detroit tenement. Max Schmeling
grew up in poverty in Hamburg, Germany. For both boys, boxing was a way out and
a way up. Little did they know someday they would face each other in a pair of
battles that would capture the imagination of the world. In America, Joe was a
symbol of hope to blacks yearning to participate in the American dream. In
Germany, Max was made to symbolize the superiority of the Aryan race. The two
men climbed through the ropes with the weight of their countries on their
shoulderś€”and only one would leave victorious.
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
BIO WOODSON
Woodson shares her
childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career
in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South.
FICTION
Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-RansomeDiscovering a book of Langston Hughes' poetry in the library helps Langston cope with the loss of his mother, relocating from Alabama to Chicago as part of the Great Migration, and being bullied.
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher
Paul CurtisTen-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in
Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and
sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned
bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.
The Journey of Little Poor Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis
When his poor sharecropper father is killed in an accident and leaves the family in debt, twelve-year-old Little Charlie agrees to accompany fearsome plantation overseer Cap'n Buck north in pursuit of people who have stolen from him; Cap'n Buck tells Little Charlie that his father's debt will be cleared when the fugitives are captured, which seems like a good deal until Little Charlie comes face-to-face with the people he is chasing.
The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis
Deza Malone, the smartest girl in her class in
Gary, Indiana, accompanies her mother and older brother on a trip to find her
father, an African American man who left to find work after the Great
Depression hit. They end up in a Hooverville outside of Flint, Michigan, and
her brother attempts to be a performer while Deza and her mother search for a
home.
The Watsons Go to
Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul CurtisALA Top Ten Best Book - ALA Notable Children's
Book - IRA Young Adult's Choice - A New York Times Book Review Best Book
Enter the hilarious
world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint,
Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron, who's
thirteen and an "official juvenile delinquent.When Byron gets to be too
much trouble, they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person
who can shape him up. And they happen to be in Birmingham when Grandma's church
is blown up.
The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson (Realistic Fiction and Mystery)
Twelve-year-old Candice Miller is spending the summer in Lambert, South Carolina, in the old house that belonged to her grandmother, who died after being dismissed as city manager for having the city tennis courts dug up looking for buried treasure--but when she finds the letter that sent her grandmother on the treasure hunt, she finds herself caught up in the mystery and, with the help of her new friend and fellow book-worm, Brandon, she sets out to find the inheritance, exonerate her grandmother, and expose an injustice once committed against an African American family in Lambert.
Rebound by Alexander Kwame
In the summer of 1988, twelve-year-old Chuck Bell
is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers jazz and basketball
and learns more about his family's past
As Brave
as You by Jason Reynolds (Realistic Fiction)
Reynolds delivers an emotionally resonant story
of an African American family working to overcome its past. Warmly told in
third person, the novel follows Genie (staying with his grandparents in rural
Virginia) through a series of tragicomic blunders, minor triumphs, and
heartfelt discussions with blind and fiercely independent Grandpop. A novel
with deft dialogue and affecting depth.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin; Illustrated by Nate Powell
Presents in graphic novel format events from the
life of Georgia congressman John Lewis, focusing on his youth in rural Alabama,
his meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student
Movement.
