Octavia E. Butler
Adult
On her twenty-sixth birthday, Dana is pulled from 1976 California to an antebellum Maryland plantation to save a drowning white boy — the ancestor she must keep alive so she can be born. Time travel makes slavery a present-tense problem she cannot theorize from a safe distance.
Prices are indicative. Final price is set by the retailer at checkout.
The adult shelf’s anchor: time travel that makes slavery a present-tense problem. Dana cannot visit the past as a tourist.
Adult. Graphic violence and sexual assault in the slaveholding South. Not a YA classic even when teens also read it.
What does Dana have to protect in order to exist, and what does that protection cost?
Notice every time the present fails to feel like safety. That is the book’s argument.
Two titles that deepen the same conversation.
Adult
JamesPercival Everett
A reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold away from his wife and daughter, he runs — and the raft journey down the Mississippi becomes his story of language, literacy, and who gets to be the narrator.
Adult
AmericanahChimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Ifemelu leaves military-ruled Nigeria for the United States and learns, for the first time, what it means to be Black in America. Obinze, shut out after 9/11, builds an undocumented life in London. Hair, blogs, class, and the difference between becoming American and staying yourself.
Adult
Chain-Gang All-StarsNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Incarcerated people fight to the death on national television for a shot at freedom. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are partners and rivals inside a spectacle that sells Black pain as entertainment — with footnotes that will not let you watch from the couch.
Ages 3–8
Black Is a Rainbow ColorAngela Joy
Stunningly illustrated by Caldecott Honoree and Coretta Scott King Award winner Ekua Holmes, Black Is a Rainbow Color is a sweeping celebration told through debut author Angela Joy’s rhythmically captivating and unforgettable words.
Young adult
(Me) MothAmber McBride
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE A debut YA novel-in-verse by Amber McBride, Me (Moth) is about a teen girl who is grieving the deaths of her family, and a teen boy who crosses her path.
Ages 3–8
A dance like starlightKristy Dempsey
In a lyrical tale as beautiful as a dance en pointe, Kristy Dempsey and Floyd Cooper tell the story of one little ballerina who was inspired by Janet Collins to make her own dreams come true.
Ages 8–12
A Good Kind of TroubleLisa Moore Ramée
From debut author Lisa Moore Ramée comes this funny and big-hearted debut middle grade novel about friendship, family, and standing up for what’s right, perfect for fans of Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give and the novels of Renée Watson ...
Ages 3–8
A Kids Book About RacismJelani Memory
This is one conversation that's never too early to start, and this book was written to be an introduction for kids on the topic.
