These books center on portraying Black joy in characters and stories that emphasize everyday living, a wide range of feelings, and positivity through growth in identity and community.
In this book list:
Board Books
Through poetic descriptive text and vibrant mixed-media illustrations, this celebrates the delight of bonding with a beautiful brown baby.
Illustrations and rhyming describe babies in terms of different sweet and tasty brown treats.
This remarkable picture book is a lyrical, inspirational exploration of growing up Black, written by award-winning illustrator Dapo Adeola, and brought to life by some of the most exciting Black artists of today.
Take a trip to the hair salon in this adorable celebration of family tradition and natural hair!
Rhyming text and bright illustrations capture the whimsical joy of a game of peek-a-boo with little ones.
This empowering board book inspires young readers to use their own special voice to make a difference in the world.
Picture Books and Early Readers
Abdul loves telling stories but thinks his messy handwriting and spelling mistakes will keep him from becoming an author, until Mr. Muhammad visits and encourages him to persist.
A family spends a fun day at the beach, collecting shells, building sandcastles, and flying kites.
This book encourages young children to hold close their joy, the words of their ancestors and elders, as well as their power to change the world. A perfect book for shared story time, this book will inspire young people to march forth with pride, glow, and happiness.
Illustrations and rhyming text reveal all of the things girls love about themselves, from their nose, toes, and skin to their abilities.
Keyana's latest big idea is to have a backyard movie soirée for all her relatives, but when her twin cousins' fighting knocks over the projector movie night seems heading for disaster--until Keyana comes up with an even better idea.
When Epic's family moves to a new neighborhood, he has a hard time making friends and fitting in with his skateboard; but the trick to making new friends is to be yourself!
With so many beautiful hairstyles to choose from like perms and locs, a little girl decides to get the freshest fade on the block.
As the smallest of five brothers, Tyson is used to being left out; but when the family's pet gerbil, Swish, escapes, Tyson's creative thinking and mathematical skills save the day.
School Age
From seventeen acclaimed Black male and nonbinary authors comes a vibrant collection of stories, comics, and poems about the power of joy and the wonders of Black boyhood.
A girl with hearing loss and a boy adjusting to life in a new country connect through their love of comics and get entangled in their own fantastical adventure.
When his best friend is tormented by Lucky, a seventh-grade bully, Darius James, a con artist with a heart of gold, comes up with a plan to save his friend-and maybe the whole school-from Lucky.
When the electricity goes out, twelve-year-old Eddie and his friends set out to investigate what is going on when they make the startling discovery that they are the only ones left in their neighborhood.
When Faiza, a Muslim migrant girl from northern Ghana, meets Abena, a wealthy doctor's daughter from the south, they form an unlikely and powerful friendship despite their different social statuses, opening up new worlds to them both.
When his friend RJ bets that Miles will wipe out at the ice rink, he is determined to prove him wrong.
A contemporary middle grade graphic novel about Bree starting at her new middle school. She’s stuck with the only elective, Swim 101. Bree suddenly finds her swim-crazed community counting on her to turn the school's failing team around.
A young graffiti artist learns to fight smart against the gentrification threatening her neighborhood.
Wednesday and her service dog, Woof, are the best detectives in the whole world—or at least their neighborhood. But can they find Mrs. Winters’s missing cat before her big trip?
Teens and YA
This is about a preacher's daughter in small-town Texas and her journey toward loving herself and her body, filled with heart, humor, family drama, and a dynamic love triangle.
The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love--even where they're not supposed to.
The Hope Raisers is a deeply emotional narrative that follows Daniel, Mutura, and Lucy as they fight to transform their slum through art and skating. It inspires and educates readers on African culture, female empowerment, and creating sustainable change in developing countries.
In her most famous spoken-word poem, Elizabeth Acevedo embraces all the complexities of Black hair and Afro-Latinidad--the history, pain, pride, and powerful love of that inheritance.
Propelled by his best friend's impending move out of state and inspired by Ferris Bueller's Day Off, sixteen-year-old Harrison plans a farewell through Baltimore that includes a road trip, their first Pride, and a rooftop dance party.
Seventeen-year-old neurodivergent and nonbinary Lark pretends that they are the creator of a viral thread that their ex-best friend, Kasim, accidentally posted onto their Twitter account, declaring his unrequited love, but living a lie takes its toll on Lark, forcing them to deal with their own messy emotions.
A snowstorm like this hits Atlanta only once every hundred years. As the city grinds to a halt, a group of teens band together to help a friend pull off the most epic apology of her life.
The story of how a cynic and a hopeless romantic become friends, fall in love, and break up unfolds from their different perspectives.