Showing titles in Black & African American

Jabari Asim goes beyond what's taught in the classroom and tells a fact-filled history of African Americans through politics, activism, sports, entertainment, music, and much more. You'll follow the road to freedom beginning with the slave trade and the middle passage through the abolitionist movement and the Civil War where many African Americans fought as soldiers. You'll learn how slave songs often contained hidden messages and how a 15-year-old Jamaican-born young man named Clive Campbell helped to create hip-hop in the early 1970's.

Kizzy Ann Stamps is starting at a new school, the just-integrated public school, and she’s worried. She’s worried that the white students won’t like her, and she’s worried they’ll stare at the scar that runs from the tip of her right eye to the corner of her smile - the scar a neighbor boy gave her, in a farming accident. But now this same boy won’t stop following Kizzy and Shag, her beloved border collie, everywhere they go - even when they’re practicing for an upcoming herding competition. And though Kizzy and Shag have been training hard, Kizzy and her coach aren’t sure they’ll even let her, a black girl, enter the competition.

Everyone wants a ticket to Futureland, where you can literally live out your wildest dreams. Want to step inside your favorite video game? Go pro in a sports arena? Perform at a real live concert? Grab your ticket and come right in.

Thirty diverse, award-winning authors and illustrators - including Renee Watson (Piecing Me Together), Grace Lin (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon), Meg Medina (Merci Suarez Changes Gears), and Adam Gidwitz (The Inquisitor's Tale) - engage young people in frank discussions about racism, identity, and self-esteem. Featuring stories filled with love, acceptance, truth, peace, and an assurance that there can be hope for a better tomorrow, The Talk is an inspiring anthology and must-have resource published in partnership with Just Us Books.

During World War II, black Americans were fighting for their country and for freedom in Europe, yet they had to endure a totally segregated military in the United States, where they weren't considered smart enough to become military pilots. After acquiring government funding for aviation training, civil rights activists were able to kickstart the first African American military flight program in the US at Tuskegee University in Alabama. While this audiobook details thrilling flight missions and the grueling training sessions the Tuskegee Airmen underwent, it also shines a light on the lives of these brave men who helped pave the way for the integration of the US armed forces.

Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro-Puerto Rican named Arturo Schomburg. This law clerk's life's passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and to bring to light the achievements of people of African descent throughout the ages. When Schomburg's collection became so big that it began to overflow his house, he turned to the New York Public Library, where he created and curated a collection that was the cornerstone of a new Negro Division.

Junior, a 300 pound musical and artistic prodigy, depends on his imagination for companionship. Buddy is used to depending on no one but himself. Homeless, he uses his wits to survive the streets. With the help of Mr. Poole, the school custodian, the two boys discover a sheltered universe of their own in the basement room. When their hiding place is discovered, and Junior loses the only place he feels safe, his imagination takes over. It will take all of Buddy’s resource to protect his friend as the realities of Junior’s world come crashing in around them both.

It's December at Oak Glen Primary School, and all EllRay can think about is Christmas. As far as he's concerned, Christmas is the best - no school, presents, fun parties, and lots of cookies! But before EllRay can celebrate with his family, he must lead half the school in the Winter Wonderland assembly. How tough can it be to memorize a few lines? Very tough, especially when EllRay's soon-to-be ex-friend gives him a challenge to perform onstage.

From the moment Africans were first brought to the shores of the United States, they had a hand in shaping the country. Their labor created a strong economy, built our halls of government, and defined American society in profound ways. And though the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't signed until 300 years after the first Africans arrived, the fight for freedom started the moment they set foot on American soil.

Lymon's father is, for the time being, at Parchman Farm - the Mississippi State Penitentiary - and his mother, whom he doesn't remember all that much, has moved North. Fortunately, Lymon is being raised by his loving grandparents. Together, Lymon and his grandpops share a love of music, spending late summer nights playing the guitar. But Lymon's world as he knows it is about to dissolve. He will be sent on a journey to two Northern cities far from the country life he loves - and the version of himself he knows.

When Zora Neale Hurston and her best friend, Carrie Brown, discover that the town mute can speak after all, they think they’ve uncovered a big secret. But Mr. Polk’s silence is just one piece of a larger puzzle that stretches back half a century to the tragic story of an enslaved girl named Lucia. As Zora’s curiosity leads a reluctant Carrie deeper into the mystery, the story unfolds through alternating narratives.

This is the best day of Louis Proof's life. The park even has the most amazing race course for radio-controlled cars. Louis starts racing right away. It's a close contest; he's about to activate his nitro boost to take the lead, when....This is the worst day of Louis' life. Without warning or reason, the 13-year-old falls into a coma due to a virus of a mysterious, celestial origin. When he awakens three months later, the world that he once knew and loved is totally out of control.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program. Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws were in place in the early 1950s, Katherine worked analyzing data at the NACA (later NASA) Langley laboratory.

Kofi “KO” Douglas knows how to handle pressure. After all, he is the newly announced #1 ranked AAU player in the country. On the court, his game is as good as it gets—even if his Wolves team lost to the Sabres in the national championship, KO always believes nobody can beat him one-on-one. That is, until his former best friend, Ripp, returns home, just in time for the biggest tournament of the summer, the McNabby. Ripp’s dad plays professional basketball overseas, and Ripp has been tearing up courts there—KO now has his toughest competition yet.

“Kids always search for heroes, so we might as well have a say in it”, Brad Meltzer realized, and so he envisioned this friendly, fun approach to biography - for his own kids, and for yours. Each book tells the story of one of America’s icons in a vivacious, conversational way. Each book focuses on a particular character trait that made that role model heroic. For example, Rosa Parks dared to stand up for herself and other African Americans by staying seated, and as a result she helped end public bus segregation and launch the country’s Civil Rights Movement.

According to Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson was “a sit-inner before the sit-ins, a freedom rider before the Freedom Rides.” According to Hank Aaron, Robinson was a leader of the Black Power movement before there was a Black Power movement. According to his wife, Rachel Robinson, he was always Jack, not Jackie—the diminutive form of his name bestowed on him in college by white sports writers. And throughout his whole life, Jack Robinson was a fighter for justice, an advocate for equality, and an inspiration beyond just baseball.

Claudie is traveling from Harlem to Georgia with Mama and Cousin Sidney to meet her grandmother and cousins for the first time. She hopes that learning her family's story will inspire her for the variety show she's planning to raise money to save the boardinghouse her family lives in. Claudie's grandmother tells her a legend from slavery times called "The People Could Fly." In it, an old man whispers magic words, and the enslaved people grow wings and fly home to Africa. This gives Claudie an amazing idea for the finale of her show.

Side-splittingly funny, spine-chillingly spooky, this companion to a Newbery Honor - winning anthology The Dark Thirty is filled with bad characters who know exactly how to charm. From the author's note that takes us back to McKissack's own childhood when she would listen to stories told on her front porch...to the captivating introductions to each tale, in which the storyteller introduces himself and sets the stage for what follows...to the 10 entertaining tales themselves, here is a worthy successor to McKissack's The Dark Thirty.

In Madam C. J. Walker Builds a Business, Sarah Breedlove (a.k.a. Madam C. J. Walker) reinvents and rebrands herself as a forceful entrepreneur whose products still dominate the black hair-care industry today. Born on the same plantation where her parents were once enslaved, Sarah is the first child in her family born free. When Sarah is just a girl, she learns the value of hard work.

For so many of us, the first introduction to Black history begins with lessons about slavery. While slavery is a crucial part of African-American history, it is not the beginning. In fact, there is a rich history tied to the continent of Africa that deserves to be told and to be marveled at—which is exactly what Maisha Oso does in Before the Ships. With sparse yet moving text, Maisha takes us back in time to before the advent of the Transatlantic slave trade.