From canonical classics to contemporary novels, discovering a new favorite book is a fun way to honor the African American experience. And it shouldn't stop at Black History Month — these books are fun, engaging, emotional, and make for great reads all year long. We're sharing non-fiction books, biographies, poetry, and even a coffee table book, so no matter what kind of reader you are, we've got a new favorite for you.
Black Icons in Herstory
Celebrate Black female icons across history with this colorful and inspiring read. Featuring women from music, film, politics, and human rights, these are 50 role models that made lasting change on the world. ($23)
Cooking From the Spirit
After going vegan changed Tab's life, she wanted to inspire others to make healthy swaps in their own lives to improve their health. The recipes are creative, encouraging, and easy so that everyone can take part. ($19)
The Other Black Girl
Nella Rogers is the only Black employee at Wagner Books until Harlem-born Hazel take the cubicle beside hers. After striking up a friendship, the women experience a series of events that makes Hazel popular and leaves Nella at square one. When hostile messages start appearing on Nella's desk, she realizes that her job isn't the only thing she should be worrying about. ($12+)
The Freedom Summer Murders
In June of 1964, three young men were lynched by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. Why? Because they were fighting for equal rights. Get a riveting look into a dark passage of history with this account of a brutal act that ignited our nation. ($7+)
Carolina Built
Recently married Josephine N. Leary moves to Edenton, North Carolina to follow her dreams. She teaches herself about business, money, and investing in local real estate as she pours herself into her family, but building her legacy proves to be more difficult than she anticipated as each year passes. ($11+)
Ninth Ward
If you're looking for a more current look at African American history for your middle schooler, try this Coretta Scott King Honor book. With Hurricane Katrina as the backdrop (but not the star), author Jewell Parker Rhodes weaves a riveting and emotional ride. ($8+)
Life, I Swear: Intimate Stories from Black Women on Identity, Healing, and Self-Trust
This book is more than your average non-fiction pick. In addition to the foreword by Elaine Welteroth, Life, I Swear incorporates personal essays, photography, and a look into the lives of some of the most influential Black women today, this book examines what it means to live with pain, joy, and self-love. ($13+)
Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop
Danyel Smith takes a look at the history of Black women's music and how it paved the way for American pop as we know it. Moving through the stories of Phillis Wheatley, Mahalia Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Mariah Carey, Smith brings biography, criticism, and memoir together on the page. ($12+)
Clap When You Land
When Camino Rios arrives at the airport to pick up her father, she learns that he's died in a plane crash. Yahaira Rios receives the same news at school, and both girls must figure out how to live their new lives without him. Then they learn about each other. ($12+)
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
Samantha Irby tells childhood stories, recounts awkward encounters, and offers friendship advice in this compelling read. While she expertly pokes fun at past experiences, she balances that humor with equally captivating emotion and truth. ($10)
The Mothers
Nadia Turner is rebellious, beautiful, and mourning her mother's recent suicide. When she gets pregnant from a relationship with pastor's kid Luke, she keeps it a secret from everyone, including her best friend Audrey. Before long, all three are adults navigating a love triangle and wondering what life would be like if they had made different choices. ($10+)
What Color is My World?
Get a kid-friendly tour through African American inventors who changed the world. Curious about who invented open heart surgery or the ice cream scoop? Now you'll know. ($7+)
Such a Fun Age
Alix Chamberlain owns a confidence-driven brand, intent on showing women how to get what they want. Emira Tucker is broke, unsure, and babysits Alix's two-year-old Briar. When Emira is accused of kidnapping Briar while in the grocery store, both women must deal with the effect of the event on their lives, breaking down what they thought they knew about each other in the process. ($10+)
The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir
ER physician Michele Harper is scheduled to join the staff at a Philadelphia hospital when her husband tells her that he can't move with her. Even though Harper must navigate a new job, new city, and new life on her own, her experiences allow her to connect with patients and gain a new understanding of how our brokenness can help one another through healing. ($10+)
Therapy Isn't Just for White People
In Therapy Isn’t Just For White People, Imani explores the racial trauma that many Black Americans experience. Writing about everything from career and religion to body image and dating, she explores the impact that racial trauma has on both personal mental health and a wider worldview. ($19)
The Vanishing Half
The Vignes sisters are identical twins, but after running away from home at 16, their lives are as different as can be. One lives with her Black daughter in her childhood town, and the other secretly passes as white. It doesn't take long for their own daughters' lives to intersect in this story that examines how the past influences our desire to live different lives. ($12)
Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans
Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award in 2012, Heart and Soul provides a great introduction to African American heritage for kids. Narrated by a 100-year-old woman, this book gives kids perspective on how much has changed (and how much has not) for African Americans in the United States. ($7+)
With the Fire on High
Emoni Santiago dreams of being a chef but has had to make difficult choices ever since she got pregnant freshman year. She focuses on necessity, avoiding everything not worth her time. When she gets into the kitchen, however, Emoni lets go, adding a little bit of magic to everything she cooks. ($9+)
Black Futures
What does it mean to be Black and alive? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham offer up a multimedia collection of images, memes, essays, tweets, and more to show how daring and thought-provoking Black creators are today. ($7+)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
After some of her cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951, Henrietta Lacks became one of the most important medical tools in modern science. But who was she? This examination of her life and her family, as they collide with ethics, progress, and race, is a New York Times bestseller for a reason. ($9+)
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing
This National Book Award winner from author M.T. Anderson will completely alter the way you look at Revolutionary Era America. Provocative and propulsive, this book will keep the pages turning and your mind whirling. ($9+)
Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves
Identifying with characters is one of the most formative experiences, whether you're a child or a grown adult. Edim uses this anthology, full of essays from Black women writers, to highlight how important it is for everyone to see themselves in literature. ($11+)
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison burst onto the literary scene in 1970 with this powerful debut novel, and she's been a fixture (and Nobel Prize winner) ever since. Starring a young black girl who prays for beauty, this book is as true and stirring now as it was then. ($12+)
Black Light
Artist Kehinde Wiley may be classically trained, but what he delivers is all new. Featuring black men in the poses of 17th and 18th-century nobility, Wiley examines the sociopolitical histories relevant to his subjects. With his use of crazy vibrant colors, this book is a treat for the mind and the eye. ($75)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
This novel is probably one of the most canonical selections for Black History Month. But have you read it? If this stirring reflection on childhood and race passed you by, there's no time like February to pick it up. ($9)
I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know
If you're looking for the perfect baby shower gift or something for your own nursery, grab this children's book by Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson when it hits shelves on March 28. The themes, and even the writing itself, is a comforting and loving reminder about the bonds we form with the children that we love. ($11+)
Red at the Bone
When Melody arrives at her 2001 coming-of-age ceremony, she wears the custom dress her mother wore in 1985 to the ceremony that never happened. Red at the Bone showcases the ambition, identity, and gentrification that Melody and her family live through and examines the effects of making long-lasting decisions at a young age. ($13+)
The Good Lord Bird
In order to survive, runaway slave Henry must pose as a girl. This epic novel of survival on the brink of the Civil War is a must-read and is also the winner of the 2013 National Book Award. ($11+)
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
As one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance, poet Langston Hughes forever changed the landscape of American poetry. Pick this one up to delight in his gorgeous, rhythmic work. ($14+)
Salvage the Bones
The Boston Globe called it “the first great novel about Katrina," and we agree. This National Book Award winner is tough and all the more beautiful for it. Set on the Mississippi coast, Salvage the Bones follows 14-year-old Esch as she and her family prepare themselves for the storm to come. ($9+)
The Silence of Our Friends
In this semi-autobiographical tale, two families (one black and one white) find common ground during the Civil Rights Movement. Gorgeously illustrated by Nate Powell, this graphic novel is as evocative and enraging as it is beautiful to look at. ($9)
Americanah
Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie isn't just a feminist icon and stylista — she's also a preternatural talent. In this novel, she turns her eye to race and identity, as they apply to Nigerian ex-pats. She combines humor and profundity effortlessly. ($13+)
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
Set during the Depression, this Newbery Award-winning novel follows a proud black family as they struggle against the tides of racism, debt, and staggering injustice. Often assigned in schools, this novel is just as good for adults as it is for teens and tweens. ($8+)
Maud Martha
Esteemed poet Gwendolyn Brooks only ever published one novel, and this is it. You may know her as the first African American to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. In this novel, she uses her expert concision and deeply introspective eye to illuminate the life of a young black woman. ($19)
Malcolm X: A Life in Reinvention
Easily one of the most controversial figures in the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X's life is expertly chronicled in Manning Marable's biography. Hailed as the strongest and most definitive biography on this complicated man, this book makes a great companion to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. ($11+)
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Additional reporting by Chloe Williams.
This post has been updated.
