The very best books celebrating African American culture and values, by African American authors and/or illustrators, from 1970 to the present.
![Book cover of Nigeria Jones](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2024/1160bdef48b7ecc85736f1ea0b953970.jpg?itok=AXskJDTy)
![Book cover for Freewater](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2024/7702ee81b5a811bd97a181d89b7051d9.jpg?itok=iBD9ksMR)
![Book cover for Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2022/036d2f6cd9ddfca9ca4a612980b71135.jpg?itok=ZyuG_t6s)
![Book cover for Before the Ever After](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2024/c161c7683f2969fa108bd95097ae33e4.jpg?itok=2W_tmNZR)
![Book cover for New Kid](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2024/1b4a154c6d4668bae26fb075d6642f4c.jpg?itok=eG1dLiwm)
New Kid
Middle schooler Jordan Banks had hoped to attend art school, but mom sends him to a private prep school where he is one of a handful of black kids. No one at Riverdale Academy Day School is openly hostile towards him for his race, but he deals with a series of microaggressions, like being called the name of another black student, or everyone looking at him when the teacher is discussing students on financial aid. Craft mixes humor with heart in this hilarious yet thoughtful graphic novel.
![Book cover for A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/58492ccc67f830483456b0800bd87fc2.jpg?itok=0JrGiAoq)
![Book cover for Piecing Me Together](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/b20927f7146e85332b4be6512b972609.jpg?itok=dxxw3LaJ)
![Book cover for March: Book Three](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2024/bd2a62771952728d3197f2e9203ed45b.jpg?itok=ynwd2CRs)
March: Book Three
Winner of the 2017 Michael Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. U.S. Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis continues his story in the concluding volume of this graphic novel trilogy, which opens with the bombing of the Birmingham Baptist Church, Freedom Summer and ends with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 being signed into law.
![Book cover for Gone Crazy in Alabama](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/f0190e9ab1a970ae82c4e4fa1d1dcde2.jpg?itok=k3tEonmw)
![Book cover for Brown Girl Dreaming](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/abd61ac0282d8cc14cd452c4b17208f9.jpg?itok=BK_Y7Mc4)
Brown Girl Dreaming
![Book cover for P.S. Be Eleven](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/ad1d483fcb8fef43a613e57366e35fcd.jpg?itok=ZpeKB-ID)
![Book cover for Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/b6f2ea7543bd39072ded748b3973233c.jpg?itok=8uMC8g6j)
Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America
Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans
Gr. 4 and up. An unnamed narrator (based on Nelson's grandmother) tells the story of African Americans from before the American Revolution to the election of Barack Obama. Gorgeously illustrated and compellingly told.
One Crazy Summer
Grades 4-8. During the summer of 1968, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters travel to Oakland, California to visit their mother, who abandoned them as babies. While there, they reluctantly spend time at a summer camp run by the Black Panthers.
![Book cover for Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshall](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2021/abce6b22d8a118ec431b14dbf8a60e27.jpg?itok=UB00nldL)
Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshall
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
Gr. 3 and up. An elderly ball player regales his audience with the trials and triumphs of determined athletes and fans, beautifully enhanced by Nelson's glorious art. Includes a forward by Hank Aaron, himself once a player in the Negro League.
![Book cover for Elijah of Buxton](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/c47dcd01e1d7384db43a72b237cb0da3.jpg?itok=h-u-J7gy)
![Book cover for Copper Sun](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/70a450293ee0be206eb99751b3b01414.jpg?itok=BiLDONGz)
Remember: The Journey to School Integration
Grades 3 - 8. Archival photographs focus on the children and teens and the role they played in school integration, with text imagining how the participants must have felt.
![Book cover for The First Part Last](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/fd6e0479c016289ada8060d2176507c8.jpg?itok=sHwnLbGr)
![Book cover for Bronx Masquerade](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/cb17e9bde488acf2d1efd5e777fe721b.jpg?itok=GpW6SlTM)
![Book cover for The Land](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/94597d80990b9f8ba465d1f9823183fa.jpg?itok=iCY1hVrA)
![Book cover for Miracle's Boys](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/8d17469e4515c2c20a66633ae53cf179.jpg?itok=Sfl7ZyHr)
Bud, Not Buddy
Gr. 4 and up. 10-year-old Bud escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of a man he believes is his father, renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway. Winner of the 2000 Newbery Medal.
![Book cover for Heaven](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/b2e06fc4cc6d0e83f4d5886437a9270b.jpg?itok=yjoO3ZDN)
![Book cover for Forged by Fire](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/86f260dace7ca4e3501dd9ed105cc124.jpg?itok=REmATJtv)
![Book cover for Slam!](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/79f0d3f6c6e9486a80d03d5ea4a84fc2.jpg?itok=5AxjFhZN)
Slam!
![Book cover for Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/ae53f74e8e5825f6ac6dd1c3a0971896.jpg?itok=CfuxrGoQ)
![Book cover for Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/b2763c03c8a22f9dc3e9a720fd62bf0b.jpg?itok=r0WxwZ9J)
![Book cover for Toning the Sweep](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/968223eb294273cf4f41af37c130b3a6.jpg?itok=ysF_RKyU)
![Book cover for The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/a0a711082432b35ab70103c37cab6c4f.jpg?itok=fVSLyQ5a)
![Book cover for Now is Your Time!: The African-American Struggle for Freedom](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/5fc5b1c45004ae21e95fce0f4f144d0a.jpg?itok=TjDqAv1d)
![Book cover for The Road to Memphis](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/7c316d4f6ee3138cf92c4abe2872e007.jpg?itok=t-l2Aiyn)
![Book cover for A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/9b4b9481baf469f32ccf5331e2610686.jpg?itok=HNEfbEBZ)
![Book cover for Fallen Angels](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/0750fc0ec44d0b28212c1daffc701a11.jpg?itok=rS3EW3VY)
Fallen Angels
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.
![Book cover for The Friendship](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/0e2c7b802e2140e9c30157adb9699a03.jpg?itok=ri5MqzII)
![Book cover for Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/123feca2aef33b5645a1a26e2268da21.jpg?itok=DcQOw28H)
![Book cover for The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/92a18c21e079bc741cb333062b25ebd2.jpg?itok=APAB9gT0)
![Book cover for Everett Anderson's Goodbye](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/6ff60294d27345f81d05e35f533e1b0f.jpg?itok=gxn1V3s3)
![Book cover for Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/f4ad92c4f78c3e5b5c61b9e449434975.jpg?itok=o9be9K2M)
![Book cover for Let the Circle be Unbroken](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/13342804eaea717fb6030cbd8c1b851f.jpg?itok=SqKIH-t2)
![Book cover for This Life](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/0334c26d8987702b29c499666dc807e6.jpg?itok=7u-Y8AOA)
![Book cover for The Young Landlords](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/32aba8b1dede5923da81442006b9e328.jpg?itok=qhLlS6hp)
The Young Landlords
![Book cover for Escape to Freedom: A Play About Young Frederick Douglass](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/1e07325038bb4d20e7f10bed89f59e67.jpg?itok=Iovddbpa)
![Book cover for Africa Dream](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/3f677e67d59a92a7d2fa53f1e8ecfd15.jpg?itok=TL6O4aHG)
![Book cover for The Story of Stevie Wonder](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/stevie.jpg?itok=zZwWTxj6)
The Story of Stevie Wonder
![Book cover for Duey's Tale](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/duey.jpg?itok=nmrIgpoX)
Duey's Tale
![Book cover for The Legend of Africania](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/africa.jpeg?itok=M2QNMn9r)
The Legend of Africania
![Book cover for Ray Charles](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/422578cfefbcc16e101ce580e5c56df2.jpg?itok=UkI-A7oM)
![Book cover for I Never Had it Made: An Autobiography](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/0754b1f06daec2876f816cc56f628565.jpg?itok=pB4gq3LG)
![Book cover for Seventeen Black Artists](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/a6b19375dec79b9e6b1ad83ca3f0f5c2.jpg?itok=W3z0zVTV)
![Book cover for Black Troubadour: Langston Hughes](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/langston.jpg?itok=Fwts7y1N)
Black Troubadour: Langston Hughes
![Book cover for Martin Luther King, Jr.: Man of Peace](https://lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/staff_recommends_x97w/public/items/2020/man-peacepattersoncover.jpg?itok=wHxUvcPJ)