Black Characters and Social/Cultural Themes

A collection of stories, comics and poems that celebrate Black boyhood from critically acclaimed Black authors including Jason Reynolds, Jerry Craft and Kwame Mbalia.

Thirteen-year-old Black best friends Simp and Rollie find their friendship threatened by the pressures of basketball, upcoming auditions, middle school, and their growing involvement in the local drug ring.

With the help of her chorus teacher, Black thirteen-year-old Genesis learns to love herself and finds her voice to overcome internalized racism and a verbally abusive family.

After seventh-grader Jerome is shot by a white police officer, he observes the aftermath of his death and meets the ghosts of other fallen black boys including historical figure Emmett Till.

Black twelve-year-old Shayla is a rule follower. But in junior high, it’s like all the rules have changed. Now she’s questioning who her best friends are and questioning where she fits in in the Black Lives Matter movement.

In ten stories (one per block), find out what really happens on the walk home from school, when there are no parents or teachers to supervise (or stop the fun!). From hilarious escapades to brave challenges, join the walkers for one journey and many, many detours… 

Black seventh grader Jordan Banks learns to navigate the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School while keeping his neighborhood friends and working to staying true to himself.

Discovering her ability to see ghosts when a cruel act ends her father’s life and forces her to move in with relatives in 1920s Pittsburgh, young Ophelia forges a helpful bond with a spirit whose own life ended suddenly and unjustly.

The Hart family of Portland, Oregon, faces many setbacks after Ryan’s father loses his job, but no matter what, Black fourth-grader Ryan tries to bring sunshine to her loved ones.

Black teens Isaiah Wilson and Angel Hill start to fall in love in Greenwood, Oklahoma, just before the the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

While in Charlestown Prison in the 1940s, young Malcolm Little reads all the books in the library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam, and emerges as Malcolm X.

A summer heatwave blankets New York City in darkness. But as the city is thrown into confusion, a different kind of electricity sparks in this collection of linked stories about teens navigating life, love, and just getting by.

Picked on at home, criticized for talking trash while beating boys at basketball, and always seen as less than her best friend, Skyy, a Black teenager in California, struggles to like and accept herself.

After Justyce is handcuffed when simply trying to help his girlfriend in a parking lot, he begins keeping a journal of sorts in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When a needless shooting takes the life of someone close to him, Justyce questions whether Martin’s visions of peace are possible.

When legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots Black seventeen-year-old Enchanted Jones at an audition, her dreams of being a famous singer take flight. Until Enchanted wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. 

Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.

Black seventeen-year-old Evie Thomas has given up on love. But after finding Instructions for Dancing in a Little Free Library, she gains the ability to see the romantic fates of others and is led by the book to a romance of her own. 

Turned out of the only home she has known, Black sixteen-year-old Charlese Jones is on a bus heading to Alabama when she is lured into the dangerous web of human trafficking.

Fifteen-year-old Will’s big brother has been shot and killed. According to the rules that Will has been taught, it is now his job to kill the person responsible. He easily finds his brother’s gun and gets on the elevator to head down from his eighth-floor apartment. But it’s a long way down to the ground floor. At each floor, a different person gets on to tell a story. Each of these people is already dead. As they relate their tales, readers learn about the cycle of violence in which Will is caught up.

Sixteen-year-old Amal is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and is sent to prison where despair and rage almost sink him as he tries to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth in a system designed to strip him of both.

In 1860 Louisiana, as eighty-year-old Madame Sylvie, mistress of a failing plantation, sits for a portrait, horrific stories are revealed: that of Thisbe, an enslaved woman who must stand silent by her mistress but observes everything, and of Byron, heir to the plantation, whose desires cannot fit with his family duty.

When Marvin Johnson’s twin brother, Tyler, is shot and killed by a police officer, Marvin must fight injustice to learn the true meaning of freedom.

Seventeen-year-old Morgan is a Black teen triumphantly figuring out her identity when her conservative town deems depression as a lack of faith, and blackness as something to be politely ignored.

Black seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter is taking care of his family the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. But when when Maverick becomes a father, everything changes.

Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable. When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding. But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.

In a timely update of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant re-imagining of this beloved classic.

When Nala Robertson reluctantly agrees to attend an open mic night for her cousin-sister-friend Imani’s birthday, she finds herself falling in instant love with Tye Brown, the MC. He’s perfect, except…Tye is an activist and is spending the summer putting on events for the community when Nala would rather watch movies and try out the new seasonal flavors at the local creamery. In order to impress Tye, Nala tells a few tiny lies to have enough in common with him. As they spend more time together, sharing more of themselves, some of those lies get harder to keep up. In Love Is a Revolution, plus size girls are beautiful, the popular girl clique has strong convictions and substance, and the ultimate love story is not only about romance but about how to show radical love to the people in your life, including to yourself.

Marva Sheridan was born ready for this day. She’s always been driven to make a difference in the world, and what better way than to vote in her first election? Duke Crenshaw is so done with this election. He just wants to get voting over with so he can prepare for his band’s first paying gig tonight. Only problem? Duke can’t vote. When Marva sees Duke turned away from their polling place, she takes it upon herself to make sure his vote is counted. And that’s how their whirlwind day begins, rushing from precinct to precinct, cutting school, waiting in endless lines, turned away time and again, trying to do one simple thing: vote. They may have started out as strangers, but as Duke and Marva team up to beat a rigged system (and find Marva’s missing cat), it’s clear that there’s more to their connection than a shared mission for democracy.

Felix Love has never been in love. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many — Black, queer, and transgende — to ever get his own happily-ever-after.

When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages — after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned — Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi-love triangle. But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.

Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.

Revolution in Our Time puts the Panthers in the proper context of Black American history, from the first arrival of enslaved people to the Black Lives Matter movement of today. Kekla Magoon’s eye-opening work invites a new generation of readers grappling with injustices in the United States to learn from the Panthers’ history and courage, inspiring them to take their own place in the ongoing fight for justice.