As we continue to celebrate Black History Month, I would like to share some juvenile chapter book selections for you. Through my research, these books showed up on multiple lists as being the best chapter books to share together as a family. These books are available at The Floyd County Library, so feel free to check them out!
Freewater (2022) by Amina Luqman-Dawson
This book was just announced the Coretta Scott King Author Award and John Newbery Award winner at the 2023 Youth Media Award in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 30. After fleeing the plantation where they were enslaved, siblings Ada and Homer discover the secret community of Freewater, and work with freeborn Sanzi to protect their new home from the encroaching dangers of the outside world. Deeply inspiring and loosely based on the history of maroon communities in the South, this is a striking tale of survival, adventure, friendship, and courage.
The Lucky Ones (2022) by Linda Williams Jackson
Ellis Earl Brown is growing up in a time right after the Civil Rights Act has been signed. The year is 1967, and Ellis has big dreams of becoming a teacher or even a lawyer. He wants to see his family with enough food to feed all eight children, plus his mama. Mama works as a maid to make ends meet. When his teacher lends him the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he sees that the Bucket family has an even tougher life than him and it turned out to be a happy ending. One day, mama tells Ellis that he may have to quit school, find a job, and help make ends meet. Ellis then begins to wonder if happy endings are only in the fiction books he reads.
When Winter Robeson Came (2022) by Brenda Woods
The year is 1965, and Winter travels from Mississippi to the Watts area of Los Angeles in search of his father who disappeared 10 years ago. His cousin Eden helps him investigate the disappearance. What they find is both joy and heartache. Watts becomes a warzone for six days between the police and the black residents of the city. This novel is written in verse in the perspective of Eden, who would like to be a composer someday. The tempo and mood is constantly changing in this must read book.
Becoming Muhammad Ali (2020) by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander
A biographical novel tells the story of Cassius Clay, the determined boy who would one day become Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers of all time. Readers will learn about Cassius’ family and neighbors in Louisville, Kentucky, and how, after a thief stole his bike, Cassius began training as an amateur boxer at age twelve. Before long, he won his first Golden Gloves bout and began his transformation into the unrivaled Muhammad Ali.
Zora and Me: The Cursed Ground (2018) by T.R. Simon
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. Lucia’s struggle for freedom resonates through the years, threatening the future of America’s first incorporated black township the hometown of author Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960).
Stella By Starlight (2018)by Sharon M. Draper
Stella lives in the segregated South in Bumblebee, North Carolina. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can’t. Some folks are pleasant, and others are a lot less so. To Stella, it sort of evens out. The Klan hasn’t bothered them for years. But one late night, later than she should ever be up, much less wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they’re never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come, unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. As Stella’s community and her world is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire. And she learns that ashes don’t necessarily signify an end.
Finding Langston by (2018)Lesa Cline-Ransome
It’s 1946. Langston’s mother has just died, and now they’re leaving the rest of his family and friends. He misses everything… Grandma’s Sunday suppers, the red dirt roads, and the magnolia trees his mother loved. In the city, they live in a small apartment surrounded by noise and chaos. It doesn’t feel like a new start, or a better life. At home he’s lonely, his father always busy at work; at school he’s bullied for being a country boy. But Langston’s new home has one fantastic thing. Unlike the whites-only library in Alabama, the Chicago Public Library welcomes everyone. There, hiding out after school, Langston discovers another Langston, a poet whom he learns inspired his mother enough to name her only son after him.
Betty Before X (2018)by Ilyasah Shabazz
In Detroit, 1945, eleven-year-old Betty’s house doesn’t quite feel like home. She believes her mother loves her, but she can’t shake the feeling that her mother doesn’t want her. Church helps those worries fade, if only for a little while. The singing, the preaching, the speeches from guest activists like Paul Robeson and Thurgood Marshall stir African Americans in her community to stand up for their rights. Betty quickly finds confidence and purpose in volunteering for the Housewives League, an organization that supports black-owned businesses. Soon, the American civil rights icon we now know as Dr. Betty Shabazz is born.
P.S. Be Eleven (2013) by Rita Williams-Garcia
Eleven-year-old Brooklyn girl Delphine feels overwhelmed with worries and responsibilities. She’s just started sixth grade and is self-conscious about being the tallest girl in the class, and nervous about her first school dance. She’s supposed to be watching her sisters, but Fern and Vonetta are hard to control. Her uncle Darnell is home from Vietnam and seems different. And her pa has a girlfriend. At least Delphine can write to her mother in Oakland, California, for advice. But why does her mother tell her to ‘be eleven’ when Delphine is now twelve?
Elijah of Buxton (2007) by Christopher Paul Curtis
In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the American south, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family’s freedom.
Enjoy these and many other books available at The Floyd County Library for Black History Month.
Happy reading!
