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Middle School, High School, and College Reading/Audio/Visual Lists

Please note: Age levels have been assembled from multiple sources and may not be completely accurate; they should be verified.

Click on a book to view it on the Lewes Public Library website.

FICTION

Around Harvard Square

Around Harvard Square By C.J. Farley

Black Sheep. A smart student/athlete along with other colorful characters faces racial and class barriers while trying to get on the staff of Harvard’s competitive and prestigious humor magazine.

SCIENCE FICTION

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

Bascomb, Neal. Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Teens. Other categories: History. A tale of triumph by an improbable team of upstarts over Hitler’s fearsome Silver Arrows during the golden age of auto racing.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.” Amistad.  Zora Neale Hurston chronicles the story of Cudjo Lewis, the last slave ship survivor, from his capture in Africa to his life as a slave and a free man.

McGinty, Brian. The Rest I Will Kill: William Tillman and the Unforgettable Story of How a Free Black Man Refused to Become a Slave. Liveright Publishing Corporation. Violence. Other categories: Black Experience. This book tells the story of a free Black man, Tilman, who in 1861 was hired as a cook on a sea vessel, the Waring. The ship was overtaken by Confederate pirates who planned to seize its cargo and return to the South, enslaving Tilman. Considered harmless, with a skeleton Confederate crew, Tilman successfully engineered a mutiny to retake the ship and sailed to New York harbor and to freedom.

Meadows, Michelle. illustrated by Glenn Ebony. Brave Ballerina: The Story of Janet Collins. Henry Holt. Other categories:  Contributions by Black Americans. The story of one of the first African American ballerinas.

Elizabeth Keckley – In 1868, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Hobbs Keckly (also spelled Keckley) published her memoir Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. This revealing narrative reflected on Elizabeth’s fascinating story, detailing her life experiences from slavery to her successful career as First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln’s dressmaker. At the time of its publication, the book was controversial. It soured her close relationship with Mrs. Lincoln and destroyed the reputation of both women. Although the American public was not prepared to read the story of a free Black woman assuming control of her own life narrative at the time of publication, her recollections have been used by many historians to reconstruct the Lincoln White House and better understand one of the nation’s most fascinating and misunderstood first ladies. Her story is integral to White House history and understanding the experiences of enslaved and free Black women.

HISTORY

Alexander, Kwame, and Nelson, Kadir. The Undefeated. Versify. Caldecott Medal Book. Other categories: Poetry. The story of African American survival in the United States from the capture to present day.

Caldwell, Robert Graham. Red Hannah: Delaware’s Whipping Post. University of Pennsylvania Press.  A history of a post painted red that was used to publicly punish Whites but mostly Blacks, including women. Delaware State legislature mandated the removal, and the last whipping post in Delaware was removed in Georgetown, Delaware, in 2020.

Cooper, Arshay. A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team. Flatiron Books. Teens. The moving true story of a group of young men growing up on Chicago’s West Side who form the first all-black high school rowing team in the nation, and in doing so not only transform a sport, but their lives. Now a documentary narrated by Common, produced by Grant Hill, Dwyane Wade, and 9th Wonder, from filmmaker Mary Mazzio.

Johnson, Hannibal B.. Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District. Eakin Press.
In 1921, a white mob set fire to Tulsa’s Black Wall Street (also known as the Greenwood District), a prosperous Black community. The event was precipitated by a rumor about an encounter in an elevator between Dick Rowland, a Black man, and Sarah Page, a white woman. Jim Crow, jealousy, and the escalating rumors led to the destruction of Black residential and commercial properties and the death and incarceration of Black residents.

McKissack, Patricia and McKissack, Fredrick. The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa. Henry Holt and Co.  A historical review of three African countries that accumulated wealth through slaves, gold, and salt—and their effort to reclaim their past.

Kendi, Ibram X.. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. National Book Award Winner. Nation Books. Other categories: Black Experience. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.

Lynch, Willie. The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave. African Tree Press.   A brief, 28-page book by a British West Indian slave owner, who was invited by Virginia slave owners to instruct them on how to control slaves.

Ward, Larry. America’s Racial Karma. Parrallax. Other categories: Black Experience.   A condensed primer from the Buddhist perspective, this book places race problems in historical context by recalling the genocide of Native Americans at the founding of the U.S. and the ensuing institutionalization of slavery.

Caste, The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, also author of  the Pulitzer prize winning book, The Warmth of Other  Suns.  In Caste, Isabel Wilkerson argues that the current social and political landscapes in America derive from the infrastructure of human hierarchy developed 400 years ago when Europeans first came to this land. This hierarchy placing whites at the top and black people at the bottom is the American caste system, and although no one alive today is responsible for starting it, we have inherited it and perpetuated it for generations.  Wilkerson examines the different caste systems around the world and how they damage the lives of everyone involved, even those at the top. She believes that to understand how to move forward, we must examine the past and the racial structures that keep progress as a nation at bay.

The History and Heritage of African-American Churches: A Way Out of NO Way by L.H. Whelchel, Jr.
Whelchel demonstrates the struggles of Africans in the United States to build and maintain their own churches before showing how those churches and their ministers were often at the center of seminal events in the history of America.

A Desolate Place for a Defiant People:  The Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp by Daniel O. Sayers.  In the first thorough archaeological examination of this unique region, Daniel Sayers exposes and unravels the complex social and economic systems developed by these defiant communities that thrived on the periphery.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grisson. Kathleen Grissom’s The Kitchen House is a coming-of-age tale about Lavinia McCarter, an Irish immigrant who, at a young age, is brought to a Virginian tobacco plantation called Tall Oaks to work as a servant. The year is 1791. Lavinia is indentured to Captain James Pyke, the owner of the plantation, after her parents die aboard his ship. Once at the plantation, she is sent to the kitchen house, where she is to be cared for by Belle, an African American servant who is the illegitimate daughter of Mr. Pyke. Belle and the other slaves—Mama Mae, Papa George, their son Ben, and their two young daughters, Fanny and Beattie—grow to care for Lavinia very deeply, and Lavinia, in turn, sees them as her real family.

Jubilee by Margaret Walker.   Jubilee (1966) is a historical novel written by Margaret Walker, which focuses on the story of a biracial slave during the American Civil War. It is set in Georgia and later in various parts of Alabama in the mid-19th century before, during, and after the Civil War.

Run: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin L. Fury, Nate Powell.  Published by Abrams ComicArts.  The sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series March—the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Selma voting rights campaign.

ESSAYS

Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time. Penguin. Sexual content. Other categories: Black Experience
Essays regarding religion and racism in American and a roadmap to reconciliation.

Bernard, Emily. Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine. Vintage Books. Teens. Can also be included in: Autobiography, Black Experience, Coming of Age, Interracial Discussion. Personal essays describing growing up dealing with racial issues and pressures, including a random attack by a White person, growing up in the North, interracial marriage, African adoptions, and teaching at a White college.

Dunbar, Paul Laurence, and Gene Andrew Jarrett, and Thomas Lewis Morgan (editors). The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Ohio University Press.   Born to free slaves in 1872, Paul Dunbar is one of the first prolific Black poets and essayists who wrote in both dialect and standard English, describing Black life at the turn of the century. Other categories: Black Experience

BLACK EXPERIENCE

Rankine, Claudia. Just Us: An American Conversation. Graywolf Press. Other categories: Interracial Discussion, Poetry, Essays
As everyday white supremacy becomes increasingly vocalized with no clear answers at hand, how best might we approach one another? Claudia Rankine, without telling us what to do, urges us to begin the discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and stuck moment in American history.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi, Between the World and Me, Text Publishing Co.. Other categories: Essays
Written as a love letter to his son, a father describes what it means to be a Black boy in America and how to survive.

Edim, Glory. Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves. Ballantine. Other categories: Essays
The subjects of each essay remind us why we turn to books in times of both struggle and relaxation. As she has done with her book club–turned–online community Well-Read Black Girl, in this anthology Glory Edim has created a space in which black women’s writing and knowledge and life experiences are lifted up, to be shared with all readers who value the power of a story to help us understand the world and ourselves.

Glaude Jr., Eddie S.. Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. Crown Books. Other categories: Essays. Examining an unfathomable Trump presidency through the eyes of James Baldwin by the Director of African American Studies at Princeton. Glaude recounts extensive research on Baldwin’s life and blends in details from his own, including his trip to The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL.

Horace, Matthew and Harris, Ron. The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement. Hachette.
Through gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts from interviews with police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider’s examination of archaic police tactics. He dissects some of the nation’s most highly publicized police shootings and communities to explain how these systems and tactics have hurt the people they serve, revealing the mistakes that have stoked racist policing, sky-high incarceration rates, and an epidemic of violence.

Jealous, Ben. Shorters, Trabian. and Simmons, Russell, eds. Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading, and Succeeding. Atria Books.  In this timely and important collection of personal essays, black men from all walks of life share their inspiring stories and ultimately how each, in his own way, became a source of hope for his community and country.

Lebron, Christopher J.. The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea. Oxford University Press.
Started in the wake of George Zimmerman’s 2013 acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has become a powerful and uncompromising campaign demanding redress for the brutal and unjustified treatment of black bodies by law enforcement in the United States. The movement is only a few years old, but as Christopher J. Lebron argues in this book, the sentiment behind it is not. the plea and demand that “Black Lives Matter” comes out of a much older and richer tradition arguing for the equal dignity — and not just equal rights — of Black people.

Menakem, Resmaa. My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. Central Recovery Press. A trauma therapist explains white body supremacy, its origins, and its internalized mechanisms in today’s society.

Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Random House. Other categories: History. The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. Vintage. Other categories: History
This book tells the story of the two great migrations of African Americans out of the South to the North, Northeast, and Midwest from 1915 to 1970.

Zoboi, Ibi. Baptiste, Tracey. Booth, Coe. Clayton, Dhonielle. Colbert, Brandy, et al.. Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America. Balzer + Bray Publishers. Sexual Content. Other categories: Fiction
Being Black as seen through many different experiences involving relationships, the environment, and sexuality among the young.

Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America by John Lewis, US Congressman and Civil Rights Leader.      In Across That Bridge, Congressman John Lewis draws from his experience as a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement to offer timeless wisdom, poignant recollections, and powerful principles for anyone interested in challenging injustices and inspiring real change toward a freer, more peaceful society.

The Maid Narratives:  Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South by Katherine van Wormer, David W. Jackson III  and Charletta Sudduth.  The Maid Narratives shares the memories of black domestic workers and the white families they served, uncovering the often intimate relationships between maid and mistress.

Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South.   This is a collection of oral-history narratives that explore the complex bond between black female domestic workers and their white employers from the turn of the 20th century to the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. It is based on interviews with 42 women of both races from the Deep South.

INTERRACIAL DISCUSSIONS

DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press.  In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Hamilton, Jason and Alex Reynolds. How to Be Anti-Racist: A Simple and Practical Guide to Learn How to Treat Each Race with Dignity, Eliminate Racial Prejudice, and Stop Discrimination. independently published.  This practical and enlightening guide explores the topic of race and racism in a way that anybody can understand. With simple explanations, along with examples of the damaging nature of discrimination and prejudice, this book makes for an ideal tool to educate yourself about the state of racism in the US and how you can begin to defeat it.

Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell and Aurelia Durand | Ages: 11 years and up. How to Be an Antiracist is a combination academic treatise and memoir in which the author, Ibram X. Kendi, considers the different forms of racism in society and how we can best eliminate them, while also sharing his personal experiences with racism.

POETRY

Rankine, Claudia. Just Us: An American Conversation. Graywolf Press.  As everyday white supremacy becomes increasingly vocalized with no clear answers at hand, how best might we approach one another? Claudia Rankine, without telling us what to do, urges us to begin the discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and stuck moment in American history.

Smith, Tracy K.. Wade in the Water: Poems. Graywolf Press. Other categories: Black Experience.  A collection of poems and historical pieces describing the Black experience in America by a US Poet-Laureate.

CONTRIBUTIONS BY BLACK AMERICANS

Haber, Louis. Black Pioneers of Science and Invention. HMH Books for Young Readers. Other categories: Biography
A readable, perceptive account of the lives of fourteen gifted innovators who have played important roles in scientific and industrial progress. The achievements of Benjamin Banneker, Granville T. Woods, George Washington Carver, and others have made jobs easier, saved countless lives, and in many cases, altered the course of history.

Kemp, Kristin. Amazing Americans: Thurgood Marshall. Teacher Created Materials. Other categories: Biography
Students will learn about Thurgood Marshall and how his fight for civil rights for African Americans helped change unfair laws.

Talley, André Leon. The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir. Ballantine. Sexual content. Other categories: Autobiography.  One of the few Black gay men to arrive at the pinnacle of the fashion world at Vogue magazine, André rubs shoulders with the rich and famous, including well known designers, but he faces doubt due to his sexuality and weight.