You So Black by Theresa Tha S.O.N.G.B.I.R.D. 

Based on Theresa Wilson’s (a.k.a. Theresa tha S.O.N.G.B.I.R.D.’s) beautiful, viral spoken word poem of the same name. Black is everywhere, and in everything, and in everyone — in the night sky and the fertile soil below. It’s in familial connections and invention, in hands lifted in praise and voices lifted in protest, and in hearts wide open and filled with love. Black is good. Accompanied by powerful yet tender illustrations by award-winning illustrator London Ladd, Theresa tha S.O.N.G.B.I.R.D. has adapted her poem, full of gorgeous lyricism and imagery, to show readers the love, joy, resilience, and universality in the beauty of Blackness.

J.D. and the Great Barber Battle by J. Dillard 

J.D. is excited about starting third grade or, at least he was before his mom gave him a disastrous haircut that makes him the laughingstock of the whole school. Unable to withstand any more teasing, he decides to literally take matters into his own hands, fix his hair, and start his own hair-cutting business out of his bedroom. This early-to-middle-grade chapter book delivers lively illustrations and laugh-out-loud moments. At its heart is J.D.'s loving, hard-working, multigenerational family and his close-knit, small-town Mississippi community. While there are subtle references to separation (J.D.'s parents) and money struggles, these are not personal deficits. Rather, they fuel J.D.'s entrepreneurial spirit and his mathematical prowess. The African American cultural references and community values will resonate with readers of all ages, while the joyful, wholesome story will give them something to look forward to in the rest of the J.D., The Kid Barber series. 

The Davenports by Krystal Marquis 

The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love — even where they're not supposed to. There is Olivia, the beautiful elder Davenport daughter, ready to do her duty by getting married... until she meets the charismatic civil rights leader Washington DeWight and sparks fly. The younger daughter, Helen, is more interested in fixing cars than falling in love — unless it's with her sister's suitor. Amy-Rose, the childhood friend turned maid to the Davenport sisters, dreams of opening her own business — and marrying the one man she could never be with, Olivia and Helen's brother, John. But Olivia's best friend, Ruby, also has her sights set on John Davenport, though she can't seem to keep his interest... until family pressure has her scheming to win his heart, just as someone else wins hers. Inspired by the real-life story of the Patterson family, The Davenports is the tale of four determined and passionate young Black women discovering the courage to steer their own path in life — and love.

Lover Man by Alston Anderson 

Stories of loners, outsiders, tricksters, addicts, jazzmen, and drifters in the Jim Crow South — a classic of 1950s Black fiction. Raw, fearless, and ironic, the stories in Lover Man (1958) promised the birth of a new sensibility in American fiction. Inspired by the bebop he loved, and the philosophy he studied at the Sorbonne, Alston Anderson looked back at the North Carolina of his youth to capture the hidden lives of Black boys and men in the early 1940s. Fascinated by loners and outsiders — tricksters, addicts, jazzmen, drifters, "queers" — and by the spiritual cost exacted by the myths of white supremacy, Anderson assembled an original kind of story collection, whose themes troubled and bewildered many of his early readers. Although later championed by Langston Hughes and Henry Louis Gates. Jr., among others, this — his only collection — has remained out of print since the '50s. In his afterword to this new edition, the literary historian Kinohi Nishikawa investigates Anderson's brief but brilliant career, the controversy his work provoked, and the light it sheds on his era.

The Love You Save: A Memoir by Goldie Taylor 

Acclaimed journalist and human rights activist Goldie Taylor shares the harrowing yet deeply hopeful story of her troubled childhood in East St. Louis — a memoir of family, faith, and the power of books.

Aunt Gerald takes in anyone who asks, but the conditions are harsh. For her young niece Goldie Taylor, abandoned by her mother and coping with trauma of her own, life in Gerald’s East St. Louis comes with nothing but a threadbare blanket on the living room floor. But amid the pain and anguish, Goldie discovers a secret. She can find kinship among writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. She can find hope in a nurturing teacher who helps her find her voice. And books, she realizes, can save her life. Goldie Taylor's debut memoir shines a light on the strictures of race, class, and gender in post-Jim Crow America while offering a nuanced, empathetic portrait of a family in a pitched battle for its very soul. Profoundly moving, exquisitely rendered and ultimately uplifting, The Love You Save is a story about hidden strength, perseverance against unimaginable odds, the beauty and pain of girlhood, and the power of the written word.