Back to top

Black History Month Booklist

Image
dark beige background with organically shaped orange blobs
February 1, 2022

February is Black History Month! We've compiled a booklist for all ages to help celebrate the importance of black history and of the contributions of African Americans to our history and culture.

Click on a title to find it in our catalog; and find many more titles at cobbcat.org.

Children's Picture Books

All Because You Matter by Tami Charles

Baby Blessings by Deloris Jordan

Bedtime Bonnet by Nancy Amanda Redd

Black is a Rainbow Color by Angela Joy

Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes

Daddy Calls Me Man by Angela Johnson

Firebird: Ballerina Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance Like the Firebird by Misty Copeland

Hair Love by Matthew Cherry

Happy to be Nappy by bell hooks

Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine

I Am Perfectly Designed by Karamo Brown

Mixed Me by Taye Diggs

Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold

Who Will You Be? by Andrea Pippins

Woke Baby by Mahogany L. Browne

Children's Nonfiction

Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan

Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

I Am Loved by Nikki Giovanni

Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson

Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison

Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History by Vashti Harrison

Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed

Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X by Ilyasah Shabazz

One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance by Nikk Grimes

The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children by Davida Adedjouma

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford

Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews

The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander

Children's and Preteen Chapter Books

A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée

Betty Before X by Ilyasah Shabazz

Blended by Sharon M. Draper

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Garcia-Williams

Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender

New Kid by Jerry Craft

One Crazy Summer by Rita Garcia-Williams

The Season of Styx Malone by Kekla Magoon

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia

The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis

Books for Teens and Young Adults

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson

March by John Lewis

Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Adult Fiction

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Kindred by Octavia Butler

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride

Adult Nonfiction

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Black Futures edited by Kimberly Drew

Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans

Buses are a Comin’: Memoir of a Freedom Rider by Charles Person

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

The Hill We Climb and Other Poems by Amanda Gorman

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Yellow House by Sarah Broom

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffin