African-American Fiction and Nonfiction

Celebrate Black History all year long with one of these great fiction or nonfiction books for teens

Click on the title to see if the book is in the library at this time.

Fiction

	Anderson, M.T. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party Octavian, a young African American, as is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.
	Carbone, Elisa Last Dance on Holladay Street 13-year-old Eva sets out to Denver to find her birth mother. When she arrives, however, she finds that her real family is nothing like she imagined.
	Draper, Sharon Copper Sun Amari's is dragged from her home to the Carolinas where she is bought by a plantation owner, befriends an indentured servant, and struggles to find herself in her new world.
	English, Karen Francie When Francie tries to clear the name of a sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a white man, she gets herself and her community in more trouble than she could have ever imagined.
	Going, K.L. The Liberation of Gabriel King In Georgia in 1976, young Gabriel King must overcome his fears and help Frita, the only black girl in his class, stand up to her own.
	Houston, Julian New Boy A young African-American boy discovers the world--and himself--when he integrates an all-white boarding school in the 1950s.
	Lester, Julius Day of Tears Young Emma, a slave who's always been treated as family, discovers that every decision has its consequences, and final judgment is passed down not by man, but by his maker.
	Mosley, Walter 47 The life of a young slave named 47 seems doomed until he meets a mysterious runaway slave and finds himself swept up in a struggle for his own liberation.
	Schmidt, Gary D. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy No one in town will let Turner Buckminster forget that he's a minister's son except for Lizzie Bright Griffin, a smart and sassy girl from a poor nearby island community founded by former slaves.
	Wilson, Diane Lee Black Storm Comin' Twelve-year-old Colton takes a job with the Pony Express and risks his life to deliver an important letter that may affect the growing conflict between the North and South.

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Nonfiction

	Bausum, Ann Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement Two Nashvillians--one white and one black--meet as Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement.
	Bell, Janet Cheatham and Lucille Usher Freeman, eds. Stretch Your Wings: Famous Black Quotations for Teens A collection of African proverbs and quotations by black Americans.
	Bolden, Tanya Maritcha: a Nineteenth-Century American Girl This poignant story tells what it was like to be a black child born free during the days of slavery.
	Crowe, Chris Getting Away with Murder: the True Story of the Emmett Till Case Presents a true account of the 1955 Mississippi murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till.
	Hill, Laban Carrick Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance In Harlem, New York the dawn of the twentieth century was a time of intellectual, artistic, literary, and political blossoming.
	Myers, Walter Dean Bad Boy From bad boy to role model, Myers recalls growing up in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s, when seeing Langston Hughes and Sugar Ray Robinson on the street was the norm and Jackie Robinson ruled the baseball field.
	Nelson, Marilyn Carver: a Life in Poems A lyrical account of revered African-American botanist and inventor George Washington Carver.

List updated by Karen, February 2007.