AFRICAN AMERICAN READS

 

   Included are biographies, fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, short stories,

   and poetry by African American authors and/or about African Americans.

   Each book includes title, author, call number (where to find it at Uni!), and

   a short description from NoveList. Click on the headings to jump to a

   particular section.

 

Biography  l  Fiction  l  Graphic Novels  l Non-Fiction  l  Poetry & Short Stories

 

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Biography

 

   I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

   Angelou, Maya

   B. A5846a11993

   Maya Angelou’s autobiography depicting her precarious existence in racist,

   Depression-era Arkansas.There she is shunted between her grandmother’s

   house and her mother’s – where she is raped – and withdraws into total

   silence. She endures to share her realization in her valedictory address:

   "In order to lift your voice, you have to lift your head."

 

 

 

   The Fire Next Time

   Baldwin, James

   301.451 B19f 1993

   Baldwin’s autobiography forcefully and emotionally describes Black anger and 

   disillusionment and pleads for a solution to race problems.

 

 

 

 

   Autobiography of Malcolm X

   X, Malcolm

   B.L7784 L11965

   Malcolm X’s life story, from petty criminal to defiant race rights fighter to leader

   of the Black Muslim movement.

 

 

 

 

 

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Fiction

 

   Go Tell it on the Mountain

   Baldwin, James

   Fiction B1932G1977

   What it means to be Black in America. To seek both salvation and understanding

   in the journey of a family from the rural South to “big city” Harlem. To be a young

   boy struggling, to earn the approval of a self-righteous and often unloving stepfather

 

 

 

   If Beale Street Could Talk

   Baldwin, James

   Fiction B1932i

   When Tish's boyfriend is jailed for rape, her family and his family unite to prove the

   charge false.

 

 

 

 

 

   Maud Martha

   Brooks, Gwendolyn

   Fiction B 7912m1993

   One Black woman’s quest and love for life despite its difficulties in a novella of

   34 vignettes.

 

 

 

   Upstate

   Buckhanon, Kalisha

   Fiction B8559u

   After being charged with his father's murder, seventeen-year-old Antonio finds

   his love with sixteen-year-old Natasha tested and engages in a ten-year 

   correspondence with her from behind bars.

 

 

 

 

 

   The Battle of Jericho

   Draper, Sharon M.

   Fiction D7918b

   A high school junior and his cousin suffer the ramifications of joining what

   seems to be a reputable school club.

 

 

 

 

   Tears of a Tiger

   Draper, Sharon M.

   Fiction D7918t

   The death of Rob Washington, a high school basketball star, in an automobile

   accident affects the lives of his close friend, Andy, who was driving the car,

   and many others in the school.

 

 

 

 

   Breath, Eyes, Memory

   Edwidge, Danticat

   Fiction D2363b1995

   Twelve-year-old Sophie Caco is removed from her impoverished village and

   sent to live in New York with her mother, a woman she barely knows. There

   she learns about a terrible truth that shadows her family.

 

 

 

 

 

   Invisible Man

   Ellison, Ralph

   Fiction EL594i1952

   The narrator traces his life from college and into Harlem where he becomes

   invisible like other African Americans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

   A Lesson Before Dying

   Gaines, Ernest J.

   Fiction G142 L1994

   Teacher, Grant Wiggins, is recruited to bring lessons in manhood, dignity,

   and dying to an innocent, terrified young Black man condemned for the

   murder of a white man in the Jim Crow South.

 

 

 

 

   Beloved

   Morrison, Toni

   Fiction M8345B1988

   Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio, risked death in order

   to wrench herself from a living death. She has lost a husband and buried a

   child, borne the unthinkable and not gone mad. Sethe lives in a small house

   on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs,

   and a disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved.

 

   The Bluest Eye

   Morrison, Toni

   Fiction M8345bl

   Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African American girl in an America

   whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays

   for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her,

   and her world will be

   different.

 

 

   Jazz

   Morrison, Toni

   Fiction M8345j

   In Harlem, 1926, Joe Trace, a door-to-door salesman in his fifties, kills his

   teenage lover. A profound love story which depicts the sights and sounds

   of Black urban life during the Jazz Age.

 

 

 

 

   Paradise

   Morrison, Toni

   Fiction M8345p

   Tells the story of Ruby, Oklahoma, an all-Black town settled by a dozen

   families in the 1890s when they were turned away from other communities.

   Now it's the 1970s and the men of the town blame the women and the

   women's shelter for changes in their community's character.

 

 

 

   Sula

   Morrison, Toni

   Fiction M8345s1982

   Traces the lives of Nel and Sula, two black heroines who grow up together

   in a small Ohio town and then take divergent paths. Nel chooses to stay in

   the place of her birth and become a pillar of the tightly knit black community,

   while Sula escapes to college and city life. Their stories create a rendering of

   what it means and costs to exist and survive as a black woman in America.

 

 

   Tar Baby

   Morrison, Toni

   Fiction M8345t1982

   On a tropical island paradise, six people interact with each other in all the

   tender or hateful ways of which humans are cable. Rich and poor, black and

   white, young and old, male and female – each has something to teach the

   others and each has something to learn.

 

 

 

   47

   Mosley, Walter

   Fiction M853f

   Number 47, a fourteen-year-old slave boy growing up under the watchful

   eye of a brutal master in 1832, meets the mysterious Tall John, who introduces

   him to a magical science and also teaches him the meaning of freedom.

 

 

 

 

   Way Past Cool

   Mowry, Jess

   Fiction M8725wa1993

   Living by a strict code of honor, two rival gangs of boys on Oakland's tough

   streets – the Friends and the Crew – find a common enemy in Deek, the

   sixteen-year-old drug dealer who cruises their neighborhood, controlling by

   intimidation.

 

 

 

 

   The Spyglass Tree

   Murray, Albert

   Fiction M9612sp1992

   In the 1930s, Scooter leaves his Mobile, Alabama home to attend college on a

   scholarship. At the university, he reflects on his charmed past. An energetic

   portrait of Southern black culture.

 

 

 

 

   Autobiography of My Dead Brother

   Myers, Walter Dean

   Fiction M992a

   As Jesse fills his sketchbook with drawings and portraits of Rise, he tries to

   make sense of the complexities of friendship, loyalty, and loss in a

   neighborhood plagued by drive-bys, vicious gangs, and abusive cops.

 

 

 

 

   The Beast

   Myers, Walter Dean

   Fiction M992b

   A visit to his Harlem neighborhood and the discovery that the girl he loves

   is using drugs give sixteen-year-old Anthony Witherspoon a new perspective

   both on his home and on his life at a Connecticut prep school.

 

 

 

 

   Fallen Angels

   Myers, Walter Dean

   Fiction M9924f1988

   Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists

   in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active

   duty in Vietnam.

 

 

 

 

 

   Monster

   Myers, Walter Dean

   Fiction M992mon2001

   While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon

   records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film

   script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

 

 

 

 

   145th Street Short Stories

   Myers, Walter Dean

   Fiction M992o

   Ten stories portray life on a block in Harlem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Scorpions

   Myers, Walter Dean

   Fiction M922s

   After reluctantly taking on the leadership of the Harlem gang, the Scorpions,

   Jamal finds that his enemies treat him with respect when he acquires a gun

   until a tragedy occurs.

 

 

 

 

   Imani All Mine

   Poter, Connie

   Fiction P8334i

   Relates the story of Tasha, an unwed fifteen-year-old mother who survives in the

   ghettos of Buffalo, New York and lives her life with fierce determination.

 

 

 

 

   Push

   Sapphire

   Fiction Sa 692pu1996

   A courageous and determined young teacher opens up a new world of hope and

   redemption for sixteen-year-old Precious Jones, an abused young African

   American girl living in Harlem who was raped and left pregnant by her father.

 

 

 

 

   Caucasia

   Senn, Danzy

   Fiction Se58c1999

   In the 1960s, Birdie and her sister Cole try to support each other when their

   Black father and White mother finally separate. When Cole goes with her father

   to Brazil, Birdie has to face a federal investigation of her mother's political

   activities.

 

 

 

   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

   Smith, Betty

   Fiction Sm54t1947

   A young Black girl in a shabby neighborhood lives with dreams in an innocent time

   before World War I.

 

 

 

 

   Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

   Taylor, Mildred D.

   Fiction T2162r

   A Black family living in the South during the 1930s is faced with prejudice and

   discrimination which their children don't understand.

 

 

 

 

   Let the Circle Be Unbroken

   Taylor, Mildred D.

   Fiction T2162L

   Four Black children growing up in rural Mississippi during the Depression experience

   racial antagonisms and hard times, but learn from their parents the pride and

   self-respect they need to survive.

 

 

 

 

   When Kambia Elaine Flew in From Neptune

   Williams, Lori Aurelia

   Fiction W673w2004

   Shayla, an aspiring writer growing up in a poor section of Houston, can’t figure

   out the new girl next door, Kambia Elaine, who tells fantastic stories. She slowly

   realizes that Kambia Elaine needs help, but Shayla doesn’t know where to find it.

 

 

 

   If You Come Softly

   Woodson, Jacqueline

   Fiction W868i

   After meeting at their private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah,

   who is Black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is White and

   whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with

   people's reactions.

 

 

 

   Miracle’s Boys

   Woodson, Jacqueline

   Fiction W868mi2001

   Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie

   changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette

   for the death of their mother.

 

 

 

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Graphic Novels

 

   Billie Holiday

   Munoz, Jose and Sampaya, Carlos

   GN M926b

   This graphic novel weaves together episodes from Billie Holiday’s life, the

   calculating commentary of a cynical, burned-out newspaper reporter, and

   the memories of Alack Sinner, a former police officer whose life intersected

   with Holiday’s briefly but significantly.

 

 

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Non-Fiction

 

 

   Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal

   Experiences of Slavery and Freedom

   edited by Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller

   306.36209 R282

   Includes live recordings of interviews with former slaves and dramatic readings

   from written interviews.

 

 

 

 

   Remember: The Journey to School Integration

   Morrison, Toni

   379.2630222 M834r

   Archival photographs paired with fictional text depicting thoughts and emotions

   of students who lived through school desegregation capture the spirit, sadness,

   and struggle of the time.

 

 

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Poetry & Short Stories

 

 

   Black Out Loud: An Anthology of Modern Poems by Black Americans

   edited by Arnold Adoff

   811.08 B5614

   A collection of poetry by twentieth-century Black Americans expressing

   what it is like to be Black in the United States. Includes capsule biographies

   of the poets.

 

 

 

   I Am the Darker Brother: An Anthology of Modern Poems by African

   Americans

   edited by Arnold Adoff

   811.08 Ad7I 1997

   Poems on race or racial problems by well-known African American poets,

   including Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Leroi Jones, Langston Hughes,

   and James Weldon Johnson.

 

 

 

 

   Selected Poems

   Dove, Rita

   811 D751s

   Partial contents: The Yellow House on the Corner; Museum; The Hill Has

   Something to Say; In the Bulrush; My Father’s Telescope; Primer for the

   Nuclear Age; Thomas and Beulah; Mandolin; Canary in Bloom

 

 

 

 

   The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni

   Giovanni, Nikki

   811 G438S

   Partial contents: Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgment; Re: Creation;

   Broadside: Poem of Angela Yvonne Davis; My house; The Women and the Men;

   Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day; Those Who Ride the Night Winds; Occasional

   Poem: A Poem for Langston Hughes; Occasional Poem: But Since You Finally

   Asked.

 

 

 

 

   The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader

   edited David Levering Lewis

   810.8 P832

   Collection of works by forty-five Renaissance figures. Includes short fiction

   and novel excerpts by Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Wallace Thurman,

   and Jean Toomer; poems by Gwendolyn Bennett, Countee Cullen, Jessie

   Redmon Fauset, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay; as well as essays,

   manifestos, speeches, and nostalgic reminiscences from a number of writers.

 

 

   Calling the Wind: Twentieth Century African-American Short Stories

   edited by Clarence Major

   813.08 C133One school.

   Compilation of short stories by African-American writers, including, Zora Neale

   Hurston, Jean Toomer, Charles Chesnutt, Ralph Ellison, Claude McKay, Dorothy

   West, Alice Walker, Ernest J. Gaines, John McCluskey Jr., Henry Dumas, LeRoi

   Jones (Amiri Barak), and Ann Allen Shockley.

 

 

 

   The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry

   edited by Arnold Rampersad

   811.08 Ox212