Shayna Small
Author
Publisher
Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Pub. Date
2019.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier,...
Author
Publisher
Riverhead Books
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Grace Steele and Eliza Jones may be from completely different backgrounds, but when it comes to the army, specifically the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), they are both starting from the same level. Not only will they be among the first class of female officers the army has even seen, they are also the first Black women allowed to serve. As these courageous women help to form the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, they are dealing with...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Named a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more!
"[A] powerful novel....
...Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kendare Blake is back with an epic duology starter that follows a young woman training to join a fabled order as she attempts to lead a hero to his critical first victory. A must-read for fans of Alexandra Bracken and Victoria Aveyard.
Aristene are an order of mythical female warriors. Though heroes might be immortalized in legends, it's the Aristene who guide their paths to victory. They are the Heromakers.
Raised...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.9 - AR Pts: 17
Language
English
Description
"As princess of the island kingdom Visidia, Amora Montara has spent her entire life training to be High Animancer--the master of souls. The rest of the realm can choose their magic, but for Amora, it's never been a choice. To secure her place as heir to the throne, she must prove her mastery of the monarchy's dangerous soul magic. When her demonstration goes awry, Amora is forced to flee. She strikes a deal with Bastian, a mysterious pirate: he'll...
7) Otaku
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Otaku is the debut novel from former NFL player and tech enthusiast Chris Kluwe, with a story reminiscent of Ready Player One and Ender's Game.
Ditchtown.
A city of skyscrapers, built atop the drowned bones of old Miami. A prison of steel, filled with unbelievers. A dumping ground for strays, runaways, and malcontents. Within these towering monoliths, Ashley Akachi is a young woman trying her best to cope with a brother who's slipping away, a mother...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Sixteen-year-old Ebony Jones is devastated when her family moves from Houston to her grandmother's house in the country. There's nothing for Ebony in Alula Lake, Texas. Absolutely nothing.
Award-winning author Liara Tamani's What She Missed is a rich and emotional novel that celebrates change, nature, friendship, growing up, and love, for readers of Sarah Dessen's The Rest of the Story and Elizabeth Acevedo's Clap When You Land.
When Ebony and her...
Author
Language
English
Description
As Seen on The TODAY Show!
Called One of the Best Crime Novels of the Year by New York Times * NPR * New York Post * Washington Post * Buzzfeed * South Florida Sun-Sentinel * Library Journal * CrimeReads
From the award-winning author of All Her Little Secrets comes yet another gripping, suspenseful novel where, after the murder of a white man in Jim Crow Mississippi, two Black sisters run away
...Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 14
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Delilah always keeps her messy, gooey insides hidden behind a wall of shrugs and yeah, whatevers. She goes with the flow--which is how she ends up singing in her friends' punk band as a favor, even though she'd prefer to hide at the merch table. Reggie is a D&D Dungeon Master and self-declared Blerd. He spends his free time leading quests and writing essays critiquing the game under a pseudonym, keeping it all under wraps from his disapproving family....
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A promise could betray you.
It's 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He's eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she'd never look back, but Ruth knows...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.6 - AR Pts: 11
Language
English
Description
"Following in the footsteps of her überfamous grandma, eighteen-year-old Evie Jones is poised to be Hollywood's next big star. That is until a close friend's betrayal leads to her being blacklisted . . . Fortunately, Evie knows just the thing to save her floundering career: a public appearance with America's most beloved actress--her grandma Gigi, aka the Evelyn Conaway. The only problem? Gigi is a recluse who's been out of the limelight for almost...
Author
Language
English
Description
As the "War on Crime" targeted American cities from the late 1960s onward, Black residents threw punches and Molotov cocktails at police officers, plundered local businesses, and vandalized exploitative institutions. Drawing on new sources, Elizabeth Hinton reveals that these so-called riots were not explosions of criminality, but collective acts of rebellion against police brutality and racism. A leading scholar of policing, Hinton documents the...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The Plot against Hip Hop is a noir novel set in the world of hip-hop culture. The fatal stabbing of esteemed music critic Dwayne Robinson in a Soho office building is dismissed by the NYPD as a gang initiation. But his old friend, bodyguard and security expert D Hunter, suspects there are larger forces at work.D Hunter's investigation into his mentor's murder leads into a parallel history of hip hop, a place where renegade government agents, behind-the-scenes...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Professional bodyguard D Hunter takes a gig protecting rapper Asya Roc at an underground fight club in poverty-stricken Brownsville, Brooklyn. Unknown to D, the rapper has arranged to purchase illegal guns at the event. An acquaintance of D's from the streets, Ice, turns out to be the courier.
During the exchange a robbery is attempted, and Ice is wounded. D gets Asya Roc to safety but, now in possession of the illicit merchandise, finds himself...
Author
Language
English
Description
Young Black Americans have been trying to realize the promise of the American Dream for centuries and coping with the reality of its limitations for just as long. Now, a new generation is pursuing success, happiness, and freedom -- on their own terms.
In It Was All a Dream, Reniqua Allen tells the stories of Black millennials searching for a better future in spite of racist policies that have closed off traditional versions of success. Many watched...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The revelatory inside story of the trial and final days of New England Patriots superstar Aaron Hernandez, by his attorney and New York Times bestselling author Jose Baez.
When renowned defense attorney Jose Baez received a request for representation from Aaron Hernandez, the disgraced Patriots tight end was already serving a life sentence for murder. Defending him in a second, double-murder trial seemed like a lost cause--but Baez accepted the challenge,...
Author
Language
English
Description
After five years of grieving over her childhood sweetheart, Frankie Five-Fingers is ready to get back to business. Shedding her caged bird persona she has a new man and a new plan...snatch everything that isn t nailed down! With her new boo, Cowboy, and his crew of bandits they wreak havoc on the streets of New York, robbing everything from businesses to ballers. If it had value they were coming for it. Frankie is living life at a million miles per...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"A dark and riveting page-turner with an intelligent twist." -Nadine Matheson, author of The Jigsaw Man
SOMEONE HAD TO MAKE HIM PAY. SOMEONE HAD TO TAKE HER DOWN.
Brandi Maxwell is living the dream as an intern at prestigious New York fashion house Simon Van Doren. Except "living the dream" looks more like scrubbing puke from couture dresses worn by hard-partying models and putting up with microaggressions from her white colleagues. Still, she...