In 2012, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor award for No Crystal Stair(Carolrhoda, 2012), a young adult “documentary novel” based on the life and work of her great-uncle and Harlem bookseller, Lewis H. Michaux. InThe Book Itch: Freedom, Truth, and Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore (Carolrhoda, 2015), Nelson introduces a younger audience to the owner of the historic National Memorial African Bookstore. The story is told from the perspective of his son, Lewis Michaux, Jr., and emphasizes his father’s role as a literacy pioneer in the civil rights movement–one who established a refuge and creative think-space for other activists, scholars, and anyone interested in literature by or about people of the African diaspora. Michaux’s bookstore held over 200,000 such titles, making it the largest “black bookstore” in the country at the time.

The Book Itch is a 2016 CSK Illustrator Honor book. A description from the publisher reads:

“In the 1930s…

As a child, Tom Feelings’ aunt, a soldier of the 1960s Black Arts Movement, supplied him with a steady stream of books written by Black authors that featured characters that looked like him. The hope was that these books would end her nephew’s fixation with Christopher Robin (of Winnie The Pooh), and other white characters in all of the books he loved. She wanted Feelings to see positive images of Black people. She wanted him to love himself. In studying Feeling’s work as an adult, it quickly becomes apparent that his aunt’s plan worked.

Feelings was born in Brooklyn, NY, and studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in New York and later at the School of Visual Arts. While there, he noticed that all of the artists being studied in school, the so-called great masters, were white. Feelings asked his professor why. He was told that African art was seen as “primitive.” Feelings refused to accept this notion and set out to create wonderful art that celebrated and…

Photo Credit: Robin Cooper

On March 7, 1965, hundreds gathered at Selma’s Brown Chapel A.M.E. to push for voting rights and protest the state trooper killing of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson. They united for a days-long march to Montgomery, Alabama. But at the end of Selma’s Edmund Pettus bridge, they faced terror and violence. A wall of troopers, deputies and others rained blows on the peaceful marchers and flooded them with tear gas. That horrific day was called Bloody Sunday. Lynda Blackmon Lowery was the youngest person there. Her memoir, Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March (Dial, 2015), is her testimony.

The oldest of four children, Lowery grew up in a loving, close-knit black community where everyone helped and looked out for each other. But though she felt safe at George Washington Carver Homes, the ugliness of racism was all around her hometown of Selma. “When my mother died,” she recounts in the book, “I heard…

At 13-years-old, Mo’ne Davis became the first African American girl to play in a Little League World Series. She was the first African American girl to earn a win and to pitch a shutout in the 2014 Little League World Series. She can throw a 70 miles per hour fastball. And her curve ball is positively scary. Baseball isn’t even her favorite sport. Basketball is number one. Now she has written a book about her miraculous achievements, Mo’NE DAVIS REMEMBER MY NAME. Girls (and boys) will be inspired by her achievements and will definitely remember her name.

From the Back Cover
This inspiring memoir from a girl who learned to play baseball with the boys and rose to national stardom before beginning eighth grade will encourage young readers to reach for their dreams no matter the odds.
At the age of thirteen, Mo’ne Davis became the first female pitcher to…

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews was a child prodigy who began playing the trombone at the age of four, a discarded trombone that was twice as long as he was tall. By age six he was leading his own money-earning band, and by ten he was a bona fide touring musician. Today, at 30 years old, he is a Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist, playing not only trombone, but trumpet, drums, organ and tuba with his current band, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue.

Andrews credits his singer-songwriter grandfather, Jessie Hill, and his bandleader brother, James Andrews, as significant influences. Of his brother James—also a trumpeter—he often asserts, “He taught me everything I know.” Young “Shawty” performed with many heavy hitters, including Bo Diddley, Wynton Marsalis, and Wycliffe Gordon; he learned much about the craft of making music through their mentorship. Over the years, however, Andrews has blazed a distinctive path in the jazz world, fusing elements of modern rock…