Abstract
Born on the Water, Nikole Hannah-Jones (Author) & Renee Watson (Illustrator)
“Never forget you come from a people of great strength …Be proud of our story, your story.” From the moment a little girl comes home from school devastated that she does not know her history, through her grandmother’s telling of “where we’re from”, this book relates a Black history that transcends the one most often assigned to Blackness and that imprisons both mind and heart through partial and inaccurate tellings of history. Instead, this text celebrates the languages, kingdoms, mathematical, scientific, and agricultural brilliance of African Peoples stolen from their lands - their skills, joys, resistance, and resilience. Insisting that this “is no immigration story” honest histories convey both suffering and courage as people are ripped from their homelands, sold as commodities, and yet resisting, surviving, and thriving. Using the New York Times 1619 Project as the springboard for this comprehensive story, the book communicates a stolen legacy through beautiful texts and stunning illustrations that should be a critical part of every child’s education.
Your Legacy, Schele Williams (Author) and Tonya Engel (Illustrator)
While many readers are familiar with the traditional narrative of the forced dislocation of Africans who were enslaved, this book engages readers with the humanity of African descent prior to European contact and their descendants today. Through the author and illustrator’s exploration of ancestral hopes and dreams, Williams and Engel speak to the future of the people. The passion and beauty of this story will captivate the readers in this important volume for every classroom.
The Undefeated, Kwame Alexander (Author) and Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)
“This is for the unforgettable. The swift and sweet ones who hurdled history and opened a world of possible.”
Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson invite the reader to witness triumph through the perseverance of Black people. Alexander’s powerful words matched with Nelson’s striking illustrations grip and hold the reader from cover to cover, offering insights into history, accomplishments, endurance, and the spirit of people who have and do endure and yet survive and thrive. It is an intentionally empowering book for Black children.
The World Belonged to Us, Jacqueline Woodson (Author) and Leo Espinosa (Illustrator)
This book is an ode to the end of the school year embodied in Black joy as Woodson and Espinosa bring Brooklyn summers to life, celebrating Black memories and possibilities. The World Belonged to Us offers readers a space to not only appreciate the ways that Black joy is normalized but to explore their own neighborhoods and summer experiences and to define freedom.
The People Remember, Ibi Zoboi (Author) and Loveis Wise (Illustrator)
Zoboi’s poetry uses the seven principles of Kwanzaa to reflect a Blackness that’s centuries old. Readers will meet historical figures and momentous historical events through this detailed narrative paired with stunning illustrations that vividly and lovingly, exhibit the story of hope, strength, brilliance, courage, joys and resilience of Black people. Connecting histories that begin in Africa, honoring the many languages spoken and customs observed, honestly depicting the capturing and enslavement of African peoples, and tracing history through the following centuries this powerful volume threads the concepts of unity, self-determination, collective responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. In the process, Zoboi takes us from African shores through the strength and perseverance of enslaved Africans, the lost hopes of Reconstruction, the Great Migration, to the power of musicians, artists, poets, novelists, activists, athletes, scientists, and entreprenuers whose 20th and 21st century poems, songs, and accomplishments led and continue to lead the way for the change today. Because as Zoboi reminds us, “The people remember that it happened again and again.”