The orange president decided to switch it up this year by calling February 2017 National African American History Month instead of Black History Month. For obvious that are too long to list, that doesn’t work for us. We’re still calling it Black History Month around these parts.
So the staff of The Kids Wear Crowns blog gathered around to create a list of essential reading material for this month. Some of the authors are black, some of the books are about the black experience but the list wasn’t restricted to “African American” authors.
In an effort to enlighten myself, I’m issuing a personal challenge. I’m going to read (at least) one of these books a week. Feel free to join me if you’d like.
Now, time for our list.
| 12 Years A Slave | Solomon Northup |
| Americannah | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
| Between the World and Me | Ta’Naheisi Coates |
| Black Boy | Richard Wright |
| Broken Earth Trilogy | NK Jemison |
| The Watsons Go to Birmingham | Christopher Paul Curtis |
| Die Nigger Die | H. Rap Brown |
| Here Comes the Sun | Nicole Dennis-Benn |
| Homegoing | Yaa Gyasi |
| I Am Not Sidney Poitier | Percival Everett |
| Kindred | Octavia Butler |
| Mama Day | Gloria Naylor |
| Manchild in the Promised Land | Claude Brown |
| Medical Apartheid | Harriet A. Washington |
| Misadventures of the Awkward Black Girl | Issa Rae |
| Roots | Alex Haley |
| Sag Harbor | Colson Whitehead |
| Salvage the Bones | Jesmyn Ward |
| Soul on Ice | Eldridge Cleaver |
| Sula | Toni Morrison |
| Swing Time | Zadie Smith |
| The Autobiography of Malcolm X | Alex Haley and Malcolm X |
| The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison |
| The Mothers | Britt Bennett |
| The Souls of Black Folks | W.E.B. DuBois |
| The Sun is Also A Star | Nicola Yoon |
| Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neal Hurston |
| They Came Before Columbus | Ivan Van Sertima |
| Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe |
| Who Fears Death | Nnedi Okafor |
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