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In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for...
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English
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When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever." The story tells of a Black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances...
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Jay is forced to continually cover for his sister, Nicole, who hangs out with the wrong crowd; however, Jay can't deal with it any more. Soon after, Nic fails to return home. When she's deemed missing, the police barely bother to search for her; she's just another lost Black girl. Jay feels guilty and he thinks, "If I hadn't hung up on her that night, she would be home spending time with our grandma. If I was a better brother, she'd be finishing senior...
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English
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Ruth Fitz, a Black teenager surrounded by activism in a family rocked by tragedy, discovers that she has begun to receive parchment letters from Harriet Jacobs, the author of the autobiography and 1861 American classic, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and sets out to use her own voice to make history.
7) For Lamb
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"An interracial friendship between two teenaged girls goes tragically wrong in this powerful historical novel set in the Jim Crow South. For Lamb follows a family striving to better their lives in the late 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. Lamb's mother is a hard-working, creative seamstress who cannot reveal she is a lesbian. Lamb's brother has a brilliant mind and has even earned a college scholarship for a black college up north- if only he could curb...
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Emily Bird is an African American high school senior in Washington D.C., member of a privileged medical family, on the verge of college and the edge of the drug culture, and not really sure which way she will go--then one day she wakes up in the hospital with no memory of what happened.
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George, Garrett, Rall, and Rasul were raised by Nanny, their fiercely devoted grandmother. The boys hold one another close through early brushes with racism, memorable experiences at the family barbershop, and first loves and losses. And with Nanny at their center, they are never broken. Johnson capture the unique experience of growing up as a Black boy in America, and their rich family stories. He explores themes of vulnerability, sacrifice, and...
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11th-12th Grade Reading
Awesome YA Books by Black Authors
Built-In Besties or Baddies: Siblings in YA Books
YA Books for Juneteenth
Awesome YA Books by Black Authors
Built-In Besties or Baddies: Siblings in YA Books
YA Books for Juneteenth
Description
Although distraught, Happi is also unsettled by the way people have idealized the memory of her sister who was killed after attending a social justice rally -- why do people have to be perfect in order to be missed? As a way to honor the memory, however, Happi and her other sister Genny go on a roadtrip using the original "Green Book" -- but the trip reveals secrets neither sister knew about the dead Kezi.
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English
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This title offers an in-depth examination of colonialism as presented in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, as well as contemporary perspectives on this issue. Discussions include the use of language to convey status and power, the clash of Igbo and European cultures, the loss of personal identity, and the different faces of neo-colonialism.