Last Updated: February 14, 2026
Count to Love!
by Andrea Davis Pinkney
This charming board book from the New York times best-selling and award-winning duo celebrates sweet baby love with bouncing, rhythmic text and whimsical illustrations. (Board Book)
Be, Black Girl, Be
by Taylor Darks
Joyful illustrations and poetic text convey a wish from one generation to the next: that every Black girl knows and celebrates her own worth, sending positive words to instill them with confidence. (Picture Book)
Black Star
by Kwame Alexander
Twelve-year old Black girl Charley, who dreams of becoming the first professional female pitcher, must navigate adolescence during the turbulent segregation era and the beginning of the Great Migration. (Picture Book)
Forever and Always
by Brittany J. Thurman
Exploring the day-to-day life of a young Black child and her family, this lyrical picture book centers around Olivia, who, worrying about her father while he’s at work, anxiously awaits his return, knowing that when he gets home, the evening will be full of love and fun. (Picture Book)
Homegrown
by DeAnn Wiley
A young Black girl, with the help of her Mama and Granny, learns that home isn’t just a place but rather a reflection of people who support and love one another. (Picture Book)
Saturday Morning at the ‘Shop
by Keenan Jones
Spend Saturday morning at the barbershop in this upbeat celebration of the spaces and places that bring communities together. (Picture Book)
I Am Mighty!
by Kelly Greenawalt
In rhyming text, Princess Truly uses her strength and her magical curls to help her friends, rescue her dog from a tire swing, and win a prize at the carnival. (Early Reader)
Showtime!
by Kelly Starling Lyons
Ty loves playing the instruments, but something’s missing–his friends! With the help of his vivid imagination, Ty and his friends are onstage in a band making great music together! (Early Reader)
Millie Magnus Won’t Be Bullied
by Brittany Mazique
Millie confronts a bully at her school who she must compete against in a three-legged race. (Middle Reader)
Mid-Air
by Alicia D. Williams
Thirteen-year-old Isaiah grapples with the loss of his best friend as he strives to fit into a world that expects him to toughen up, which leads him on an exploration of identity and vulnerability. (Fiction)
Nina Under Arrest: A Birmingham Children’s Crusade Survival Story
by Anitra Butler-Ngugi
It’s May 1963, and twelve-year-old Nina Norris is answering a call from civil rights leaders in Birmingham, Alabama. Black Americans are demanding the right to vote, but adults who protest risk losing their jobs. So, children are protesting in their place. As Nina prepares for her day, she knows she will likely be arrested and put in jail, but it’s a price she is willing to pay so that all people can have a say in their government. Readers can learn the real story of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade from the nonfiction back matter in this Girls Survive story. A glossary, discussion questions, and writing prompts are also provided. (Fiction)
And She Was Loved: Toni Morrison’s Life in Stories
by Andrea Davis Pinkney
This poetic picture book biography is part love letter and part biography, praising the power of this Nobel Prize winner. With its tender refrain, readers will know how much Morrison’s stories — and their own — mean to the world. She was loved — and so are they! Who was Toni Morrison? She was a visionary, a storyteller, a daughter, a mother, a Howard graduate, a box-braider, weaving: Black pride, Black joy, Black families, Blackness. And most of all, she was loved. (Biography)
Aunt Sue’s Stories
by Langston Hughes
An illustrated picture book of Langston Hughes’s classic 1926 poem about a Black boy listening to a relative’s shadow-crossed stories of slavery honors a culture’s history keepers. (Non-Fiction)
How Sweet the Sound
by Kwame Alexander
A celebration of the history of Black music in America. (Non-Fiction)
John Henry!
de Christine Platt
John Henry is the strongest, fastest hammerman working on the railroads in the years after the American Civil War. One day, a salesman comes by with a machine he says can drill faster than any man. John is determined to prove no fancy device can beat him! Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Calico Kid is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO. (Spanish Non-Fiction)