Once again, we enter Black History Month at a pivotal and uncertain time. In our divided society, where misinformation and disinformation proliferate, too few people have a full understanding of the larger forces that have brought us to this point. Although Black history is American history and should be fully integrated into our national narrative as such, a month of paying deep attention to specific events, themes, and concerns is valuable given our reality in which voices from the dominant culture still receive excessive attention. This pause to focus is healing for Black kids, whose communities’ stories and perspectives are too often erased. It’s also enlightening for others, fostering connections among marginalized communities and offering a corrective for young people who, as eminent Black scholar Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop so astutely observed, “grow up with an exaggerated sense of their own importance and value in the world” because they encounter a disproportionate number of narratives that center people like them. The following books add pieces to the rich mosaic of Black Americans’ lives, both historical and contemporary.
My Fairy God Somebody by Charlene Allen (Harper/HarperCollins, 2024): A ring from her uncle and the address of a mysterious benefactor in Brooklyn offer clues to a compelling family mystery that’s more complicated than 16-year-old Clae had imagined. Her research (helped by a scholarship to a summer journalism program in New York City) leads to answers that are entwined with Black history and education.
King: A Life (Young Adult Edition) by Jonathan Eig with Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jan. 7): While Martin Luther King Jr.’s name will be familiar to teens, many accounts fail to convey his full humanity or the complexity of his life, leaving him a somewhat flattened figure and diminishing his achievements. This work fills in many gaps, leaving readers with a more nuanced awareness.
Knucklehead: Poems by Tony Keith Jr., illustrated by Julian Adon Alexander (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, Feb. 25): A gay Black spoken word poet and educator guides and comforts readers, offering solace to those moving through a world that’s “afraid to recognize that the size of your body / and the width, depth, girth, length, / and strength of your tongue / ain’t something God made to threaten anyone.”
The Davenports: More Than This by Krystal Marquis (Dial Books, 2024): This sequel reunites readers with an ensemble cast of characters living in pre–World War I Chicago’s Black high society and navigating family, politics, business—and romance. Readers who enjoy well-drawn character-driven stories will appreciate the interpersonal dramas taking place against a backdrop of bigger societal changes affecting their community.
The Swans of Harlem (Adapted for Young Adults): Five Black Ballerinas, a Legacy of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby (Delacorte, Jan. 14): While the Dance Theater of Harlem is legendary, the achievements of some of its early members have been overlooked. This thorough and accessible work, which will appeal to dancers and nondancers alike, explores the intense and exclusionary world of professional ballet and the profound impact of DTH founder Arthur Mitchell and his dancers.
Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.
