Here’s a list of upcoming and newly released books by Black authors:
A new take on the life of the first Black woman Congresswoman and presidential candidate, Shirley Chisholm, this picture book illustrates her energetic personality as a child and her desire to fight injustice as a young adult. Great for the daring young people in your life!
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, Rebecca Hall, Illustrations by Hugo Martínez (June 1) (Nonfiction)
Come with historian Rebecca Hall, PhD, on a journey to uncover the truth about women-led slave revolts in this black-and-white book that is part graphic novel, part memoir. The granddaughter of enslaved people, Hall decided to look deeper than the surface narrative that told her women often took a back seat during slave revolts. Her research journey took her through court records, slave ship captain’s logs, crumbling correspondence, and even the forensic evidence from the bones of enslaved women from the “negro burying ground” uncovered in Manhattan. Hall found women warriors everywhere.
In this book, Hall constructs the likely pasts of Adono and Alele, woman rebels who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, in addition to stories of women who led slave revolts in Colonial New York. Seeking answers from a past that haunts her, Hall’s own story intertwines with the narratives of these women as the legacy of slavery shapes her life as a successful attorney and historian.
This Poison Heart, Kalynn Bayron (June 29) (Young Adult) Brisels can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch. When her aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Brisels and her family decide it’s the perfect place to spend summer vacation. Rather than a time to relax, Brisels finds unexpected instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Brisels’ family lineage.
Throughout the summer, strangers arrive on their doorstep asking for tinctures and elixirs. Brisels learns she has a talent for creating them and befriends a mysterious young woman, Marie. Soon Brisels discovers Marie is keeping terrible secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. With a group after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir, Brisels must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.
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