Black by Popular Demand
This is the week of Black women authors! Leah Johnson's bringing out everyone out for Black Girl Power and Kennedy Ryan's back with a new romance!
November is swooshing by. We’re bringing you to Harambee Books of VA.
Happy Reading!
Freedom Fire: Black Girl Power: 15 Stories Celebrating Black Girlhood
Black girl power is...
Bringing your favorite stuffed animal to your first real sleepover. . .
Escaping an eerie dollhouse that's got you trapped inside. . .
Making new friends one magical baked good at a time. . .
Finding the courage to dance to the beat of your own drum. . .
And more! From 15 legendary Black women authors comes a dazzling collection of stories and poems about the power we find in the everyday and the beauty of Black girlhood.
Contributors include: Amerie, Kalynn Bayron, Roseanne A. Brown, Elise Bryant, Dhonielle Clayton, Natasha Diaz, Sharon M. Draper, Sharon Flake, Leah Johnson, Kekla Magoon, Janae Marks, Tolá Okogwu, Karen Strong, Renée Watson, and Ibi Zoboi
(Middle Grade)
The Band in Our Basement: A Picture Book
The sounds downstairs are funky
and we start to wiggle toes.
We flip-flop and we giggle
with sheets up to the nose.
The rhythm's steady, the trumpet's sweet.
Before too long, we're on our feet!
After hearing Daddy's band practicing in the basement, a brother and sister can't resist sneaking out of bed to watch them play. Careful, careful, can't be caught. Tiptoe past the squeaky spot! They long to join in the fun, but can't be seen out of bed--until the discovery of a surprise band member turns the jam session into a family affair. With an energetic, lyrical text from award-winning author Kelly J. Baptist and exuberant illustrations from Jenin Mohammed, The Band in Our Basement will have readers feeling the beat--right before settling back down for bedtime.
(Children’s)
Reel
Neevah Saint is ready for the spotlight. After months as an understudy, this is her night to shine. She never imagined he would be in the audience. Canon Holt. Famous film director. Fascinating. Talented. Fine.
Before she can catch her breath, everything is changing. Neevah goes from backstage Broadway to center stage Hollywood. From being unknown, to having her name on everyone's lips when Canon casts her as the lead in a star-studded Harlem Renaissance biopic.
But forbidden attraction, scandal, and circumstances beyond Neevah's control soon put her dream in jeopardy. Could this one shot--the role of a lifetime, the love of a lifetime--cost her everything?
(Romance)
Stand in My Window: Meditations on Home and How We Make It
"Home is a reflection of what we inherit."
Grappling with the state of the world over the last few years--the global pandemic, climate change, threats to women's rights, constant racial violence--LaTonya Yvette began to contemplate the concept of home. What does it mean to cultivate safety when it is constantly under threat? How can we nurture joy and peace within the spaces where we spend most of our precious time? Who can we turn to for guidance along the way?
In Stand in My Window: Meditations on Home and How We Make It, Yvette explores these kinds of questions as she takes readers through the journey of her own rediscovery of home. In eleven meditative essays, accompanied by 25 beautiful photographs taken over the course of writing the book, Yvette illustrates how the act of homemaking can be revolutionary, liberating--and one of the most powerful expressions we have of self- and community care.
Woven throughout the book is the story of the nearly 200-year-old house in upstate New York that Yvette bought and painstakingly renovated, with the aim of creating a safe space for BIPOC communities. The house--Yvette's ultimate expression of home--provides her greatest lessons. Both visual feast and emotional salve, Stand in My Window demonstrates that home truly is what you make of it--in mind, body, soul, and in the thoughtfully curated spaces we can build for ourselves anywhere.
(Photography & Essays)
Claudette Colvin: I Want Freedom Now!
Montgomery, Alabama 1955. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin is tired. Tired of white people thinking they're better than her. Tired of going to separate schools and separate bathrooms. Most of all, she's tired of having to give up her seat on the bus whenever a white person tells her to. She wants freedom NOW! But what can one teenager do?
On a bus ride home from school one day, young Claudette takes a stand for justice and refuses to get up from her seat--nine months before Rosa Parks will become famous for doing the same. What follows will not only transform Claudette's life but the course of history itself.
In the words of Claudette Colvin herself, as told to acclaimed nonfiction writer Phillip Hoose, this empowering, heroic story illustrates how one simple act of courage can create real and lasting change.
(Children’s)
