Black History Month 

Talk about race is often discouraged, but this title aims to bring everyone into the conversation. Exploring the history of race and society and giving context to how racist attitudes come into being, the book looks at belonging and identity, the damaging effects of stereotyping and the benefits of positive representation. The authors talk sensitively about how to identify and challenge racism, and how to protect against and stop racist behaviour.

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The very first children’s poetry collection from street poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Playful, clever and provocative, this is performance poetry on the page at its very best.

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Originally performed for ESPN’s ‘The Undefeated’, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world’s greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the accomplishments of the past, while bringing stark attention to the endurance and spirit of those surviving and thriving in the present.

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Grace loves to act out stories. When her school decides to perform Peter Pan, Grace longs to play the lead, but her classmates point out that Peter was a boy, and besides, he wasn’t black.

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In this biography, discover the inspiring story of Katherine Johnson, famed NASA mathematician and one of the subjects of the award-winning 2016 film ‘Hidden Figures.’ It was an incredible accomplishment when the United States first put a person on the Moon – but without the incredible behind-the-scenes work of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, such a feat could not have been possible.

Follow her remarkable journey from growing up in West Virginia, to becoming a teacher, to breaking barriers at NASA and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

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Ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary, Tar Baby is Toni Morrison’s reinvention of the love story. Jadine Childs is a black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.

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‘Girl, Woman, Other’ follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends, and lovers, across the country and through the years.

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Cool, talented and transgressive, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life is just as fascinating as the work he produced. Delve into 1980s New York as this vivid graphic novel takes you on Basquiat’s journey from street-art legend SAMO to international art-scene darling, up until his sudden death.

Told through cinematic scenes, this is Basquiat as seen through the eyes of those who knew him, including his father, Suzanne Mallouk, Larry Gagosian and, most importantly, the man himself. Basquiat is a moving depiction of a troubled artist’s life for those interested in both the art and the man who made it.

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‘White Teeth’ is a comic epic of multicultural Britain by one of the most exciting young writers of the new millennium. It tells the story of immigrants in England over a period of 40 years.

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In this, the first volume of her autobiography, writer and poet Maya Angelou reflects on her childhood spent growing up in the American South of the 1930s. There she learned the power of the white townsfolk and suffered the trauma of rape.

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