Children's Book Suggestions | Black History Month 2025

A few of our favorite books about Black Americans past and present published in 2024. For more book ideas, check out our Black History Month 2024 Picture Book and Chapter Book lists or browse the library catalog.

More great books are honored annually with the Children's Africana Book Award, Coretta Scott King Book Awards, and NAACP Image Awards.

Updated January 11, 2025
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County) Oregon City Public Library
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They call me Teach : lessons in freedom
Cline-Ransome, Lesa
Paper Book
In this stirring and powerfully illustrated story, an enslaved young man uses his ability to read and write to educate others in the pursuit of freedom. Back inside the store I write up receipts for Master's deliveries for Master's orders...

Picture Book (Age 4-8)

The last stand
Eady, Antwan
Paper Book
The author of Nigel and the Moon, delivers a tender intergenerational story inspired by his childhood in the rural south. Here's a farm stand that represents the importance of family, community, and hope. A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BOOKPAGE, and SCHOOL...

Picture Book (Age 4-8)

Brown Girl, Brown Girl
Honore, Lesle
Paper Book
This powerful and hopeful picture book--inspired by the historic election of Vice President Kamala Harris--celebrates brown and Black girls and is magnificently illustrated by a Caldecott Honor-winning artist. Brown girl, brown girl, what did you see?...

Picture Book (Age 4-8)

A terrible place for a nest
Levine, Sara (Veterinarian)
Paper Book
A child learns to settle into a new home in this lyrical and stirring picture book perfect for fans of MEMORY JARS and EVELYN DEL REY IS MOVING AWAY. Juno and his mom have just moved into a new home, and he hates everything about it - the new school, his new classmates, his new...

Picture Book (Age 4-8)

My daddy is a cowboy
Seales, Stephanie
Paper Book
A Caldecott Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Book A young girl and her father share an early morning horseback ride around their city in My Daddy Is a Cowboy, an award-winning picture book celebration of "just-us time,"...

Picture Book (Age 4-8)

Summer is here
Watson, Renée
Paper Book
Celebrate iconic childhood joys in this love letter to summer featuring bright, sun-drenched art, from New York Times bestselling creators Renée Watson and Bea Jackson. Summer is here! No dark clouds in the sky, it's a perfect day for play. What joy...

Picture Book (Age 4-8)

Crowning glory : a celebration of black hair
Weatherford, Carole Boston
Paper Book
Celebrate the beauty of Black hair creations through the rhyming text and vibrant collage art of lauded Coretta Scott King Award winners Carole Boston Weatherford and Ekua Holmes. Our hair is a lioness, born to be wild. We pride ourselves on flair and style....

Picture Book (Age 4-8)

Juneteenth is
Tripplett, Natasha
Paper Book
An intimate look at Juneteenth, this story is a warm exploration of a family and a community.  Juneteenth is the smell of brisket filling the air. Juneteenth is the sounds of music, dancing, and cheering ringing from the parade outside. It is love. It is prayer...

Holiday Book (Age 5-8)

Showtime!
Lyons, Kelly Starling
Paper Book
Ty rocks out with friends in this new book in the Geisel Honor-winning series! Join Ty on his imaginative adventures in Ty's Travels: Showtime, a My First I Can Read story by acclaimed author and illustrator team Kelly Starling Lyons and Niña Mata. Music, imagination,...

Early Reader (Level 2)

The secret library
Magoon, Kekla
Paper Book
An instant New York Times bestseller! Travel through time with National Book Award Finalist Kekla Magoon in a page-turning fantasy adventure about family secrets and finding the courage to plot your own life story. Since Grandpa died, Dally's days are...

Children's Fiction (Grades 3-5)

Running in flip-flops from the end of the world
Reynolds, Justin A.
Paper Book
A hilarious middle-grade from justin a. reynolds that asks: What happens when five unsupervised kids face the apocalypse under outrageously silly circumstances? When twelve-year-old Eddie Gordon Holloway and his friends are left home from Beach Bash, aka the greatest party of the year,...

Children's Fiction (Grades 3-5)

Blue stars. Mission 1, The vice principal problem
Magoon, Kekla
Paper Book
Two everyday superheroes set out to save the world--starting with their school--in an exciting new middle-grade graphic series from two award-winning authors and a debut illustrator. When cousins Riley Halfmoon and Maya Dawn move to Urbanopolis to live with their activist grandma...

Children's Graphic Novel (Grades 3-5)

Warrior on the mound
Headen, Sandra W.
Paper Book
Narrated by twelve-year-old Cato, this intense and evocative story of racial unrest in prewar North Carolina ends with a dramatic match between white and Black little league teams. 1935. Twelve-year-old Cato wants nothing more than to play baseball, perfect his pitch, and meet Mr...

Young Teen Fiction (Grades 5-7)

Jax Freeman and the phantom shriek
Mbalia, Kwame
Paper Book
"I loved everything about this book."--Rick Riordan, New York Times #1 best-selling author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series 12-year-old Jax Freeman discovers a secret world where a diverse group of students with unique talents wield magic by summoning the power of...

Young Teen Fiction (Grades 5-7)

The everybody experiment
Ramée, Lisa Moore
Paper Book
From the award-winning author of A Good Kind of Trouble, Lisa Moore Ramée, comes a hilarious and heartfelt young middle grade novel, in the vein of Judy Blume, about friendship, fitting in, and the ups and downs of middle school. Sure to resonate with fans of Rebecca Stead...

Young Teen Fiction (Grades 5-7)

Art club
Doucet, Rashad
Paper Book
Inspired by the author's own childhood, this contemporary graphic novel paints a picture of an aspiring young artist on a mission to prove that the arts are worth fighting for.  Dale Donavan has heard the same lecture over and over again: Art will get you...

Young Teen Graphic Novel (Grades 5-7)


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