Black History Month 2026: Books for Kids

Twelve-year-old twin brothers Cypress and Oakley Young must stop aliens from taking over their Atlanta suburb.

Jarell has never quite known where he belongs. He’s ignored at home and teased at school for wanting to draw instead of playing sports with the other boys. The only place he’s ever felt truly at ease is his local barbershop where the owner hangs Jarell’s art up on the walls. When Jarell discovers a hidden portal in the barbershop, he’s transported to a magical world that’s unlike anything he’s seen before. But it’s not just the powerful gods and dangerous creatures that makes this world different–it’s that everyone believes Jarell is the hero they’ve been waiting for.

Introduces young dreamers to innovative women who prove that girls can do anything and go anywhere!–Provided by publisher.

A grandmother introduces her grandchildren to famous Black figures and important snapshots in Black history, and the children begin to imagine themselves in these moments.

Mae Jemison was the first Black woman to go to space. She is an astronaut, doctor, engineer, writer, teacher, and dancer. This is her story.

An uplifting story about self-confidence and a child’s limitless potential.

It’s not easy being a Remarkable in the Unremarkable world. Some things are cool–like getting a pet hellhound for your twelfth birthday. Others, not so much–like not being trusted to learn magic because you might use it to take revenge on an annoying neighbor. All Nic Blake wants is to be a powerful Manifestor like her dad. But before she has a chance to convince him to teach her the gift, a series of shocking revelations and terrifying events launch Nic and two friends on a hunt for a powerful magic tool she’s never heard of…to save her father from imprisonment for a crime she refuses to believe he committed.

After accidentally traveling back in time and rewriting the future, twelve-year-old best friends Rahim and Kasia must work together to restore their timeline.

After saving Earth, Roswell Johnson must once again team up with a group of quirky aliens to save the galaxy.

After her home is attacked by shapeshifting vampires, twelve-year-old Serwa Boateng is sent to live with her aunt and cousin in Maryland, but the aspiring vampire hunter discovers that middle school is harder than it appears on television, especially when she has to avoid detention and turn her classmates into warriors before they become vampire food.

When Elise wakes up the morning after her birthday celebration, she’s surprised to find herself in her bedroom. Last she can remember, she had fallen asleep next to her best friends at her slumber party in her basement, and it was October. But now she’s alone, and her phone says it’s April 8. Elise doesn’t understand. How could she have woken up six months later? Is it a memory problem? Could it be magic? Every day that passes takes Elise further from the world she knew. Thankfully, Elise has Cora to lean on in this new reality, and the two come together to investigate why Elise woke up in the future–and more important, how to get her back to her past and away from this nightmare.

Join Charlie B., former astronaut and head of NASA, on his four space shuttle expeditions to Earth’s orbit, including the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope and the first US space mission that included a Russian cosmonaut as a crew member.

In this Level 1 early reader, Jedi Master Loden Greatstorm, his Padawan Bell Zettifar, and Bell’s charhound, Ember, all visit the Jedi Temple on Tenoo. But when Ember gets out and Kai and Bell set out to find her, Kai struggles to stay calm and connected to the Force. Can Kai control his emotions enough to find Ember and prove he’ll make a great Padawan someday?

From a very young age, Katherine Johnson counted everything–the number of dirty dishes she’d washed, the steps she walked to church, and even the number of leaves on the trees. By 1928, she was so intelligent and skilled at math that she was able to skip several grades and start high school at age ten. And while Katherine had to deal with racism, segregation, and prejudice throughout her life, she did not let this hold her back from becoming a mathematician. In 1953, she started working as a ‘human computer’ at America’s space agency, now known as NASA. Katherine calculated complex equations by hand, and these calculations helped astronauts travel safely into space. She was a part of many important missions, including the Apollo 11 mission that put the first person on the moon.