Black History Month 2026: Teen Books Celebrating Vivian Davidson Hewitt’s Life and Work

In 1921 in the “Black Wall Street” of Tulsa, Oklahoma, seventeen-year-old Isaiah Wilson, a troublemaker with a secret passion for reading, and sixteen-year-old Angel Hill, a loner whose peers disregard her as a “goody-goody,” find themselves suddenly spending a lot of time together when their English teacher offers them a job on her mobile library. But as the two grow closer, their lives change drastically after a white mob destroys their community and leaves the residents displaced.

Follows the story of Charisma, a Black high school student grappling with mounting pressures from home and school, and when frustrations with her family intersect with a conflict at school, she reaches a crossroads, facing a choice that could change her future.

In 1946, discovering a book of Langston Hughes’ poetry in the library helps an eleven-year-old boy, also named Langston, cope with losing his mother, relocating from Alabama to Chicago, and being bullied.

A young adult memoir in verse that traces the author’s journey from being a closeted gay Black teen battling poverty, racism, and homophobia to becoming an openly gay first-generation college student who finds freedom in poetry.

Using Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography as the source, the text shares Equiano’s life story in found verse. Readers will follow his story from his childhood in Africa, enslavement at a young age, liberation, and life as a free man. Includes timeline and glossary.

Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has felt unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood and she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking, but Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers.

Finding a mysterious letter from her late Grandpa, Dally is led straight to a library of secrets where each book is a portal to a precise moment in time, and she must find the courage to write her own life story as she “checks out” adventure after adventure.

Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the deaths of one-third of the world’s population. Seventeen-year-old Janelle “Ellie” Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. With humans deemed dangerously volatile because of their initial reaction to the invasion, emotional expression can be grounds for execution. Music, art and books are illegal, but Ellie breaks the rules by keeping a secret library. When a book goes missing, Ellie is terrified that the Ilori will track it back to her and kill her. Born in a lab, M0Rr1S was raised to be emotionless. When he finds Ellie’s illegal library, he’s duty-bound to deliver her for execution. The trouble is, he finds himself drawn to human music and in desperate need of more. They’re both breaking the rules for the love of art–and Ellie inspires the same feelings in him that music does. Ellie’s–and humanity’s–fate rests in the hands of an alien she should fear. M0Rr1S has a lot of secrets, but also a potential solution–thousands of miles away. The two embark on a wild and dangerous road trip with a bag of books and their favorite albums, all the while creating a story and a song of their own that just might save them both.

A biography in verse and prose of science fiction visionary Octavia Butler.

Ossie Brown’s entire future is in jeopardy when atorn ACL ends his promising basketball career. Now Ossie . . . must navigate his new place in the social and academic ecosystems of his affluent, predominantly white school. When a Black teacher encourages him to join her highly regarded writing program, Ossie begins to find a new purpose . . . Everything changes when some students’ viral ‘anti-woke’ video puts the teacher’s job, the writing program, and even Ossie’s friends’ safety at risk–and Ossie must find his true voice.

Seventeen-year-old Truth uses slam poetry to address her personal struggles with college, relationships, and an unexpected pregnancy, but she never intended for a video of her poem to go viral.

When Darius told Angel he loved her, she believed him. But five weeks after the incident, Angel finds herself in Brooklyn, far from her family, from him, and from the California life she has known. Angel feels out of sync with her new neighborhood. At school, she can’t shake the feeling everyone knows what happened–and that it was her fault. The only place that makes sense is Ms. G’s class. There, Angel’s classmates share their own stories of pain, joy, and fortitude. And as Angel becomes immersed in her revolutionary literature course, the words from novels like The Bluest Eye and Push speak to her and begin to heal the wounds of her past.