Paris has just moved in with the Lincoln family, and isn’t thrilled to be in yet another foster home. She has a tough time trusting people, and she misses her brother, who’s been sent to a boys’ home. Over time, the Lincolns grow on Paris. But no matter how hard she tries to fit in, she can’t ignore the feeling that she never will, especially in a town that’s mostly white while she is half black. It isn’t long before Paris has a big decision to make about where she truly belongs. (Grades 5-7)

Lyrical text describes Harriet Tubman's spiritual journey as she hears the voice of God guiding her North to freedom on that very first trip to escape the brutal practice of slavery. This is a moving portrait of one of the most inspiring figures of the Underground Railroad--a woman who would take 19 subsequent trips back South without being caught. (Grades 2-5)

From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie--and every style in between--this collection of energetic poems, accompanied by bright and exhilarating paintings, celebrates different styles of the American art form, jazz. (Grades 5-9)

Among the anthologized poems are Hughes’s best-known and most loved works: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”; “Aunt Sue’s Stories”; “Danse Africaine”; “Mother to Son”; “My People”; “Words Like Freedom”; “Harlem”; and “I, Too”—his sharp, pointed response to Walt Whitman’s earlier “I Hear America Singing.” (Grades 4 and up)

Based on an actual memoir written by Maritcha Rémond Lyons, who was born and raised in New York City, this poignant story tells what it was like to be a black child born free during the days of slavery. (Grades 4 and up)

Presents fifteen interlinked sonnets to pay tribute to Emmitt Till, a fourteen-year-old African American boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at a while woman, and whose murderers were acquitted. In 1955, people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. (Grades 9 and up)

Provides the story of the young black woman who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in Alabama, setting in motion all the events of the Civil Rights Movements that resulted in the end of the segregated south, gave equality to blacks throughout the nation, and forever changed the country in which we all live today. (Grades 3-5)

Eight-year-old Garang, orphaned by a civil war in Sudan, finds the inner strength to help lead other boys as they trek hundreds of miles seeking safety in Ethiopia, then Kenya, and finally in the United States. (Grades 1-5)

In 1947, twelve-year-old Pattie Mae is sustained by her dreams of escaping Rich Square, North Carolina, and moving to Harlem when her Uncle Buddy is arrested for attempted rape of a white woman and her grandfather is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. (Grades 6-9)

Fortune was a slave who lived in Waterbury, Conn., in the late 1700s. He was married and the father of 4 children. When Fortune died in 1798, his master, Dr. Porter, preserved his skeleton to further the study of anatomy. Now the skeleton is in the Mattatuck Museum where it is still being studied. (Grades 6 and up)

In a reflective tribute to the African-American community of old, noted poet Ntozake Shange recalls her childhood home and the close-knit group of innovators that often gathered there. These men of vision, brought to life in the majestic paintings of artist Kadir Nelson, lived at a time when the color of their skin dictated where they could live, what schools they could attend, and even where they could sit on a bus or in a movie theater. (Grades 3-7)

A swing spiritual based on the proverb "God blessed the child that's got his own." Book is accompanied by a cd of the Billie Holiday song. (Grades K-5)

In this retelling of a folktale, a group of slaves, unable to bear their sadness and starvation any longer, calls upon the African magic that allows them to fly away. (Grades 2-6)