My favorite books for young readers about the growing up Black in the United States

Why am I passionate about this?

As a youngster growing up in the segregated South, I didn’t have access to books about Black history, culture, and experiences. Although I attended all-Black schools, the curriculum and the books in our libraries were mostly selected by an all-White school board. So, I didn’t know that much about the history of my own people. I would not begin to learn that until I attended college. When I married and had children of my own, my wife and I still had problems finding a variety of books for children and young readers for our own children to read. So, we started our own publishing company to address the need for these books.


I wrote...

Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South

By Wade Hudson,

Book cover of Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South

What is my book about?

I came of age during the civil rights movement. From our home on Mary Street, my close-knit family watched as the country grappled with desegregation, as the Klan targeted the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, and as systemic racism gripped our nation and our hometown.

Amidst it all, I was growing up, getting into scuffles in the schoolyard, playing baseball on a team I helped to organize, immersing myself in my church community, and starting to write. Most importantly, I learned how to find my voice and use it. This powerful memoir reveals the struggles, joys, love, and ongoing resilience that it took to grow up Black in segregated America and the lessons that carry over to our fight for a better future today.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Ghost Boys

Wade Hudson Why did I love this book?

This moving novel is right from the headlines of today reflecting real-life events. 

The story follows a 12-year-old boy named Jerome who is shot and killed by a white police officer after he mistakes Jerome's toy gun for a real one. Jerome becomes a ghost who meets another ghost, that of Emmett Till, a black boy who was murdered in 1955.

Through Till's story, Jerome learns about other "ghost boys" left to roam society, trying to stop society from repeating itself. 

By Jewell Parker Rhodes,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Ghost Boys as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

A heartbreaking and powerful story about a black boy killed by a police officer, drawing connections through history, from award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes.

Only the living can make the world better. Live and make it better.

Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.

Soon Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a boy from a very different time but similar circumstances. Emmett…


Book cover of Piecing Me Together

Wade Hudson Why did I love this book?

I just love anything that Renee Watson writes. It’s not because she is a good friend, which she is, but she is an extraordinary writer.

In this offering she tells the story of a teen named Jade who has to navigate two different worlds: one living in a poor neighborhood, and the other attending a wealthy private school. Jade's experience with racism, bullying, and self-discovery makes for an empowering read. 

By Renee Watson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Piecing Me Together as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
New York Times bestseller
"Timely and timeless." --Jacqueline Woodson
"Important and deeply moving." --John Green

Acclaimed author Renee Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her.

Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where…


Book cover of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning

Wade Hudson Why did I love this book?

The description of this book lays it all out for the readers. It says, “This is NOT a history book.

This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are. A book about race. What a journey it takes the readers on, exploring the construct of race in this country.

By Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Stamped as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this important and compelling young readers adaptation of his National Book Award-winning title, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, writing with award-winning author Jason Reynolds, chronicles the story of anti-black, racist ideas over the course of American history.

Racist ideas in our country did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Instead, they were developed by some of the most brilliant minds in history to justify and rationalise the nation's deeply entrenched discriminatory policies. But while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited. In shedding light on the history of racist ideas in America,…


Book cover of Dear Martin

Wade Hudson Why did I love this book?

Nic Stones’s first book is a classic. When an altercation between a retired white police officer and his best friend turns violent, Justyce, a Black teenager, is forced to examine what it means to be a Black in America.

Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a journal that Justyce keeps helps him come to terms with this challenging reality.

By Nic Stone,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Dear Martin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

'Absolutely incredible, honest, gut-wrenching! A must-read!' Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give
' Painfully timely and deeply moving, this is the novel the next generation should be reading' Jodi Picoult
'Justyce's story is earnest, funny, achingly human, and unshakably hopeful. I am forever changed.' Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
'Raw and gripping' Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down
'A powerful, wrenching, and compulsively readable story that lays bare the history, and the present, of racism in America' John Green, author of The Fault in our Stars

---------------
Raw, captivating, and undeniably real,…


Book cover of Brown Girl Dreaming

Wade Hudson Why did I love this book?

Jacqueline Woodson is a National Book Award Newbury and Coretta Scott King winner. But I know her as a great friend.

Brown Girl Dreaming is about her growing up in South Carolina during the 1960s and 1970s. My memoir Defiant takes places a few years before Brown Girl Dreaming. But the South was still the South, and segregation was still segregation. A great read from an outstanding writer.    

By Jacqueline Woodson,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Brown Girl Dreaming as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

The compelling story of a young Black girl growing up in 1960-70s America - a multi-award winning New York Times bestseller and President Obama's 'O' Book Club pick.

Brown Girl Dreaming is the unforgettable story of Jacqueline Woodson's childhood, told in vivid and accessible blank verse. She shares what it was like to grow up as an African-American in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, never truly feeling at home, and discovering the first sparks of an incredible, lifelong gift for writing. It's packed with wonderful reflections on family and on place, in a way that will appeal to…


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Book cover of The Twins of Auschwitz: The inspiring true story of a young girl surviving Mengele's hell

Lisa Rojany Author Of The Twins of Auschwitz: The inspiring true story of a young girl surviving Mengele's hell

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I have published over 50 books, including award-winning and bestselling titles. I am also a publishing executive and editor with 20+ years of professional experience. My latest The Twins of Auschwitz: The Inspiring True Story of  Young Girl Surviving Mengele’s Hell, with Eva Kor, got a stellar review by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and is an international bestseller. As well as spearheading four publishing startups, I have run my own business, Editorial Services of L.A. I was Editorial/Publishing Director for Golden Books, Price Stern Sloan, Intervisual Books, Hooked on Phonics, and more. I am also the Publisher & Editor in Chief of NY Journal Of Books, the premier online-only book review site.

Lisa's book list on picture books for all ages

What is my book about?

This is the Inspiring true story of a young girl surviving Mengele’s hell. This is an incisive, harrowing, and touching memoir of Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister Miriam, who are sent to Auschwitz only to be torn from their parents and given to Josef Mengele, "The Angel of Death," for his evil and damaging experiments on human subjects.

In the voice of the ten-year-old Eva, we learn about what life was like in the death camps and how a child survives when food, water, comfort, and care are absent. At times heartbreaking and at other times a triumph of the will of a child to survive, this is a memoir that is not easily forgotten.

By Lisa Rojany, Eva Mozes Kor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Twins of Auschwitz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

The Nazis spared their lives because they were twins.

In the summer of 1944, Eva Mozes Kor and her family arrived at Auschwitz.

Within thirty minutes, they were separated. Her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, while Eva and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man who became known as the Angel of Death: Dr. Josef Mengele. They were 10 years old.

While twins at Auschwitz were granted the 'privileges' of keeping their own clothes and hair, they were also subjected to Mengele's sadistic medical experiments. They…


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