Black Authors of Young Adult books

"In her most famous spoken-word poem, author of the Pura Belpré-winning novel-in-verse The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo embraces all the complexities of Black hair and Afro-Latinidad--the history, pain, pride, and powerful love of that inheritance. Paired with full-color illustrations by artist Andrea Pippins in a format that will appeal to fans of Mahogany L. Browne's Black Girl Magic or Jason Reynolds's For Everyone, this poem can now be read in a...

A novel in verse that captures the unbalanced experience of an all-consuming love between two unnamed, queer, Black teen girls who move rapidly from strangerhood into a protective best friendship before becoming dysfunctional lovers and mutually destructive partners in crime.

The son of a film director, Mack grows up on set and into a hopeless romantic -- one who falls hard for the handsome and popular Karim, who eventually notices him back, right before Mack has to relocate to Scotland. Not wanting to lose his first love, Mack asks Karim to be long-distance, but while they're trying, fearless and confident Finlay shows up on set, and Mack's world turns upside down yet again.

As a preacher's daughter, Monique is expected to be an example at church although she hates its restrictive rules. When she discovers she physically cannot have sex, and after her boyfriend breaks up with her for that reason, two unexpected teens from church become her main supports as she desperately tries to break the rules against all the odds.

Sabriya has her whole summer planned out in color-coded glory, but those plans go out the window after a terrorist attack near her home. When the terrorist is assumed to be Muslim and Islamophobia grows, Sabriya turns to her online journal for comfort. You Truly Assumed was never meant to be anything more than an outlet, but the blog goes viral as fellow Muslim teens around the country flock to it and find solace and a sense of community. Soon two...

"Joy Abara knows her place. A commoner from the lowly planet Hali, she lives a simple life--apart from the notoriety that being Kindred to the nobility's most infamous playboy brings. Duke Felix Hamdi has a plan. He will exasperate his noble family to the point that they agree to let him choose his own future and finally meet his Kindred face-to-face. Then the royal family is assassinated, putting Felix next in line for the throne...and accused of...

"A smash up of art and text that viscerally captures what it means to not be able to breathe, and how the people and things you love most are actually the oxygen you most need"--

With the help of her friends, fifteen-year-old Sunny embarks on a mission to find a precious object and return it to the spider deity Udide, but defeating the guardians of Udide's ghazal will put all of Sunny's hard lessons and abilities to the test.

"The royal palace of Wakanda is one of, if not the most secure facilities on this planet--or any other. So the anxiety Shuri feels when she's jolted out of sleep by the queen mother with the news that someone attempted to break into the palace--and succeeded--is significant. And as quickly as they broke in, they vanished. The search for this interloper, a mysterious "symbiote" with superhuman speed and strength, will lead Shuri to the Jabari Lands,...

Chronicles the story of the last Africans brought illegally to the United States on the Clotilda in 1860.