When the Black Girl Sings
10 best books like When the Black Girl Sings (Bil Wright): Chanda's Wars, Debbie Harry Sings in French, Good Fortune, Eighth-Grade Superzero, Sex Education, Dancer, Hip-Hop High School, Choir Boy, I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This, Imani All Mine
| Author | Allan Stratton |
| ISBN | 0060872624 |
She promised her mama she'd keep them safe. It's been six months since Mama died, and Chanda is struggling to raise her little brother and sister. Determined to end a family feud, she takes them to her relatives' remote rural village. But across the nearby border, a brutal civil war is spreading. Rebels...
| Author | Meagan Brothers |
| ISBN | 0805080805 |
Johnny’s had kind of a tough life so far, and he’s always been a bit of a freak. His goth look usually includes black nail polish and a little mascara.When he discovers Debbie Harry, the lead singer of Blondie, he not only likes her music but realizes that he kind of, sort of, wants to BE her. He’d like...
| Author | Noni Carter |
| ISBN | 1416984801 |
Brutally kidnapped from her African village and shipped to America, Ayanna Bahati struggles to come to terms with her new life as a slave. Rising from the cotton fields to her master's house, Anna is threatened by the increasingly dangerous world of the plantation. Risking everything, she escapes...
| Author | Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich |
| ISBN | 0545096766 |
In this terrific debut, a Brooklyn middle-schooler finds the superhero within himself thanks to old friends, new dreams, and a pair of magical "Dora the Explorer" sneakers.
Ever since a deeply unfortunate incident earlier this year, Reggie's been known as "Pukey" McKnight at his high-intensity...
Fictional narrative that follows the story of Olivia Sinclair who is recalling her freshman year in a new city and high school. During this year, she meets her first "love", David, in a biology class which turns into an untraditional, exploratory, and eye-opening sex education class. As a project for...
| Author | Lorri Hewett |
| ISBN | 0141310855 |
Ballet is the most important thing in Stephanie's life. But the reality of dance is tough, and Stephanie's parents fear that she doesn't realize how few opportunities there are for black ballerinas. Then, the remarkable Miss Winnie and her handsome and talented nephew, Vance, show up in ballet class...
Theresa Anderson is every kind of smart: too smart-mouthed for her own good, street smart enough to deal with a neighborhood that gets more dangerous every day, and more book smart than anyone knows. But with the example of her super-achieving older brother towering above her, Theresa hasn't even been...
| Author | Charlie Jane Anders |
| ISBN | 1932360816 |
Twelve-year-old choirboy Berry wants nothing more than to remain a choirboy. Choral music and the prospect of divinity thrill him. Desperate to keep his voice from changing, he tries unsuccessfully to castrate himself, and then convinces a clinic to treat him as a transsexual. Berry begins a series...
| Author | Jacqueline Woodson |
| ISBN | 0142405558 |
3 soft snickerdoodles.
Cover Love: No, but I saw there were several editions of this book and many other great covers.
Why I Wanted to Read This:
My library has a bunch of Jacqueline Woodson books and I keep meaning to read some of them. I saw mention of this one in an article so I went...
| Author | Connie Rose Porter |
| ISBN | 0618056785 |
"With authority and grace" (Essence), Imani All Mine tells the story of Tasha, a fourteen-year-old unwed mother of a baby girl. In her ghettoized world where poverty, racism, and danger are daily struggles, Tasha uses her savvy and humor to uncover the good hidden around her. The name she gives her daughter,...
| Author | Angela Johnson |
| ISBN | 0590481428 |
Angela Johnson's Coretta Scott King Award winning novel that traces three generations of African American women as they learn one another's truths.
Three generations of African American women, each holding on to a separate truth. Their story -- encompassing racism and murder as well as...
Georgia Hansen can fly. All the women in her family can. They fly at night, when the world sleeps, for no one must discover their secret. Georgia will soon turn 16 and make her first solo flight, taking up her birthright with a special ceremony to mark the occasion. But her anticipation is disrupted with...
| Author | Sherri L. Smith |
| ISBN | 0440229278 |
Lucy Otswego is a big girl who towers over just about everyone and everything in her small Alaskan town, except for her father's horrible reputation as a mean drunk. At 15, she runs away from the cruel classmates who see her only as "the Giant," the embarrassed adults who pity her, and the abusive father...
| Author | Lori Aurelia Williams |
| ISBN | 0689845936 |
So I just made another note to add to my blue notebook later, when the house had cooled off: Tia's nature is boiling out of her like hot soup out of a pot, and Kambia Elaine just flew in from Neptune. Shayla Dubois lives in a Houston neighborhood known as the Bottom, where life is colorful but never easy. She...
| Author | William Durbin |
| ISBN | 1561646784 |
This heart-warming story is about Bella, a 13-year-old girl in Tampa, Florida, in the 1930s. Her grandfather is a lector at a cigar factory, which means he reads fiction, newspapers, and union news to the workers as they roll cigars. Being a lector is an important role in their Cuban American immigrant...
| Author | Jessamyn West |
| ISBN | 1558615164 |
Cress Delahanty remains one of the most intrepid and beloved teenagers in all American literature. Amid the clotted oil fields and pungent orange groves of rural 1940s California, the young woman explores her family’s citrus ranch, worries about boys, attempts to negotiate the high school social...
| Author | Brock Cole |
| ISBN | 0374410828 |
"Show a little maturity," he said, which I've doped out to mean: Pass all your courses, avoid detection in all crimes and misdemeanors, don't get pregnant.
Celine's father has left her with these instructions. She's not too worried about the last two, but she'll fail English unless she rewrites...
| Author | Darrien Lee |
| ISBN | 1933967714 |
This week I have started reading '16 Going on 21' by Darrien Lee. So far this book is really intense it jumps straight into the action. Denim and Dré have been friends since they were three years old and it is clear how much they love each other. The only thing in their way is Denim's annoying and overbearing...
| Author | Paula Chase |
| ISBN | 0758218591 |
In exactly one hour, eighteen minutes, and thirty-five seconds, Mina Mooney will be dipping her pink Nellie timbs into the infamous frosh pit. . .
Hoping Del Rio Bay High will live up to her greatest expectations, Mina has big plans for infiltrating the school's social glitterati. After all,...
| Author | Sherri Winston |
| ISBN | 0316114308 |
Kayla Dean, junior feminist and future journalist, is about the break the story of a lifetime. She is auditioning for the Lady Lions dance team to prove they discriminate against the not-so-well endowed. But when she makes the team, her best friend and fellow feminist, Rosalie, is not happy.
Now...
| Author | Brenda Woods |
| ISBN | 0142404187 |
Emako Blue was supposed to be a star. She was beautiful and good-hearted. She was Monterey's best friend. She was the only girl Jamal cared about, the one who saw through his player act. She was the one who understood the burden of Eddie's family. She was the best singer anyone had ever heard, with a voice...
| Author | Varian Johnson |
| ISBN | 0738711608 |
Staying on track at school means a boy-free equation for Rhonda Lee, who spends most evenings doing homework and eating Chinese takeout with her dad. While Rhonda needs a scholarship for college, some kids at her private high school, like beautiful Sarah Gamble, seem to coast along on popularity and...
| Author | Tanita S. Davis |
| ISBN | 0375848150 |
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD LAINEY DREAMS of becoming a world famous chef one day and maybe even having her own cooking show. (Do you know how many African American female chefs there aren’t? And how many vegetarian chefs have their own shows? The field is wide open for stardom!) But when her best friend—and...
| Author | Julian Houston |
| ISBN | 0618432531 |
Fifteen-year-old Rob Garrett wants nothing more than to escape the segregated South and prove himself. But in late 1950s Virginia, opportunity doesn’t come easily to an African American. So Rob’s parents take the unusual step of enrolling their son in a Connecticut boarding school, where he...
