We have selected some Young Adult fiction by black authors - perfect for Black History Month! Most of these books are available and some are new books currently on order. Read a synopsis of each book below.
You can come into your local Slough Library and browse and issue books Mon-Fri 10am-4pm and Sat 10am-2pm for 15 minutes. Just bring your Library card and facemask.
Alternatively, request through Click & Collect, you just need your Library card number and PIN:
Orangeboy
Patrice Lawrence
Not cool enough, not clever enough, not street enough for anyone to notice me. I was the kid people looked straight through. Not any more. Not since Mr Orange. Sixteen-year-old Marlon has made his mum a promise - he'll never follow his big brother, Andre, down the wrong path. So far, it's been easy, but when a date ends in tragedy, Marlon finds himself hunted. They're after the mysterious Mr Orange, and they're going to use Marlon to get to him. Marlon's out of choices - can he become the person he never wanted to be, to protect everyone he loves?
Legendborn
Tracy Deonn
After her mother dies in an accident, 16-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential programme for bright high-schoolers at UNC - Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape - until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called 'Legendborn' students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a 'Merlin' and who attempts - and fails - to wipe Bree's memory of everything she saw. The mage's failure unlocks Bree's own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there's more to her mother's death than what's on the police report, she'll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn
Clap when you land
Elizabeth Acevedo
Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people. In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance - and Papi's secrets - the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they've lost everything of their father, they learn of each other. Papi's death uncovers all the painful truths he kept hidden, and the love he divided across an ocean. And now, Camino and Yahaira are both left to grapple with what this new sister means to them, and what it will now take to keep their dreams alive.
The black kids
Christina Hammonds Reed
Los Angeles, 1992. Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It's the end of high school and they're spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer. But everything changes one afternoon in April, when four police officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley's not just one of the girls. She's one of the blackkids. As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson.
Watch us rise
Renée Watson
Jasmine and Chelsea are best friends on a mission. Sick of the way that young women are treated at their 'progressive' New York City high school, they decide to start a Women's Right's Club. One problem - no one shows up. That won't stop them though!
Punching the air
Ibi Aanu Zoboi
From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Suddenly, at just 16 years old, Amal Shahid's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?
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