Helen Plum Library

In late May in 2020, while discussing the murder of George Floyd on CNN, Bakari Sellers spoke from the heart sharing devastating insight that touched millions around the world: "It's just so much pain. You get so tired. We have black children. I have a 15-year-old daughter. I mean, what do I tell her? I'm raising a son. I have no idea what to tell him. It's just--it's hard being black in this country when your life is not valued and people are worried...

Jada is thrilled when she gets to go on an outdoor class field trip with her grandfather, a nature lover, as a chaperone, and she looks forward to showing him off to her friends--and showing him what she knows

"Discover the fascinating, unexplored history of Black mixology and its enduring influence on cocktail and drinking culture through rediscovered recipes, from the James Beard Award-winning author of Jubilee. Toni Tipton-Martin's volume on Black culinary history celebrates the lore and people behind our favorite drinks. With cocktail recipes such as the Jerk-Spiced Bloody Mary, the Absinthe Frappe, and the Clover Leaf Cocktail, Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs,...

The four women of the Gardin family live side-by-side in Edin, Georgia, but residing in tight proximity doesn't mean everything is picture-perfect. Ruth runs the family's multimillion-dollar peanut business, a legacy of the Gardins' formerly enslaved ancestors. But tensions have intensified since the death of her husband, Beau, and she feels like an outsider in the very place she wishes to belong. Sisters Mary and Martha fuel the family tension. Martha's...

Convinced their principal is a witch, Andres and Desmond's next step is to find out if she is a good one or a bad one

"A powerful, heart-wrenching debut novel about ambition, survival, and our responsibility toward one another. Dixon was once an Olympic-level runner. But he missed the team by two-tenths of a second, and ever since that pain decades ago, he hasn't allowed a goal to consume him. But when his charming older brother, Nate, suggests that they attempt to be the first Black American men to summit Mount Everest, Dixon can't refuse. The brothers are determined...

"Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a "lively, engaging, and often wise" (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite...

In this heartfelt story about self-discovery, Miles Morales, aka Spider-Man, explores what it means to be an artist, a superhero and himself as he befriends a fellow artist who helps him learn more about his Puerto Rican heritage and the importance of his neighborhood

Venice, 2020. As a pandemic rages across the globe, Zito Madu finds himself in a nearly deserted city, its walls and basilicas humming with strange magic. As he wanders a haunted landscape, we see him twist further into his own past: his family's difficult immigration from Nigeria to Detroit, his troubled relationship with his father, the sporadic joys of daily life and solitude, his experiences with migration, poverty, foreignness, racism, and his...

"Now that his dad's cookie store is a success, Ellis is basically a local celebrity. He's primed to take a star turn playing his harmonica on national television...until his big break turns into the most embarrassing moment of his life."--