Cornbread and Cornrows:
African American Fiction for Children
Grades 1-3 |
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| Author | Title |
| Cameron, Ann | Gloria Rising |
| A chance meeting with a woman astronaut encourages Gloria to try to be her best self, even with her difficult fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Yardley. | |
| Campbell, Bebe Moore | Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry |
| A little girl copes with her mother's mental issness, with the help of her grandmother and friends. | |
| English, Karen | Speak to Me (And I Will Listen Between the Lines) |
| Verse describes events of a day at a San Francisco Bay Area school as perceived by different second-graders. | |
| (Reader) Hopkinson, Deborah | From Slave to Soldier |
| A boy who hates being a slave joins the Union Army to fight for freedom, and proves himself brave and capable of handling a mule team when the need arises. | |
| Hopkinson, Deborah | Henry's Freedom Box |
| A fictionalized account of how a Virginia slave, Henry "Box" Brown, escaped to freedom by shipping himself in a wooden crate from Richmond to Philadelphia. | |
| Howard, Elizabeth Fitzgerald | Virgie Goes to School With Us Boys |
| In the post-Civil War South, an African American girl is determined to prove that she can go to school just like her older brothers. | |
| Nolen, Jerdine | Thunder rose |
| Unusual from the day she is born, Thunder Rose performs all sorts of amazing feats, including taming a stampeding herd of steers, capturing a gang of rustlers, and turning aside a tornado. | |
| Polacco, Patricia | Pink and Say |
| Say Curtis tells the story of meeting Pinkus Aylee during the Civil War and their capture by Southern troops. | |
| (Reader) Ranson, Candice | Rescue on the Outer Banks |
| Sam Deal and his horse, Ginger, help an African-American lifesaving crew rescue shipwreck victims off the coast of North Carolina in 1896. | |
| Yarbrough, Camille | Cornrows |
| Mama and Great Grammaw weave the spirit and history of African Americans into cornrow braids of Sister and her brother. | |
Grades 4-6 |
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| Author | Title |
| Armstrong, William | Sounder |
| Though his father is unfairly imprisoned and his dog is shot, a young boy still holds on to hope. | |
| Codell, Esmé Raji | Sahara Special |
| Struggling with school and her feelings since her father left, Sahara gets a fresh start with a new and unique teacher who supports her writing talents and the individuality of each of her classmates. | |
| Curtis, Christopher Paul | Elijah of Buxton |
| In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom. | |
| Curtis, Christopher Paul | Mr. Chickee's Funny Money |
| Flint Future Detective Club members Steven Carter, his friend Russell, and Russell's huge dog Zoopy solve the mystery of a quadrillion-dollar bill with the image of James Brown on it. | |
| Greene, Bette | Philip Hall Likes Me, I Reckon Maybe |
| Beth thinks Philip Hall likes her, but their on-again, off-again relationship makes her wonder. | |
| Hamilton, Virginia | Wee Winnie Witch's Skinny: An African American Scare Tale |
| James Lee and Uncle Big Anthony become victims of Wee Winnie Witch, who steals their skin and takes them on a ride up into the sky, but Mama Granny saves them. | |
| Hamilton, Virginia | House of Dies Drear |
| Thomas and his family move into a house that once was a station on the Underground Railroad. | |
| Mead, Alice | Junebug |
| A nine-year-old boy dreams of being a ship's captain and decides he does not want to be ten, the age at which boys in huis neighborhood often join gangs. | |
| Myers, Walter Dean | The Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner |
| Artemis Bonner's uncle, Ugly Ned Bonner, was killed by the evil Catfish Grimes, and Artemis vows to get revenge and hopefully find his uncle's hidden treasure. | |
| Paulsen, Gary | Nightjohn |
| Twelve-year-old Sarny's brutal life as a slave becomes even more dangerous when a newly arrived slave offers to teach her how to read. | |
| Taylor, Mildred E. | Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry |
| Cassie Logan and her brothers learn about prejudice, discrimination and life for African Americans in the South in the 1930's. | |
| Woodson, Jacqueline | Feathers |
| When a new, white student nicknamed "The Jesus Boy" joins her sixth grade class in the winter of 1971, Frannie's growing friendship with him makes her start to see some things in a new light. | |
| Woodson, Jacqueline | Locomotion |
| In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life after the death of his parents, being separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school. | |
Grades 7-8 |
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| Author | Title |
| (YT) Carbone, Elisa | Last Dance on Holiday Street |
| In 1878, thirteen-year-old Eva seeks her birth mother in colorado, only to find the city and her mother are not what she imagined. | |
| (YT) English, Karen | Francie |
When the sixteen-year-old boy whom she tutors in reading is accused of attempting to murder a white man, Francie gets herself in serious trouble for her efforts at friendship. |
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| (YT) Flake, Sharon | The Skin I'm In |
Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like. |
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| (YT) Grimes, Nikki | Dark Sons |
Alternating poems compare and contrast the conflicted feelings of Ishmael, son of the Biblical patriarch Abraham, and Sam, a teenager in New York City, as they try to come to terms with being abandoned by their fathers and with the love they feel for their younger stepbrothers. |
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| (YT) Johnson, Angela | Bird |
Devastated by the loss of a second father, thirteen-year-old Bird follows her stepfather from Cleveland to Alabama, and along the way helps two boys cope with their difficulties. |
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| (YT) Johnson, Angela | Heaven |
| Fourteen-year-old Marley's seemingly perfect life in the small town of Heaven is disrupted when she discovers that her father and mother are not her real parents. | |
| (YT) | Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue |
All the characters tell their side of the story of a slave master who, to escape his debts, has plans to sell his slave “assets”, including the woman who has raised his children since his wife deserted the family. |
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| (YT) Moses, Shelia | The Legend of Buddy Bush |
In 1947, twelve-year-old Pattie Mae dreams of escaping Rich Square, North Carolina, and moving to Harlem when her Uncle Buddy is accused of raping of a white woman and her grandfather is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. |
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| (YT) Mosley, Walter | 47 |
Number 47, a fourteen-year-old slave boy growing up under the watchful eye of a brutal master in 1832, meets the mysterious Tall John, who introduces him to a magical science and teaches him the meaning of freedom. |
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| (YT)Myers, Walter Dean | Autobiography of My Dead Brother |
Jesse pours his heart and soul into his sketchbook to make sense of life in his troubled Harlem neighborhood and the loss of a close friend. |
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| (YT) Schmidt, Gary | Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy |
In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but things improve when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby island community founded by former slaves that the town fathers--and Turner's--want to change into a tourist spot. |
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| (YT) Wilson, Diane L. | Black Storm Comin' |
Twelve-year-old Colton takes a job with the Pony Express in 1860 after his father abandons the family on their California-bound wagon train, and risks his life to deliver an important letter that may affect the growing conflict between the North and South. |
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| (YT) Woods, Brenda | Emako Blue |
Just as the lives of five Los Angeles high school students become intertwined, tragedy tears them apart. |
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| (YT)Woodson,Jacqueline | If You Come Softly |
15 year old Jeremiah and Ellie meet at private school and fall in love. The problem is not that he is black and she is white, but other people’s reactions to their relationship. |
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Want to get your hands on one of these books? Check the Berkeley Public Library catalog to see where you can get a copy!