Black History Month - Recommended Reading List

Walsall Council’s Library Service has developed a reading list that includes a range of titles available through the libraries themselves, eBooks, or eAudiobooks. They are available free through the Borrow Box app with a Walsall library card.

For more information, visit the Walsall Council website.

Adult Non-Fiction

​Name of book	Author
Natives	Akala
​And Still I Rise	Maya Angelou
​Letters To My Daughter	Maya Angelou
Black Poppies: Britain’s Black Community & the Great War	Stephen Bourne
Mother Country: real stories of the Windrush children	Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race	Reni Eddo-Lodge
Empire’s Crossroads– A History of the Caribbean	Carrie Gibson
The truths we hold: an American journey	Kamala Harris
Who Am I Again?	Lenny Henry
Voices of the Windrush generation: the real story told by the people themselves	David Matthews
Mandela	Martin Meredith
A promised land	Barack Obama
Becoming	Michelle Obama
Black and British: A Forgotten History	David Olusoga
Pitch Black: The Story of Black British Footballers	Emy Onuora
Me and white supremacy: how to recognise your privilege, combat racism and change the world	Layla F Saad
Hidden figures: the untold story of the African-American women who helped win the space race	Margot Lee Shetterly
The Good Immigrant	Nikesh Shukla
The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah	Benjamin Zephaniah

Adult Fiction

Name of book	Author
The Vanishing Half	Brit Bennett
Noughts and Crosses	Malorie Blackman
Washington Black: a novel	Esi Edugyan
Invisible man	Ralph Ellison
Homegoing	Yaa Gyasi
White Teeth	Zadie Smith
Cane warriors	Alex Wheatle
​The Underground Railroad	Colson Whitehead
American Histories	John Edgar Wideman
Red at the bone	Jacqueline Woodson

Junior Non-Fiction

Name of book	Author
When Rosa Parks Met Martin Luther King JR	Zoe Clarke
Resistance and Abolition	Dan Lyndon
Africa and the Slave Trade	Dan Lyndon
Community and Identity	Dan Lyndon
Timelines from Black History: Leaders, Legends, Legacies	DK
Who was Rosa Parks?	Yona Zeldis McDonough
Black and British: a short, essential history	David Olusoga
Nobody Gonna Turn Me ‘Round	Doreen Rappaport
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad	Philip Steele
Black History Matters	Robin Walker
Martin Luther King	Verna Wilkins