NCW Libraries

Picture a ballerina in a tutu and toe shoes. What does she look like?'As the only African-American soloist dancing with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland has made history. But when she first placed her hands on the barre at an after-school community center, no one expected the undersized, anxious thirteen-year-old to become a ground­breaking ballerina. When she discovered ballet, Misty was living in a shabby motel room, struggling...

Fifteen-year-old Justin keeps a list of goals stashed under his mattress. Number 1 is "figure out life plans." Number 5 is "earn Zen Master rating in WoW." Number 7 is "play a little basketball every day." Nowhere on that list is "take on the crew from Ghosttown," but that's the type of trouble that always seems to finds him, and he's not the type to back down from a challenge.

"A powerful biography in poems about Augusta Savage, the trailblazing artist and pillar of the Harlem Renaissance-with an afterword by the curator of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture"-- Augusta Savage was arguable the most influential American artist of the 1930s. A gifted sculptor, she flourished during the Harlem Renaissance and became a teacher to an entire generation of African American artists. Nelson's poems are paired with...

He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But something made her turn around and go back. They met nearly every week for years, and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades.

"For African American women, the fight for the right to vote was only one battle. An eye-opening book that tells the important, overlooked story of Black women as a force in the suffrage movement--when fellow suffragists did not accept them as equal partners in the struggle."--Publisher's description. When the epic story of the suffrage movement in the United States is told, the most familiar leaders, speakers at meetings, and participants in marches...

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) is best known for the telling of his own emancipation. But there is much more to Douglass's story than his time spent enslaved and his famous autobiography. Facing Frederick captures the whole complicated, and at times perplexing, person that he was. Statesman, suffragist, writer, and newspaperman, this book focuses on Douglass the man rather than the historical icon.

Jamee Wills never expected Vanessa Pierce and her friends to go this far. The trouble starts at cheerleading practice when Vanessa begins teasing Angel McAllister, a shy new girl at Bluford High. When the insults turn nasty, Jamee tries to stop them. She wins Angel's friendship but makes many enemies. Now Jamee is a target, and someone is texting lies and pictures of her all over school. Unwilling to tell her family or snitch on her fellow cheerleaders,...

"When a high school student started a private Instagram account that used racist and sexist memes to make his friends laugh, he thought of it as "edgy" humor. Over time, the edge got sharper. Then a few other kids found out about the account. Pretty soon, everyone knew. Ultimately no one in the small town of Albany, California, was safe from the repercussions of the account's discovery. Not the girls targeted by the posts. Not the boy who created...

This story continues the tale of the Wills family. Darcy learns that Hakeem, her first boyfriend, is moving out of the state. Then her grandmother's health declines and a mysterious new person comes into her life.

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling, graphic novel series March comes the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Civil Rights Movement. For John Lewis, the Civil Rights Movement as he knew it ended with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, but his struggle in the following years echo many of the same questions of civil rights and equality that are being asked today. The movement...