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Feb 2, 2024 | 
spokanelibrary.org | Tonya Bolden |Austin Brown |Michael Harriot |Robert Flack
We’re sharing a list here of some—not nearly all—recently published titles that highlight Black history and are available on Spokane Public Library shelves. This list is wide-ranging, from picture books for kids to poetry for teens to novels and memoirs for adults. The subjects of the books, too, are as diverse as their genres: these are stories about musicians, writers, nurses, mothers, children, comedians, political icons, physicists, and more.
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Mar 22, 2023 | 
spiritualityandpractice.com | Roberta Flack |Tonya Bolden
Book Review by Patricia Campbell Carlson , written by five-time Grammy winner Roberta Flack together with Tonya Bolden, allows us to see how the extraordinary seed of her musical talent sprouted. From the start, she was planted in good soil: Her father played piano and harmonica, and her mother played both organ and piano at church.
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Feb 14, 2023 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Tonya Bolden |Jennifer Thermes
Featuring 261 industry-first reviews of fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and YA books; also in this issue: the best children’s and young adult titles of 2023, Holiday Gift Guide, author interviews, and much more
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Feb 2, 2023 | 
publishersweekly.com | Andrea Zuill |Lesa Cline-Ransome |Roberta Flack |Tonya Bolden
Andrea Zuill. Random House Studio, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-5934-8747-1Shown wearing overalls and big spectacles, Little Cap is an adorably grave-looking red-capped mushroom who believes that the outside world is “chaos.” Emotionally honest vignettes show him knocked flat by cries of “SURPRISE!” and distrustful of various anthropomorphized animals and vegetables. The one place where Little Cap feels safe is the snug, cozily appointed cottage he shares with pet slug Gustav.
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Feb 2, 2023 | 
publishersweekly.com | Lesa Cline-Ransome |Roberta Flack |Tonya Bolden |Alliah L. Agostini
Charnelle Pinkney Barlow. Doubleday, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-5935-7106-4The sounds of early 20th-century Cotton Plant, Ark., contribute to a child’s musical innovations in this sensory early life portrait of Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915–1973), godmother of rock and roll. When young Tharpe receives her first guitar, she resolves to create a story to tell at her church’s anniversary.
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Feb 2, 2023 | 
publishersweekly.com | Laekan Zea Kemp |Lesa Cline-Ransome |Roberta Flack |Tonya Bolden
Laekan Zea Kemp. Little, Brown, $18.99 (448p) ISBN 978-0-316-46173-3Mexican high schooler Danna Mendoza Villareal navigates grief, love, and memory in this gutting yet hopeful verse novel by Kemp (Heartbreak Symphony). After finding a personal book of recipes and food reviews written by their grandfather, who has dementia, Danna and her cousin Victoria reintroduce him to each dish, intending to help him recall his lost memories.
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Feb 2, 2023 | 
publishersweekly.com | Tony Medina |Mara Rockliff |Tonya Bolden
Tonya Bolden, illus. by R. Gregory Christie. HarperCollins, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-0629-9438-7Music reverberates throughout this striking biographical tribute to rock and roll trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915–1973).
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Feb 2, 2023 | 
publishersweekly.com | Jessica Love |Lesa Cline-Ransome |Roberta Flack |Tonya Bolden
“We’re going camping, you and me,” Dad says one morning to the young narrator of this picture book. The two set out for the desert in the white-presenting family’s pickup truck, encountering the land’s beauty, captured by Love (I Love You Because I Love You) in sketchbook-style paintings and carefully observed phrases (“This is my best smell” says the child about the mountains’ fragrance).
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Feb 2, 2023 | 
publishersweekly.com | Alliah L. Agostini |Lesa Cline-Ransome |Roberta Flack |Tonya Bolden
Alliah L. Agostini, illus. by Shamar Knight-Justice. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-3743-8994-9Portrayals of diasporic Caribbean culture and a child’s selflessness distinguish Agostini’s 1990s Brooklyn-set story celebrating connection and community. As “cousins, aunties, uncles, friends/ pack the house, and fun begins,” young Shane, teased by his brothers for shyness, dreams of being crowned dancehall king like their father—an honor reserved for those with the best moves.
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Feb 2, 2023 | 
publishersweekly.com | Margarita Engle |Lesa Cline-Ransome |Roberta Flack |Tonya Bolden
Margarita Engle. Atheneum, $18.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-66592-636-2After a hurricane uncovers her parents’ hidden sculptures of chained birds, leading to their arrest for violating Cuban policies regarding artistic liberty, Soleida is forced to flee alone. The 16-year-old travels through Central America before becoming stranded in a refugee camp in Costa Rica.
