Carole Boston Weatherford Books in Order

Newly arrived in her parents' Texas hometown, Cassandra doesn't yet feel that she belongs. Preparing food and joining the town's Juneteenth celebration helps her understand the holiday's meaning and her family's connection to their community.

A young child describes the many reasons Grandma is special, from affection to the experiences they share. Simple rhymes celebrate the comfort of their relationship, showing how everyday moments connect a grandparent and grandchild.

A child compares personal features with those of parents, siblings, and other relatives. Rhyming observations explore the ways family members resemble one another while leaving room for each person's individuality and sense of belonging.

A child recognizes the strengths of the men in the surrounding Black community, including relatives and neighborhood workers. Rhyming text introduces everyday role models and considers how their character and actions shape a young person's world.

A little boy rummages through his toy chest and explores his home in search of the toy he likes best. Rhyming verses turn his search into a celebration of imagination and the possibilities of everyday play.

This history introduces Richard Etheridge and the all-Black lifesaving crew stationed at Pea Island on North Carolina's Outer Banks. It explores their work rescuing people at sea within the service that preceded the United States Coast Guard.

This poetry chapbook explores the African American experience through language shaped by pain and lyricism. Its poems bring a personal voice to the cultural realities and inherited expressions that frame lives within that experience.

Children play instruments, dance, and move to the sounds of jazz in this rhyming picture book. Drums, piano, and bass introduce young readers to a musical world where rhythm invites them to listen and participate.

This history traces African Americans' fight for legal equality from slavery into modern times. It examines racism, discriminatory laws, and efforts to secure constitutional rights, giving young readers context for the long struggle for equal citizenship.

Rhyming verse traces African American music from African instruments and spirituals through blues, gospel, swing, and hip-hop. The illustrated history connects changing musical forms with the experiences and communities that helped create their distinctive sounds.

After Hurricane Floyd floods Princeville, North Carolina, Jimmy, Lavada, and their mother face the challenge of starting again. Their story follows a community confronting devastating losses while trying to rebuild the place they call home.

Twenty poems explore daily life in a city neighborhood, from double Dutch and basketball to barbershops, markets, and storefront churches. The collection follows people at work and play, revealing familiar relationships within busy urban streets.

Twenty-nine poems and archival images trace more than four centuries of African American struggle for freedom. Portraits of enslaved people, activists, craftspeople, and storytellers connect overlooked lives with the enduring work of building a hopeful future.

These poems explore Black culture and history through everyday people, familiar foods, public places, and moments before historic change. Ordinary settings become a way to examine the experiences and memories shaping African American life.

Ten short biographies introduce African American lawyers whose work reached beyond the courtroom into public service and politics. The collection considers their careers and contributions, offering young readers an introduction to figures in the legal profession.

Eight-year-old Connie sees segregation limit where she can go in Greensboro, North Carolina. When students protest at a Woolworth's lunch counter, she helps her siblings make signs and hopes to enjoy a banana split there herself.

Verse, photographs, and historical facts introduce the Negro Leagues and players denied opportunities in segregated professional baseball. Profiles of figures including Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Jackie Robinson explore sporting achievements and the barriers surrounding them.

A young player describes the disappointment of the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars, a Black baseball team excluded from the 1955 Little League playoffs. Based on real events, the story considers belonging, fairness, and the consequences of segregation.

In the rural South of the 1920s, Ovella watches her community raise money for a school for Black children. With help from Julius Rosenwald's fund, neighbors pool scarce resources to create new opportunities for learning.

Free verse recounts Jesse Owens's journey from a sharecropping family to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Facing racism at home and Nazi ideology abroad, the athlete's performances challenge the barriers placed around Black sporting achievement.

Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and efforts to guide others toward freedom unfold through imagined conversations with God. The picture book explores how faith and determination sustain her as she undertakes the dangerous work of liberation.

This account examines the vanished Carolina parakeet through historical writing, art, and memories of the bird. It considers what early observers recorded, what remained unknown, and how human activity helped erase a species before it was properly studied.

A fictional young witness remembers the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Poetry and historical photographs connect the deaths of four girls with the city's segregation and the larger struggle for civil rights.

Told in first-person poetry, this biography follows Matthew Henson from youthful dreams of travel to Arctic expeditions with Robert Peary. It introduces a Black explorer whose skills and persistence mattered in a dangerous quest for the North Pole.

Poems trace Eleanora Fagan's difficult childhood and emergence as Billie Holiday. Poverty, personal struggles, and musical ambition shape this portrait of a young singer finding her voice, with song titles helping frame episodes from her life.

Before becoming a jazz saxophonist, John Coltrane listened to sermons, hymns, family sounds, and music around him. This poetic picture book explores the childhood influences that helped a young listener discover a way to express himself.

A ghost visits a library after dark, searching for the answer to a riddle. Told in rhyme, the picture book brings a supernatural visitor into the familiar world of shelves, books, and the search for knowledge.

After Barack Obama becomes president, his family searches for a dog to join them at the White House. This picture book follows a public promise becoming a family decision as the Obamas choose Portuguese water dog Bo.

Lyrical prose follows Barack Obama from childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii through law school, community work, and his election as president. The biography focuses on his search for belonging and the experiences that shaped his public life.

Wendell Scott pursues stock car racing with limited money and repaired secondhand cars, facing barriers as a Black driver. This picture book biography follows his determination to compete while balancing racing ambitions with the demands of earning a living.

A free-verse poem connects the biblical Beatitudes with African American history, from enslavement through the civil rights movement. The illustrated account explores how religious faith supported people resisting oppression and working toward freedom across generations.

Free verse traces Michelle Obama's life from her Chicago childhood through education, a legal career, marriage, and motherhood. Ending with Barack Obama's inauguration, the picture book introduces the family experiences and work behind her public role.

Growing up with her grandparents in rural Mississippi, young Oprah Winfrey learns to read and recite Bible passages. This picture book focuses on her early speaking talent, household responsibilities, and the influence of her grandmother.

Alphabetically arranged text follows bats from the shelter of their cave into the night sky. Digital illustrations accompany this bedtime introduction to the animals, combining an alphabet structure with the movement of bats leaving their lair.

Rhyming text and photographs introduce young readers to Africa's landscapes, wildlife, and cultures. Designed for reading aloud, the book offers glimpses of the continent through images and verse, inviting children to notice its varied settings and life.

Leontyne Price grows from a music-loving girl in Mississippi into an opera singer, facing racism along the way. This picture book biography explores the support, influences, and determination behind her career, including her connection to the role of Aida.

A rhyming tour introduces Harlem's Sugar Hill, where Black artists, musicians, writers, and civic leaders made their homes. The picture book shows how the neighborhood's cultural life offered children examples and possibilities beyond the limits imposed by segregation.

Gordon Parks buys a camera and teaches himself photography, finding a way to challenge the racism around him. This verse biography follows his early work and the discovery that photographs can make overlooked lives visible to others.

Poems trace Fannie Lou Hamer's life from a Mississippi sharecropping childhood to civil rights activism. Facing prejudice and brutal violence, she fights for voting rights and carries her community's demands onto the national political stage.

Enslaved people in nineteenth-century Louisiana endure six days of labor while counting toward Sunday's gathering in New Orleans' Congo Square. Rhyming verse explores the music, dance, and community they preserve during a brief period of freedom.

Second-person poems follow the Tuskegee Airmen from pilot training in Alabama to combat missions in Europe during World War II. The book explores Black aviators pursuing their ambitions while confronting segregation within the military and at home.

This picture book biography follows Dorothea Lange as she photographs people struggling during the Great Depression. Her own experience with disability informs her attention to hardship, while her images reveal lives often overlooked by more comfortable Americans.

A Black mother addresses her child with hopes for safety, growth, and a meaningful future. As she imagines the years when she cannot always hold their hand, love and prayer become ways of offering protection and reassurance.

Narrative poems follow Arturo Schomburg's efforts to collect books, letters, music, and art documenting African and African diaspora achievements. His search challenges omissions in accepted history and shows how preserving overlooked materials can change what future generations know.

This picture book traces Lena Horne's path from a politically engaged family into entertainment and civil rights activism. As Hollywood offers demeaning stereotypes, she seeks artistic opportunities that respect her identity and a public voice against racial injustice.

Scenes from Martin Luther King Jr.'s life alternate with a present-day classroom learning about his example. The picture book connects historical struggles for justice with actions children can take to challenge hatred and improve their own communities.

Rhyming verse examines John Newton's life and the origins of Amazing Grace, including his involvement in slavery and changing beliefs. The picture book also follows the hymn's continuing role in expressing faith, comfort, and hopes for freedom.

This picture book explores the artistic traditions behind rap and hip-hop, connecting contemporary music with earlier forms of Black cultural expression. Rhythmic text and illustrations introduce the genre's origins and its interconnected elements of performance, language, and visual art.

A novel in verse gives Marilyn Monroe a first-person voice, tracing childhood instability and loneliness alongside her ambitions for a film career. Fame brings exploitation and emotional pressures, revealing a private life obscured by her public image.

Poems in Henry Brown's voice recount enslavement, family separation, and his extraordinary plan to seek freedom inside a shipping crate. The picture book places that dangerous journey within the restrictions and violence surrounding Black lives in nineteenth-century America.

Rhyming verse follows Charles Tindley from a difficult childhood in Maryland toward education, ministry, and gospel composition. His desire to read biblical stories drives a lifelong pursuit of knowledge, while spiritual music connects his personal aspirations with community service.

This picture book biography follows Aretha Franklin's musical development from singing in church to an international career. Rhyming couplets and spelled-out words introduce the family, faith, and cultural influences behind her voice and her place in soul music.

A Black mother addresses her daughter with hopes for learning, confidence, and a future shaped by her own dreams. This picture book presents parental love and support as companions the child can carry into an uncertain wider world.

This picture book biography traces Nancy Pelosi's interest in public service from her Baltimore childhood to her work in Congress. It explores political participation, family responsibilities, and the barriers facing a woman seeking leadership in the United States government.

This picture book introduces Tulsa's prosperous Greenwood district before examining the white mob violence that devastated it in 1921. The account addresses destroyed homes and businesses, displaced Black families, and the need to remember a history long suppressed.

This picture book biography introduces Bayard Rustin, the gay Black activist who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. It examines his behind-the-scenes work for civil rights and the prejudice that often kept his contributions outside public recognition.

Civil rights activist Mary Hamilton refuses to answer an Alabama prosecutor who addresses her without the courtesy title given to white witnesses. Charged with contempt, she challenges the unequal treatment through a legal fight over dignity and respect.

A young child celebrates everyday experiences shared with their mother, from playing at the park to building forts and making wishes. Rhyming text presents the affection, reassurance, and joy that grow through familiar moments in Black family life.

Reworking a traditional spiritual, this picture book surveys more than four centuries of African American history. Its text and paintings connect enslavement, resistance, civil rights demonstrations, and artistic and athletic achievements through themes of faith, perseverance, and collective hope.

This picture book biography follows Elijah Cummings from childhood learning difficulties and modest family circumstances toward law and public service. His faith and persistence shape a commitment to civil rights, equal opportunity, and representing people whose voices are overlooked.

A caring adult and child share affection through a bedtime poem woven from references to Motown songs. Illustrations follow family routines and nighttime cuddles, while the book introduces young readers to the musical traditions behind its expressions of love.