Julius Lester Books in Order

Accounts from enslaved and formerly enslaved people trace capture in Africa, the Atlantic crossing, plantation labor, and the struggle for freedom. Lester connects these testimonies with historical commentary, placing individual experiences at the center of slavery's history.

Writing from his involvement with SNCC, Lester examines Black Power's historical roots and its emergence during the civil rights movement. He explores political independence, economic inequality, and activists' growing dissatisfaction with integration and nonviolent protest.

Lester combines autobiography, modern American history, and poetic reflection to examine the upheavals of the 1960s. His personal account follows political commitment and disillusionment, asking how people can sustain hope while struggling toward a different society.

Six historically grounded stories follow Black Americans struggling for freedom and dignity under slavery. A blues singer, a cowboy, separated lovers, and an Underground Railroad traveler reveal individual lives shaped by oppression and the determination to escape its limits.

Six stories from African American folklore explore animal rivalries, unexpected trouble, and a small man's wish to become bigger. Retold by Lester and illustrated by Ralph Pinto, the tales include explanations for whitecaps and dogs' hostility toward cats.

Two novellas explore the difficulties and discoveries bound up with love, following an interracial relationship and a sixteen-year-old girl’s sexual awakening. Lester examines how intimate connections challenge assumptions and complicate the attempt to understand another person and oneself.

Poetry and photographs celebrate everyday life and the shared experiences that give ordinary moments their meaning. Lester pairs verbal and visual expression, inviting readers to consider personal identity alongside the familiar human world encountered from day to day.

Returning to the South and his family roots, Lester reflects on a personal, political, and spiritual crisis. His autobiography examines disillusionment with radical politics and the search for a sustaining faith through memory, nonviolence, and artistic work.

A Black teenager moves with his family to the American South, where friendship and first love unfold amid racial hostility. Relationships that might seem ordinary elsewhere become difficult as the surrounding community's prejudices intrude upon his life.

Three love stories grounded in Black history follow couples fighting to free themselves from slavery. Their relationships illuminate the personal stakes of oppression, showing how affection, commitment, and the desire for freedom become intertwined within a turbulent American past.

Three historical love stories follow Black couples confronting slavery and the uncertain meaning of freedom. Inspired by real people, including William and Ellen Craft, the collection explores affection, separation, and the risks involved in seeking an independent life.

On the final day of his life, Joshua Smith Sr. writes his obituary in his Nashville home. Memories of childhood in Mississippi, family struggles, and the civil rights era shape his reckoning with the past.

Brer Rabbit schemes his way through encounters with Brer Fox and other animals in forty-eight retold African American folktales. Lester updates the language while preserving the stories' trickery and humor, with illustrations by Jerry Pinkney.

The son of a Southern Methodist minister recounts the spiritual journey that led him to Judaism. Lester connects childhood faith, civil rights activism, and later searching with questions about race, religious belonging, and his own identity.

Brer Rabbit returns with his animal friends and enemies in another collection of African American trickster tales. Lester's retellings follow their competing schemes and misadventures, pairing contemporary storytelling language with Jerry Pinkney's illustrations of the familiar characters.

Twelve illustrated folktales bring together ten stories from African traditions and two from Jewish storytelling. Lester retells these inherited narratives for new readers, placing two cultural sources side by side in a collection of imaginative tales.

In this essay collection, Lester reflects on a decade of political and spiritual change. Discussions of race, antisemitism, James Baldwin, the Holocaust, and contemporary culture examine the responsibilities of individuals and writers within a troubled society.

Thirty-three retold folktales bring Brer Rabbit and his neighbors into further trouble. Among the characters are a resourceful cricket, a fiddle-playing ram facing a hungry wolf, and the Doodang, who wants abilities belonging to other creatures.

Philosophy graduate John Calvin Marshall becomes a prominent leader in the civil rights movement. Alternating voices from Marshall, his wife, his aide and lover, and a fellow organizer explore the pressures linking political struggle with intimate relationships.

Born with extraordinary strength and growing at an astonishing pace, John Henry becomes a worker who swings two enormous hammers. This retelling of the African American folk ballad follows his encounter with a machine that challenges human labor.

A mother working in the fields discovers that an eagle can soothe her crying baby without harming him. When she tells her skeptical husband, their different understandings of the bird create a dangerous test of trust and knowledge.

Thirty-nine stories conclude Lester's retellings of the Uncle Remus tales, following Brer Rabbit and his animal companions through further adventures. An introductory essay considers the original narrator's complicated legacy, while Jerry Pinkney illustrates the collection.

A Black general's love for Desdemona is threatened by Iago's manipulations in this novel adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy. Lester recasts the characters and setting, exploring trust, loyalty, and the destructive consequences of a friend's concealed hostility.

In Sam-sam-sa-mara, where people and animals live together, a boy named Sam sets off in his new clothes. A succession of hungry tigers demands his finery, forcing him to think quickly as his journey turns dangerous.

Formerly enslaved cowboy Bob Lemmons follows a herd of mustangs with his horse, Warrior. To guide the animals into a corral, he must first gain their acceptance and confront the stallion that leads them across the plains.

Rod Brown's paintings accompany Lester's examination of slavery, from the Middle Passage and auctions to punishment and the struggle for freedom. The text asks readers to consider the emotions and perspectives of people caught within this history.

This collection, edited by Judy Blume, gathers original short stories from writers whose books have been challenged or banned. The pieces follow teens who stumble into tough situations, highlighting why honest stories, and the freedom to read them, matter.

Shaniqua, the angel concerned with everyone's affairs, tells God his newly created world looks dull. With help from his heavenly household, God begins experimenting with music and color to give the earth something beyond its first beginnings.

Traditional and original Jewish tales reconsider the biblical creation story with humor and imaginative surprises. An upright walking snake, an angel named Moe, and other unusual figures invite readers to explore the beginnings of the world and humanity’s place within it.

Children's teddy bears send a dream encouraging their owners to refuse their parents' instructions. Albidaro, Guardian of Children, extends the same invitation to animals as a prank on his sister Olara, setting widespread disorder in motion.

Born into slavery and adopted by an Egyptian princess, Moses grows up between competing identities and faiths. His sister Almah's attraction to Egyptian religion adds another perspective as both siblings question the beliefs and loyalties surrounding them.

Six animal fables feature unusual predicaments, including an eagle afraid of heights, a bee who loses his buzz, and an alligator seeking cooler surroundings. Wordplay and paired morals accompany the characters' efforts to find their places in the world.

Speaking to his granddaughter, Lester introduces ten musicians whose lives and performances helped shape American music. Biographical sketches of artists including Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, and B.B. King connect personal memories with their wider influence.

Jenna and Jeremy are taken out of school to learn that their father has shot their mother. As his trial approaches, the siblings face grief, divided loyalties, and revelations from their mother's diary that strain their relationship.

When snakes receive poison for self-defense, frightened people and animals climb the ladders joining earth to heaven. God, Irene, Bruce, and Shaniqua must address the resulting chaos while considering the problems faced by both snakes and their neighbors.

A girl whose dark skin gives her the name Shining grows up without speaking. Her silence troubles her mother and community, and exclusion from a women's ceremony raises questions about how others understand her unusual way of being.

Lester recalls growing up in the segregated South and participating in the civil rights movement before turning to the importance of stories. Personal reflections and advice for aspiring writers explore how storytelling shapes identity and understanding.

Rabbi Rebecca Nachman works as a college counselor in Vermont while questioning her faith. A Torah brings visits from the dead and God's autobiographical manuscript, complicating her life further when a troubled student she counsels is murdered.

Lester shares details of his own life to invite children to consider the stories that make each person distinctive. With Karen Barbour's illustrations, he explores race alongside family, interests, and the experiences people share with one another.

An enslaved man with mysterious powers can perceive the suffering of those around him. When a runaway boy is brutally punished, memories of the Atlantic crossing awaken a longing for escape and a return to Africa.

The creator god Amma sends Ekundayo to a Virginia plantation to quiet the neglected spirits of enslaved Africans. Bound by slavery before the Civil War, the young man struggles with his task and a forbidden relationship.

Cupid delights in making others fall in love, until his own feelings for the mortal Psyche complicate his mischief. A conversational narrator retells their myth, following the god of love into unfamiliar vulnerability and the hazards of passion.

Enslaved caretaker Emma looks after Pierce Butler's daughters while their household is divided over slavery. Butler's gambling debts lead him to organize an enormous auction in Savannah, where many voices reveal the human stakes of the sale.

In the Deep South in 1946, fourteen-year-old Ansel's friendship with Black shop assistant Willie clashes with his father's expectations. When Willie's father is falsely accused of a violent crime, Ansel confronts the danger of speaking truth.

Malcolm David investigates strange nighttime sounds near his home and discovers three ghosts with rumbling stomachs. They are hungry rather than threatening, but neither the boy nor his spectral visitors knows what ghosts are supposed to eat.

Raised among trees after being cast out by her village, a girl named Silence is sent to save Yesterday. Returning to the people who rejected her, she must discover what the trees mean and why the past needs her.

Lester retells twelve folktales from African and African American traditions, organized around origins, love, heroes, and everyday people. His contemporary storytelling voice brings inherited wisdom and familiar human concerns into fresh focus while preserving the tales’ enduring imaginative power.