Celebrate Black History Month with a good book! Lebanon Junior High School's Media Specialist, Jennifer Ensman, has compiled a list for all grade levels full of great stories, non-fiction texts, poetry, and picture books - check it out! 

These texts could be checked out from the school or local library, purchased online, or at a local or chain book store:

Picture books appropriate for Bowman-aged students (grades preschool through second):

• Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

• Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreer Rappaport

• Pies from Nowhere: How Georgie Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Dee Romito

• Langston’s Train Ride by Robert Burleigh

• Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews

• Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson

• The 5 O-Clock Band by Troy Andrews

• Sisters & Champions: The True Story of Venus and Serena Williams by Howard Bryant

• Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton

• R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul by Carole Boston Weatherford

Non-fiction texts appropriate for students in Donovan, Berry, and the Junior High (grades third through seventh):

The Who Is/Who Was non-fiction series is popular with students. Most of these titles can be found on this website or on this website.

• Who were the Tuskegee Airmen?

• What is the Civil Rights Movement? 

• Who is Michael Jordan? 

• Who is Michelle Obama? 

• Who are Venus and Serena Williams? 

• Who was Coretta Scott King?

• Who was George Washington Carver?

• Who was Booker T. Washington?

• Who is Neil deGrasse Tyson?

• Who was Ida B. Wells?

• Who was Jackie Robinson?

• Who was Kobe Bryant?

• Who was Louis Armstrong?

• Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.?

• Who was Maya Angelou?

• Who is Barack Obama?

• Who is Lebron James?

• Who is Oprah Winfrey?

• Who is Shaquille O’Neal?

• Who is Stevie Wonder?

• Who was Bob Marley?

• Who was Duke Ellington?

• Who was Frederick Douglass?

• Who was Harriet Beecher Stowe?

• Who was Harriet Tubman?

• Who was Jesse Owens?

• Who was Muhammad Ali?

• Who was Rosa Parks?

• Who was Sojourner Truth?

Non-fiction texts, stories, and novels appropriate for students in fifth grade and up:

• Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison

• History Smashers: The Underground Railroad by Kate Messner

• Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Andrea Davis Pinkney

• From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks

• Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson

• Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne

• The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

• The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander

• New Kid by Jerry Craft

• Class Act by Jerry Craft

• Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes

• The Season of Styx Malone by Kekla Magoon

• Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams

• Midnight Without a Moon by Linda Williams Jackson

• What Lane by Torrey Maldonado

• Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson

Non-fiction texts, stories, and novels appropriate for grades seven and up:

• Chasing Space by Leland Melvin

• The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

• Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

• Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes

• And We Rise: The Civil Rights Movement in Poems by Erica Martin

• Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case by Chris Crowe

• Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case by Patricia Hruby Powell

• All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds

• Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy Taylor

Non-fiction texts, stories and novels appropriate for young adults in grades nine and up:

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

• On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

• Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

• Dear Martin by Nic Stone

• Dear Justyce by Nic Stone

• Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi

• When I Was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds