Coretta Scott King Award 2021


  • Woodson, Jacqueline
    Before the ever after
    Summary:ZJ’s friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.


  • Weatherford, Carole Boston
    Respect : Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul
    Summary:"Aretha Franklin was born to sing. The daughter of a pastor and a gospel singer, her musical talent was clear from her earliest days in her father’s Detroit church. Aretha sang with a soaring voice that spanned more than three octaves. Her incredible talent and string of hit songs earned her the title "the Queen of Soul." This Queen was a multi-Grammy winner and the first female inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And there was even more to Aretha than being a singer, songwriter, and pianist: she was an activist, too. Her song "Respect" was an anthem for people fighting for civil rights and women’s rights. With words that sing and art that shines, this vibrant portrait of Aretha Franklin pays her the R-E-S-P-E-C-T this Queen of Soul deserves."


  • Taylor, Mildred D.
    All the days past, all the days to come
    Summary:"Cassie Logan, first met in Song of the Trees and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, is a young woman now, searching for her place in the world, a journey that takes her from Toledo to California, to law school in Boston, and, ultimately, in the 60s, home to Mississippi to participate in voter registration. She is witness to the now-historic events of the century: the Great Migration north, the rise of the civil rights movement, preceded and precipitated by the racist society of America, and the often violent confrontations that brought about change. Rich, compelling storytelling is Ms. Taylor’s hallmark, and she fulfills expectations as she brings to a close the stirring family story that has absorbed her for over forty years. It is a story she was born to tell."–Goodreads.com


  • Callender, Kacen
    King and the dragonflies
    Summary:"In a small but turbulent Louisiana town, one boy’s grief takes him beyond the bayous of his backyard, to learn that there is no right way to be yourself."


  • Dionne, Evette
    Lifting as we climb : Black women’s battle for the ballot box
    Summary:"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 written about or pictured are generally white. Dionne shows that the real story isn’t monochromatic. Women of color, especially African American women, were fighting for their right to vote and to be treated as full, equal citizens of the United States. They had to overcome deep, exclusionary racial prejudices that were rife in the American suffrage movement. Dionne draws an important historical line from abolition to suffrage to civil rights to contemporary young activists, and in doing so fills in the blanks of the American suffrage story. — adapted from jacket and Goodreads info


  • Doyon, Samara Cole
    Magnificent homespun brown : a celebration
    Summary:Joyful young narrators celebrate feeling at home in one’s own skin.


  • Slade, Suzanne
    Exquisite : the poetry and life of Gwendolyn Brooks
    Summary:Introduces the life and work of Gwendolyn Brooks, from her early love of poetry and her first published poems as a girl in Chicago through her financial struggles as an adult during the Depression to winning the Pulitzer Prize for her second book.


  • Cabrera, Cozbi A.
    Me & Mama
    Summary:For a little girl on a rainy day, the best place to be is with Mama.