We are celebrating Black History Month in the Library showcasing some of the fantastic resources we are lucky enough to have here that reflect on the importance of comprehending black histories of the world, ancient to modern, through the glorious medium of books!
Here
are the Librarians’ current recommendations:
Hope Is Our Only Wing
by Rutendo Tavengerwei.
Is hope a leap into endless
darkness or the only reason to keep fighting? This is a YA author who has set
her debut story in her native country Zimbabwe just after its independence.
15-year-old Shamiso, struggling to come to terms with the death of her journalist
father and uprooted from Slough to her home country Zimbabwe, meets Tanyaradzwa
battling illness. Both have different ideas of whether hope is worth it. This
novel painted a picture of a struggling new country, with the mess it was
getting into and yet also the mess colonists had left it in as well. It made me
wonder whether the ‘Breadbasket of Africa’ (as Zimbabwe used to be called)
could have been saved and whose fault it was that it wasn’t. I loved this book! Age 11+
Mrs Godden
Love in Colour
by
Bolu Babalola
Love
in Colour is a book for fellow romantics at heart. A retelling of cross
continental myths and legends that have been turned into contemporary short
stories, it’s a solid debut by Babalola, a self-confessed ‘romcomoisseur’. What
was particularly enjoyable about Love in
Colour is that Babalola reframes each myth to give the female characters
more agency in their own stories, and the variety of settings means that
there’s someone for everyone to see themselves in. You can’t help but root for
the lead of each story (Thisbe was my favourite), and with every love interest
being some variation of a Prince - or Princess - Charming, Love in Colour is an indulgent read that sucks you in with witty
one-liners and vivid descriptive writing. Reimagining’s of myths can often be
unoriginal, but each of these short stories feels like a love-letter that makes
you feel warm and fuzzy. Age 11+
Miss Poole
Ace of Spades
by Faridah
Abike-Iyimide
Two black students, Chiamaka and Devon, at a predominantly white private Academy have been made prefects. At first it seems that nothing can stop them from getting into the most prestigious colleges and receiving scholarships. Soon they will have to deal with cyber harassment and bullying that can harm their chances of staying prefects and reaching their goals. Some deceitful relationships don’t make it any easier… is this racism? And who is the Ace of Spades? I loved this thriller of a book because of the breadth of real subjects that it covered from racism to LGBTQ, friendships and decision making and how that all affects your life and mental health. Age 11+
Mrs Sadek
The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World
by
Kehinde Andrews
This book by the Professor of Black Studies at
Birmingham University contains the hard truth that the privileges we enjoy in
the West today were built on racial abuse, slavery and genocide. The premise of
this theory is that the Romans and Greeks undermined the thousands of years of
civilisation and progress that had been made by the ancient African and Muslim
empires and began the brutal illusion of White Supremacy which still moulds the
economic richness of the West to this day. This is an essential read in the
argument for the decolonisation of the curriculum, a prompt to acknowledge the
cultural necessity that we check our privilege and the call to recognise that
we live embroiled in an anti-black world order. There is no space here for
white guilt, this is a challenging, provocative and illuminating call to action
of a book. Age 11+
Ms Johns