Memoir
Bone Black
bell hooks
Fragmentary memories trace the making of a writer in a Black Southern family.
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Search the shelves by title, writer, subject, period, or connection to the Lyric.
17 books
Fiction
Bud, Not Buddy
Christopher Paul Curtis
A boy in Depression-era Michigan follows clues he hopes will lead him to his father and a jazz band.
Drama
Fences
August Wilson
A Pittsburgh family negotiates the consequences of one man’s disappointments, decisions, and obligations.
Fiction
Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin
A Harlem teenager’s encounter with the church opens onto the private histories of his family.
Picture book
Hair Love
Matthew A. Cherry
A father and daughter work through the everyday adventure of styling her hair.
Poetry
Head Off & Split
Nikky Finney
Finney’s poems move between family, public history, and the language that mediates what people see.
Memoir
Mom & Me & Mom
Maya Angelou
Angelou looks back on the complicated reunion and enduring bond with her mother, Vivian Baxter.
Poetry
Perfect Black
Crystal Wilkinson
Poems consider color, family, girlhood, and the landscapes that shaped Wilkinson’s sense of home.
Memoir
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts
Crystal Wilkinson
Recipes and recollections connect Appalachian foodways with the stories of Black women across generations.
Fiction
Salvage the Bones
Jesmyn Ward
A family in coastal Mississippi prepares for Katrina as a teenage narrator pieces together what it means to care for others.
Fiction
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Jesmyn Ward
A Mississippi family road trip brings the living into contact with histories that refuse to stay buried.
Picture book
Tar Beach
Faith Ringgold
A child flying above a Harlem rooftop turns the city into a map of wishes for her family.
Fiction
The Birds of Opulence
Crystal Wilkinson
Generations of women in a Kentucky community live with losses and knowledge that are carried through families.
Poetry
The Crossover
Kwame Alexander
A novel in verse follows brothers whose closeness is tested on and off the basketball court.
Memoir
The Heart of a Woman
Maya Angelou
Angelou recalls work in the arts and civil rights organizing while raising her son.
Fiction
The Vanishing Half
Brit Bennett
Twin sisters leave their Southern hometown and build separate lives shaped by different choices about racial identity.
Fiction
The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
Christopher Paul Curtis
A Michigan family’s visit to Birmingham brings a child’s perspective to an era of racial violence.