NAACP Image Awards Winners and Nominees

In 2019, the NAACP celebrtates the 50th anniversary of Image Awards. Awards are given in the following literature categories; Biography/Autobiography, Children, Debut Author, Fiction, Instructional, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Youth/Teens

Print a list of all the award winning and nominated books (a list of all the prior years is being compiled). Learn more at the NAACP Image Awards website.

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40 Image Award Winning and Nominated Books for 2013

Winner - Biography/Autobiography

Book Description: 

"The most important lesson I have learned in the fifty years I have spent working toward the building of a better world is that the true work of social transformation starts within. It begins inside your own heart and mind, because the battleground of human transformation is really, more than any other thing, the struggle within the human consciousness to believe and accept what is true. Thus to truly revolutionize our society, we must first revolutionize ourselves. We must be the change we seek if we are to effectively demand transformation from others." - John Lewis

Although it has been decades since the historic social upheavals of the 1960s, Americans continue to look to the Civil Rights Movement as the apotheosis of political expression. With an engaged electorate once again confronting questions of social inequality, there's no better time to revisit the lessons of the '60s and no better leader to learn from than Congressman John Lewis. In Across That Bridge, Congressman Lewis draws from his experience as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement to offer timeless guidance to anyone seeking to live virtuously and transform the world. His wisdom, poignant recollections, and powerful ideas will inspire a new generation to usher in a freer, more peaceful society. The Civil Rights Movement gave rise to the protest culture we know today, and the experiences of leaders like Congressman Lewis have never been more relevant. Now, more than ever, this nation needs a strong and moral voice to guide an engaged population through visionary change.

Nominee - Biography/Autobiography

Book Description: ""[A] resolute, detailed, and unflinching review of [Annan’s] most difficult hours

No one ever came closer to being the voice of “we the peoples” and no one paid a higher price for it. The world still needs such a voice, but the next person who tries to fill that role will want to reflect long and hard on the lessons of this candid, courageous, and unsparing memoir."" --Michael Ignatieff, The New York Review of Books

Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2001, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke to a world still reeling from the terrorist attacks of September 11. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” proclaimed Annan, “we have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further we will realize that humanity is indivisible. New threats make no distinction between races, nations, or regions.” Yet within only a few years the world was more divided than ever polarized by the American invasion of Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the escalating civil wars in Africa, and the rising influence of China.

Interventions: A Life in War and Peace is the story of Annan’s remarkable time at the center of the world stage. After forty years of service at the United Nations, Annan shares here his unique experiences during the terrorist attacks of September 11; the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; the war between Israel, Hizbollah, and Lebanon; the brutal conflicts of Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia; and the geopolitical transformations following the end of the Cold War. With eloquence and unprecedented candor, Interventions finally reveals Annan’s unique role and unparalleled perspective on decades of global politics.

The first sub-Saharan African to hold the position of Secretary-General, Annan has led an extraordinary life in his own right. His idealism and personal politics were forged in the Ghanaian independence movement of his adolescence, when all of Africa seemed to be rising as one to demand self-determination. Schooled in Africa, Europe, and the United States, Annan ultimately joined the United Nations in Geneva at the lowest professional level in the still young organization. Annan rose rapidly through the ranks and was by the end of the Cold War prominently placed in the dramatically changing department of peacekeeping operations. His stories of Presidents Clinton and Bush, dictators like Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe, and public figures of all stripes contrast powerfully with Annan’s descriptions of the courage and decency of ordinary people everywhere struggling for a new and better world. Showing the successes of the United Nations, Annan also reveals the organization’s missed opportunities and ongoing challenges inaction in the Rwanda genocide, continuing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and the endurance of endemic poverty. Yet Annan’s great strength in this book is his ability to embed these tragedies within the context of global politics, demonstrating how, time and again, the nations of the world have retreated from the UN’s founding purpose. From the pinnacle of global politics, Annan made it his purpose to put the individual at the center of every mission for peace and prosperity.

A personal biography of global statecraft, Annan’s Interventions is as much a memoir as a guide to world order past, present, and future.

Nominee - Biography/Autobiography

Book Description:  The definitive biography of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, with fascinating findings on his life as a Civil Rights activist, an entrepreneur, and the most innovative musician of our time Playing 350 shows a year at his peak, with more than forty Billboard hits, James Brown was a dazzling showman who transformed American music. His life offstage was just as vibrant, and until now no biographer has delivered a complete profile. The One draws on interviews with more than 100 people who knew Brown personally or played with him professionally. Using these sources, award-winning writer RJ Smith draws a portrait of a man whose twisted and amazing life helps us to understand the music he made.The One delves deeply into the story of a man who was raised in abject-almost medieval-poverty in the segregated South but grew up to earn (and lose) several fortunes. Covering everything from Brown’s unconventional childhood (his aunt ran a bordello), to his role in the Black Power movement, which used ""Say It Loud (I’m Black and Proud)"" as its anthem, to his high-profile friendships, to his complicated family life, Smith’s meticulous research and sparkling prose blend biography with a cultural history of a pivotal era.At the heart of The One is Brown’s musical genius. He had crucial influence as an artist during at least three decades; he inspires pity, awe, and revulsion. As Smith traces the legend’s reinvention of funk, soul, R&B, and pop, he gives this history a melody all its own.

Nominee - Biography/Autobiography

Book Description: A pioneering urban farmer and MacArthur “Genius Award” winner points the way to building a new food system that can feed and heal broken communities. The son of a sharecropper, Will Allen had no intention of ever becoming a farmer himself. But after years in professional basketball and as an executive for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Procter & Gamble, Allen cashed in his retirement fund for a two-acre plot a half mile away from Milwaukee’s largest public housing project. The area was a food desert with only convenience stores and fast-food restaurants to serve the needs of local residents. In the face of financial challenges and daunting odds, Allen built the country’s preeminent urban farm a food and educational center that now produces enough vegetables and fish year-round to feed thousands of people. Employing young people from the neighboring housing project and community, Growing Power has sought to prove that local food systems can help troubled youths, dismantle racism, create jobs, bring urban and rural communities closer together, and improve public health. Today, Allen’s organization helps develop community food systems across the country. An eco-classic in the making, The Good Food Revolution is the story of Will’s personal journey, the lives he has touched, and a grassroots movement that is changing the way our nation eats.

Nominee - Biography/Autobiography

Book Description: 
Here is the remarkable true story of the real Count of Monte Cristo a stunning feat of historical sleuthing that brings to life the forgotten hero who inspired such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

The real-life protagonist of The Black Count, General Alex Dumas, is a man almost unknown today yet with a story that is strikingly familiar, because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used it to create some of the best loved heroes of literature.

Yet, hidden behind these swashbuckling adventures was an even more incredible secret: the real hero was the son of a black slave — who rose higher in the white world than any man of his race would before our own time.

Born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Alex Dumas was briefly sold into bondage but made his way to Paris where he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy. Enlisting as a private, he rose to command armies at the height of the Revolution, in an audacious campaign across Europe and the Middle East until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat.

The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure story, a lushly textured evocation of 18th-century France, and a window into the modern world’s first multi-racial society. But it is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.

Winner - Children

Book Description: 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend and the NBA's all-time leading scorer, champions a lineup of little-known African-American inventors in this lively, kid-friendly book.

Did you know that James West’s technology is in the microphone of your cell phone? Or that Fred Jones invented the refrigerated truck that makes supermarkets possible? That Dr. Percy Julian synthesized cortisone from soy, easing the pain for countless people? These are just some of the black inventors and innovators scoring big points in this dynamic look at several unsung heroes who shared a desire to improve people’s lives. Offering profiles with fast facts on flaps and framed by a funny contemporary story featuring feisty twins, this book pays tribute to the minds behind the gamma electric cell and the Super Soaker, improvements to traffic lights, open heart surgery, and more — inventors whose ingenuity and perseverance against great odds made our world safer, better, and brighter.

“I was motivated by the fact that the history books I had when I was in grade school, especially if African-Americans were mentioned, it was only in relation to aspects of slavery and the civil rights movement. There’s so much more to the story. It’ s my attempt to fill in some of the blanks.” —Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Nominee - Children

Book Description:  I ease myself back in the window seat and breathe in as the train breathes out We’re on our way! On our way to the Land of Milk and HoneyLemons as big as oranges, the cool Pacific Ocean, mountains that rise up beyond the outstretched bay California beckons as one girl makes her way west on a journey filled with excitement, hope, and the promise of a place where people from all paths come together and music fills the air.This is the true story of author Joyce Carol Thomas’s trip from Oklahoma to California in 1948, when she moved there as a girl. During that time, many people went west, drawn by warmth and possibility, reflected in the people of all cultures and ethnicities who started a new life there.Coretta Scott King honoree Joyce Carol Thomas and Coretta Scott King Award winner Floyd Cooper capture the anticipation of a bright adventure and a world filled with freedom and opportunity.

Nominee - Children

Book Description: 
Zora and Langston. Billie and Bessie. Eubie and Duke. If the Harlem Renaissance had a court, they were its kings and queens. But there were other, lesser known individuals whose contributions were just as impactful, such as Florence Mills. Born to parents who were former-slaves Florence knew early on that she loved to sing. And that people really responded to her sweet, bird-like voice. Her dancing and singing catapulted her all the way to the stages of 1920s Broadway where she inspired songs and even entire plays! Yet with all this success, she knew firsthand how bigotry shaped her world. And when she was offered the role of a lifetime from Ziegfeld himself, she chose to support all-black musicals instead.

Fans of When Marian Sang and Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa will jump at the chance to discover another talented performer whose voice transcended and transformed the circumstances society placed on her.

Nominee - Children

Book Description: 
Booker dreamed
of making friends with words,
setting free the secrets
that lived in books.

Born into slavery, young Booker T. Washington could only dream of learning to read and write. After emancipation, Booker began a five-hundred-mile journey, mostly on foot, to Hampton Institute, taking his first of many steps towards a college degree. When he arrived, he had just fifty cents in his pocket and a dream about to come true. The young slave who once waited outside of the schoolhouse would one day become a legendary educator of freedmen.

Award-winning artist Bryan Collier captures the hardship and the spirit of one of the most inspiring figures in American history, bringing to life Booker T. Washington’s journey to learn, to read, and to realize a dream.

Nominee - Children

Book Description: 
Indigo Blume and the Garden City received a 2013 NAACP Image Award Nomination for Outstanding Children’s Literature. Indigo Blume is a nine-year old girl who lives in the fictional city of Garden City. She decides to enter a "Go Green" contest, even though her friends won’t help her with her big idea: A Rooftop Garden. In the end, she is successful at cleaning up her community and building a garden with climbing beans so tall they almost touch the stars. A "Green" glossary is included, as well as a Read Aloud CD with a special song written and performed by SPEECH of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.

Winner - Debut Author

Book Description: Nikki Giovanni, admired for her honesty and strength, is recognized the world over as being a poet of both social and self growth. Nikki G: A Portrait of Nikki Giovanni in Her Own Words offers a glimpse into how the poet lives as a poet. As an influential force in the oral poetry movement in Black culture, Nikki Giovanni’s words are theater.

Nominee - Debut Author

Book Description: “[A] gorgeously lyrical debut novel .Engrossing and human to the core, Edwards’s novel wrings the heart in the most tender of ways.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“The novel is high drama, full of breathtaking tension, and, at times, brought to mind the works of Arthur Miller and August Wilson, both of whom knew a thing or two about secrets spilled across a kitchen table.”—Attica Locke, author of Black Water RisingSoon the name on every fiction lover’s lips will be Yvvette Edwards, thanks to her extraordinary debut novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, one of Great Britain’s most prestigious literary awards, and named one of Kirkus Review’s Best Books of the Year, Edwards’s powerful first novel is at once a poignant family drama and a gripping mystery—page-turning literature with an exhilarating infusion of noir. It is the story of Jinx, who believes she played a pivotal role in her mother’s murder, until an old acquaintance appears at her door with seductive air, a long, strange story, and, quite possibly, the bitter truth. A truly stunning work of contemporary literary fiction that packs an emotional punch and keeps readers guessing to the end, A Cupboard Full of Coats is already being compared by critics to the novels of the master, Ruth Rendell.

Nominee - Debut Author

Book Description: 

A thought-provoking novel about African-American culture seen through the eyes of a famous rapper who is transported to the days of slavery and forced to experience it firsthand.

A thought-provoking novel about African-American culture seen through the eyes of a famous rapper who is transported to the days of slavery and forced to experience it firsthand.

When Da Nigga is sent back in time, he finds himself a slave forced to live the life of his ancestors. A rapper in current time, Da Nigga must confront the reality of the African-American experience as slavery challenges everything he holds dear from his fellow rappers and their lyrics, to the executives and their motives.

Antebellum is the hard-hitting, gritty story of Da Nigga. From rap superstar to broken slave and back, Antebellum will have readers on the edge of their seats and keep them talking long after they put it down.

Nominee - Debut Author

Book Description: NAACP Image Awards nominated for Outstanding Literary Work. On the smooth, cool rock Layila watches as her elders beat the dust from their bright clothes, singing sweet songs of gods and demons; dreamlike stories of fire and water, forest and sky. She has never seen the evil spirits from her mother’s songs, those that dwell in the deepest jungle, but Layila knows she must always keep watch for them, for they bring certain death and destruction to all. So when Layila sees the strange pale beings, with their unnatural gait, their sharp, unfamiliar smells, approaching her people at the waterside, she knows she must run. Vanishing herself into the enfolding gloom of the jungle she watches as Kimbindi, spirit of darkness white men shackle and ravage her mother, her sisters, her friends, before leading them away from the safety of the forest path and into unknown territories. The preadolescent is lost in this tangled expanse of untamed and merciless wilderness in the company of her friends. Both watch as the land of Congo is ravaged by cold-hearted aggressors, who infect it with a darkness that spreads down the rivers and paths, like poison in the blood vessels, through the very heart of Africa. The Dark Continent. A wild and savage land whose tribal drums pulse across the sky like lifeblood through the heart of Africa. Susan Bailey Dawson, a retired journalist and lifelong abolitionist, is read her memoir, whilst on her death bed, telling the tale of a journey to the heart of darkness and of her love interest, Captain Bison Van Lanterman a henchman for slave traders and a devotee of the King of the Belgians. Congo natives tell the story of their nation’s history in a captivating title that evokes the cultural richness of their now adulterated homeland preserving Congo’s original beauty for future generations.

Nominee - Debut Author

Book Description: Our world needs a resolution…Of Love….Our world needs a revolution…Of Love…Our world needs The Sister Accord: 51 Ways to Love Your Sister

. This beautiful and engaging book is the product of the vision and life purpose of Sonia Jackson Myles, Daughter, Mother, Sister, Friend, Corporate Executive, Mentor, and Author of The Sister Accord, The Promise That Will Transform Your Life!? The Sister Accord is a resolution for girls and women to inspire them to have positive, loving relationships with each other.

Winner - Fiction

Book Description: 

Kimberla Lawson Roby’s Thoughts on Concluding Her Reverend Curtis Black Series, July 2018 After 15 Books

From New York Times best-selling author Kimberla Lawson Roby comes the ninth installment in her award-winning Reverend Curtis Black series. It's been months since Reverend Curtis learned that his wife Charlotte had affairs with two different men, and for now, he continues to be cordial and respectful to her. But he's also made it clear that once their son Matthew graduates high school, he will be filing for divorce.

Charlotte, on the other hand, continues to do everything possible to make amends in hopes of saving their marriage. Unfortunately, Curtis is ready to move on and is being propositioned by a woman who desperately wants to become the next Mrs. Curtis Black. When the situation heads down a path that is frighteningly shocking, could it be the final blow to this once blessed union?

Nominee - Fiction

Book Description: 

 

Nominee - Fiction

Book Description: How children, particularly boys, are shaped by domestic violence.

Nominee - Fiction

Book Description: 
THEY CAN TALK THE TALK, BUT CAN THEY WALK THE WALK?

Sierra, Raine, and Liza are Destiny’s Divas, a fresh, new gospel group whose unique blend of singing and testifying has gained them fans across the country. They tell the world about how good God has been to them, but off-stage, each is living a life totally opposite to what she preaches—and each is harboring a secret that could ruin them all.

Twenty-something Sierra Dixon speaks about the joy of being single and celibate, though she is anything but, drifting from one relationship to another. Although she stresses the importance of unconditional love within the family, Raine Omari has hit her breaking point with her mother-in-law and is ready to take drastic steps. And when Liza Washington discovers that her pastor-husband is in the middle of a scandal that could bring down more than just their ministry, she knows she must do something to stop him. One fateful evening their secrets are exposed, and one diva commits an act that could land her in prison for the rest of her life. Each has motive—who will crack?

Nominee - Fiction

Book Description: “Returning to Henry Adams, Kansas, is akin to attending a family reunion. The characters are rich, and the kids all have a story to be told.” Romantic Times“This series is a winner.” Minneapolis ExaminerBestselling author Beverly Jenkins takes readers back to Henry Adams a small town originally founded by freed slaves for a delightful fourth visit with A Wish and a Prayer. Time spent in this close-knit community of lovable eccentrics is always quality time, and this trip promises to be especially memorable, with a pig on trial and new love blossoming. Loaded with heart and wit, Jenkins’s A Wish and a Prayer is like coming home a welcome return that readers of Kimberla Lawson Roby and Angela Benson and African American romance fans will certainly want to experience.

Winner - Instructional

Book Description: The story of Black women in America is one of triumph and grace, even with odds stacked high against them. Health First! The Black Woman’s Wellness Guide provides you with a comprehensive guide to your #1 resource: yourself.

Today, as Black women face an unprecedented health crisis, denial and self-neglect are no longer viable options. This groundbreaking volume is rooted in the pioneering work of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, the nation’s only nonprofit organization devoted to advancing the health and wellness of Black women and girls. It offers a core health philosophy too long denied Black women based on putting your health first.

Health First! explores Black women’s most critical health challenges, connecting the dots through honest discussions with experts and the uncensored stories of real women from adolescence through

elderhood. The focus is on prevention and awareness, across generations and circumstances from candid conversations about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS to frank explorations of Black women’s Top 10 Health Risks, including cancer, obesity, and violence.

No matter what your age or health status, this unprecedented health reference will become a trusted ally as you seek accessible and relevant information to help you navigate your most pressing health needs. In an age of uncertainty, it’s time to take control and truly discover the vitality, power, and joy that can be yours when you learn how to put your health first.

Nominee - Instructional

Book Description: This book is a conversation about money - your money. It’s laid our in an easy to read and easy to understand format. Most people don’t want to think about or deal with their money problems, and most of all they don’t want to be lectured! This book helps each person explore 12 areas in their daily lives where money can be created. These areas are called Money Opportunities, and after reading the book and following the step-by-step plans, most readers will finish the book with nearly $3,000! These Money Opportunities are the secret to the books title - 12 Ways to Put Money in Your Pocket Every Month Without at Part-Time Job.

Nominee - Instructional

Book Description: Get fit like 50 Cent: The phenomenally fit superstar rapper reveals his strategic six-week workout plan for achieving a ripped body and developing the mental toughness to stay in shape for a lifetime.

Survival is a recurring theme of 50 Cent’s lyrics, and his life. That’s why, with obesity rates soaring and fitness levels declining, he wants to give everyone an all-access pass to his premium plan for lifelong fitness. In Formula 50, the mega-successful entertainer and entrepreneur unleashes the power of metabolic resistance training (MRT), the key ingredient that has helped him achieve the famously buff physique that makes his music videos sizzle.

Through MRT, 50 Cent’s fitness plan breaks down the barriers between traditional weight training and cardio workouts, accelerating fat loss while building muscle and improving overall fitness. Designed for a six-week rollout for total mind-body transformation, the Formula 50 regimen builds willpower while it builds physical power. In addition to motivation, nutrition is another key element; readers will discover the unique dietary combinations that fuel 50 Cent’s workouts. Coauthored with Jeff O

Connell, health journalist and editor-in-chief at Bodybuilding.com (the world’s largest fitness website), the book delivers a payoff that goes beyond six-pack abs and flab-free pecs: This is a fitness plan that boosts energy, endurance, flexibility, and mobility. The result is a body you

ve always dreamed of and the mindset to attain the rest of your dreams.

Nominee - Instructional

Book Description: The “Modern Day Matchmaker” presents a refreshingly optimistic and plainspoken dating guide to finding romance both on- and off-line. Finding and keeping a mate has never been harder. New rules are needed to navigate the complicated and changing modern-love landscape. If someone wants to find “the one,” what are the guidelines he or she needs to know, now that online dating and Google-searching a prospective love interest are the norm? Happily married for ten years, Paul Carrick Brunson is a husband, a father, and a rising star in the matchmaking world. In It’s Complicated (But It Doesn’t Have to Be), Brunson tackles relevant questions such as: Is marriage right for my personality type? Do the rules of chivalry still apply? How can I date more than one person without hurt feelings? What is the best mode of communication (text messages, phone, e-mail, etc.) for asking someone out? With an appealing mix of humor, candor, and real-world examples, It’s Complicated (But It Doesn’t Have to Be)

is a breath of fresh air in the dating guide category, offering a message of eternal optimism from a man who believes in true love and practices what he preaches.

Nominee - Instructional

Book Description: 

Winner - Nonfiction

Book Description: From the prizewinning author of The Nine, a gripping insider’s account of the momentous ideological war between the John Roberts Supreme Court and the Obama administration. From the moment John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, blundered through the Oath of Office at Barack Obama’s inauguration, the relationship between the Supreme Court and the White House has been confrontational. Both men are young, brilliant, charismatic, charming, determined to change the course of the nation and completely at odds on almost every major constitutional issue. One is radical; one essentially conservative. The surprise is that Obama is the conservative a believer in incremental change, compromise, and pragmatism over ideology. Roberts and his allies on the Court seek to overturn decades of precedent: in short, to undo the ultimate victory FDR achieved in the New Deal.

This ideological war will crescendo during the 2011-2012 term, in which several landmark cases are on the Court’s docket most crucially, a challenge to Obama’s controversial health-care legislation. With four new justices joining the Court in just five years, including Obama’s appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, this is a dramatically and historically different Supreme Court, playing for the highest of stakes.

No one is better positioned to chronicle this dramatic tale than Jeffrey Toobin, whose prize-winning bestseller The Nine laid bare the inner workings and conflicts of the Court in meticulous and entertaining detail. As the nation prepares to vote for President in 2012, the future of the Supreme Court will also be on the ballot.

Nominee - Nonfiction

Book Description: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY San Francisco Chronicle

The Plain Dealer The inspiring true story of a group of young men whose lives were changed by a visionary mentor

On April 4, 1968, the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., shocked the nation. Later that month, the Reverend John Brooks, a professor of theology at the College of the Holy Cross who shared Dr. King’s dream of an integrated society, drove up and down the East Coast searching for African American high school students to recruit to the school, young men he felt had the potential to succeed if given an opportunity. Among the twenty students he had a hand in recruiting that year were Clarence Thomas, the future Supreme Court justice; Edward P. Jones, who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature; and Theodore Wells, who would become one of the nation’s most successful defense attorneys. Many of the others went on to become stars in their fields as well.

In Fraternity, Diane Brady follows five of the men through their college years. Not only did the future president of Holy Cross convince the young men to attend the school, he also obtained full scholarships to support them, and then mentored, defended, coached, and befriended them through an often challenging four years of college, pushing them to reach for goals that would sustain them as adults.

Would these young men have become the leaders they are today without Father Brooks’s involvement? Fraternity is a triumphant testament to the power of education and mentorship, and a compelling argument for the difference one person can make in the lives of others.

Nominee - Nonfiction

Book Description: In this revealing social history, one remarkable White House dinner becomes a lens through which to examine race, politics, and the lives and legacies of two of America’s most iconic figures. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to have dinner at the executive mansion with the First Family. The next morning, news that the president had dined with a black man and former slave sent shock waves through the nation. Although African Americans had helped build the White House and had worked for most of the presidents, not a single one had ever been invited to dine there. Fueled by inflammatory newspaper articles, political cartoons, and even vulgar songs, the scandal escalated and threatened to topple two of America’s greatest men. In this smart, accessible narrative, one seemingly ordinary dinner becomes a window onto post

Civil War American history and politics, and onto the lives of two dynamic men whose experiences and philosophies connect in unexpected ways. Deborah Davis also introduces dozens of other fascinating figures who have previously occupied the margins and footnotes of history, creating a lively and vastly entertaining book that reconfirms her place as one of our most talented popular historians.

Nominee - Nonfiction

Book Description: From one of the nation’s most influential civil rights attorneys second cousin of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a noble, hard-hitting

memoir chronicling the life of a fiercely powerful woman dedicated to public service. Connie Rice has taken on the bus system, the school system, the death penalty, the LAPD and won. She has been at the forefront of dozens of major civil rights cases. In 1998, the Los Angeles Times designated Connie Rice one of the “most experienced, civic-minded, and thoughtful people on the subject of Los Angeles.” Rice literally wrote the report that has revolutionized the city’s law enforcement and outreach to gangs. Now, one of America’s most prominent and successful civil rights litigators, Rice illuminates

the origins and inspiration for

her life’s work in this extraordinary memoir. In her electrifying voice, Rice writes of being descended from a “proud and erudite clan” of former slaves and slaveowners who prized “the aggressive pursuit of knowledge and voracious accomplishment.” The Rice family’s quest for excellence was the defining feature of Connie’s youth, a childhood that would see her family move seventeen times across three continents, at the behest of the U.S. Air Force, for which her father was a racial-barrier-breaking major. The eldest of three children, Connie was inspired by influential women like Queen Elizabeth I, Anne Frank, and Rep. Barbara Jordan the first black woman elected to U.S. Congress from a Southern State whose eloquence and composure during the televised Watergate hearings so mesmerized a teenage Rice that she burned a hole ironing her father’s shirt. Provocative and passionate, studded with dramatic stories of a life in the trenches of civil rights law, Power Concedes Nothing reveals the inspiring life of an indomitable woman who knows that power concedes nothing without a demand.

Nominee - Nonfiction

Book Description: 
In the summer of 2010, Shirley Sherrod was catapulted into a media storm that blew apart her life and her job doing what she’d done for decades: helping poor, hardworking people live the American dream. She was a lifelong activist who served as Georgia’s first black director of rural development.

A right-wing blogger, the now late Andrew Breitbart, disseminated a video clip of a speech Sherrod had given to the Georgia NAACP, intending to make her an example of “reverse racism.” The right-wing media ramped up the outrage, and before Sherrod had a chance to defend herself, the Obama administration demanded her resignation. Then, after hearing from Sherrod herself and learning the entire truth of what she said in that speech, the administration tried to backtrack. As public officials and media professionals admitted to being duped and apologized for their rush to judgment, Sherrod found herself the subject of a teachable moment.

The Courage to Hope addresses this regret-table episode in American politics, but it also tells Sherrod’s own story of growing up on a farm in southwest Georgia during the final violent years of Jim Crow. As a child she dreamed of leaving the South, but when her father was murdered by a white neighbor who was never brought to justice, Sherrod made a vow to stay in Georgia and commit herself to the cause of truth and racial healing. With her husband, Charles, a legend in the civil rights movement, she has devoted her life to empowering poor people and rural communities—Americans who are most in need.

The incident that brought Sherrod into the spotlight does not define her life and work, but it strengthens her commitment to stand against the politics of fear and have the courage to hope.

Winner - Poetry

Book Description: 

Truth Thomas' Speak Water won the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. It chronicles the human quest to conquer hate with love, a grand and piercing collection of midrashic poetry, written from an African-American perspective. It is framed by both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, as each poem references some aspect of every book contained in Scripture. This homecoming work, Thomas' third full collection of verses, is the first to be published in the United States, and reflects breakthrough poetry from one of America's finest writers.

"There is a certain spirituality always in the poetry of Truth Thomas. Speak Water resonates with Thomas' unique blend of the spirit and the self. He has his own grounded language, and delivery, a cadence that is urban and historical, today, yesterday, tomorrow, but all the time, universal and willing to fight. He is a literary traveler; he goes where the best words are, the best thoughts, he reaches deep into his soul to understand the beauty of people, the songs of those that matter." —Brian Gilmore

"Truth Thomas offers powerful verses and insightful reveries, then relieves the ironic pain with reasoned succor--first-aid for the wounded soul. He weaves meanings and codes from biblical notes, personal anecdotes, and political knowledge wielded through experience beyond his years--a mix between Nikki Giovanni at her finest, and Gil Scott-Heron at his sharpest. The poet's musical cadences and true timing are impeccable, pleasing, charming, and biting. It is truly inspiring to read verses with such lyrical soundings of Black America that are revelatory, romantic, spiritual and political." —Dr. Ricardo Guthrie, San Diego Poetry Guild, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, Northern Arizona University

Nominee - Poetry

Book Description: 
The stunning follow-up volume to her 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning Native Guard, by America’s new Poet Laureate

Natasha Trethewey’s poems are at once deeply personal and historical—exploring her own interracial and complicated roots—and utterly American, connecting them to ours. The daughter of a black mother and white father, a student of history and of the Deep South, she is inspired by everything from colonial paintings of mulattos and mestizos to the stories of people forgotten by history. Meditations on captivity, knowledge, and inheritance permeate Thrall, as she reflects on a series of small estrangements from her poet father and comes to an understanding of how, as father and daughter, they are part of the ongoing history of race in America.

Thrall confirms not only that Natasha Trethewey is one of our most gifted and necessary poets but that she is also one of our most brilliant and fearless.

Nominee - Poetry

Book Description: A masterful debut from a powerfully

original poetic voice A poignant and terse vision of New York City unfolds in Rowan Ricardo Phillips’s debut book of poetry. A work of rare beauty and lyric grace, The Ground is an entire world, drawn and revealed through contemplation of the post-9/11 landscape. With musicality and precision of thought, Phillips’s poems limn the troubadour’s journey in an increasingly surreal modern world (“I plugged my poem into a manhole cover/That flamed into the first guitar”).

The origin of mankind, the origin of the self, the self’s development in the sensuous world, and



in both a literal and figurative sense the end of all things sing through Phillips’s supple and idiosyncratic poems. The poet’s subtle formal sophistication somewhere between flair and restraint and sense of lyric possibility bring together the hard glint of the contemporary world and the eroded permanence of the archaic one through remixes, underground sessions, Spenserian stanzas, myths and revamped translations. These are poems of fiery intelligence, inescapable music and metaphysical splendor that concern themselves with lived life and the life of the imagination both equally vivid and true as they lay the framework for Phillips’s meditations on our connection to and estrangement from the natural world.

Nominee - Poetry

Book Description: “These are wide-ranging Whitmanesque poems self-aware meditations that rap and jazz their way forward, talk back, backtrack, and scratch so hard they blow out the speakers with their complicated love for a huge cast of icons, from Pam Grier to Flavor Flav, from RuPaul to Dave Chapelle.” Erika Meitner“Keats, too, would have admired the holy truth of Marcus Wicker, whose lyric wizardry astounds the ear.” D.A. PowellWinner of the 2011 National Poetry Series Prize as selected by D.A. Powell, Marcus Wicker’s Maybe the Saddest Thing is a sterling collection of contemporary American poems by an exciting new and emerging voice.

Nominee - Poetry

Book Description:  A vivid and varied collection that addresses family loyalties, dysfunction, violence, and differences, Hurrah’s Nest is White’s imaginative and emotionally honest exploration of growing up the second oldest, first daughter of seven siblings. Childhood experiences are looked at with rawness, sensitivity, and crafted with precision: be it the cutting of her dreadlocks, mother’s abortion, drug trafficking, or her sister’s developmental disability, the language is tender and startling. Hurrah’s Nest—from the confusion of our lives—asks us to make meaning and good from what we’ve bargained and haven’t bargained for.

Winner - Youth/Teens

Book Description: 

Obama Talks Back: "provides a rare glimpse into the private letters sent to the President and his accompanied remarks to our young people." - Carmel Middle School, Charlotte, NC. President Barack Obama achieved a landslide victory in 2008 and has touched the lives of young people more so than any previous president. During his presidency, he sought to continue that inspiration by maintaining an engaged relationship with the nation's youth.

Tony Rose (publisher) & Gregory Reed (author)

THIS OUTSTANDING AND HISTORIC COLLECTION of students' letters accompanied with President Obama's responses, speeches, public statements, and quotations during his campaign, tenure as President-Elect, and his presidency is the most comprehensive collection of letters and responses ever assembled as a book in the history of our nation for a sitting president. This collection of letters featuring the voices of today's young leaders and their mission to be heard is a rarity. From these letters, we learn that these young citizens are committed to their country and the world. From President Obama we learn the importance of listening to one another, and of perseverance. We learn in desperate times, we must have faith and know that we are empowered to change the circumstances and conditions of our lives and the destiny of America for the better. The personal thoughts of the writers are a rare and private glimpse into the dialogue between our nation's youth and a sitting president in office. Their letters are priceless, timeless, inspiring and powerful.

Nominee - Youth/Teens

Book Description: What means more, shared values or shared blood? Maxie’s choice changes everything in this acclaimed companion to The Rock and the River. Bad things happen in the heat, they say. Maxie knows all about how fire can erupt at a moment’s notice, especially now, in the sweltering Chicago summer of 1968. She is a Black Panther or at least she wants to be one. Maxie believes in the movement. She wants to belong. She wants to join the struggle. But everyone keeps telling her she’s too young. At fourteen, she’s allowed to help out in the office, but she certainly can’t help patrol the streets. Then Maxie realizes that there is a traitor in their midst, and if she can figure out who it is, it may be her ticket to becoming a real Panther. But when she learns the truth, the knowledge threatens to destroy her world. Maxie must decide: Is becoming a Panther worth paying the ultimate price?

Nominee - Youth/Teens

Book Description: 
Award-winning author, Sharon G. Flake, presents a powerful novel about a teen boy and girl, each tackling disabilities.

Autumn and Adonis have nothing in common and everything in common. Autumn is outgoing and has lots of friends. Adonis is shy and not so eager to connect with people. But even with their differences, the two have one thing in common—they’re each dealing with a handicap. For Autumn, who has a learning disability, reading is a painful struggle that makes it hard to focus in class. But as her school’s most aggressive team wrestler, Autumn can take down any problem. Adonis is confined to a wheelchair. He has no legs. He can’t walk or dance. But he’s a strong reader who loves books. Even so, Adonis has a secret he knows someone like Autumn can heal.

In time, Autumn and Adonis are forced to see that our greatest weaknesses can turn into the assets that forever change us and those we love.

Told in alternating voices, Takedown explores issues of self-discovery, friendship, and what it means to be different.

Nominee - Youth/Teens

Book Description: 

A lively tale of one young woman’s adventure to pass her Official Princess Test, discover a means of escape from her island, and reveal her true destiny.

Thirteen-year-old orphan Black Bee Bright (B. B. for short) is funny, quirky, precocious, and adventurous. But B. B. has a secret. She’s captive on an island in “the middle of very tropical nowhere” because she’s forced to hide her true identity as a royally born princess from her parents’ enemies in Raven World. B. B. must find a way to escape to “the Other World” where there are best friends and cool clothes, but she can’t escape the island until she passes her Official Princess Test and undertakes a dangerous journey alone to the East side of the island, where eight princesses must help her discover what it truly means to be a princess.

Nominee - Youth/Teens

Book Description: 
"We are a family on a journey to a place called wonderful" is the motto of Deza Malone’s family. Deza is the smartest girl in her class in Gary, Indiana, singled out by teachers for a special path in life. But the Great Depression has hit Gary hard, and there are no jobs for black men. When her beloved father leaves to find work, Deza, Mother, and her older brother Jimmie go in search of him, and end up in a Hooverville outside Flint, Michigan. Jimmie’s beautiful voice inspires him to leave the camp to be a performer, while Deza and Mother find a new home, and cling to the hope that they will find Father. The twists and turns of their story reveal the devastation of the Depression and prove that Deza truly is the Mighty Miss Malone.