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

In this book for children, which is based on the New York Times bestselling book, author Margot Lee Shetterly and illustrator Laura Freeman bring the incredibly inspiring true story of four black women who helped NASA launch men into space to picture book readers. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden were good at math…really good. They participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes, like providing the calculations for America’s first journeys into space. And they did so during a time when being black and a woman limited what they could do. But they worked hard. They persisted. And they used their genius minds to change the world

The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. Locke also received a cosmopolitan, aesthetic education through his travels in continental Europe, where he came to appreciate the beauty of art and experienced a freedom unknown to him in the United States. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America and his promotion of the literary and artistic work of African Americans as the quintessential creations of American modernism. In the process he looked to Africa to find the proud and beautiful roots of the race.

Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor

The concluding part of the highly-acclaimed science fiction trilogy that began with Nnedi Okorafor’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Binti . Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse. Far from her village when the conflicts start, Binti hurries home, but anger and resentment has already claimed the lives of many close to her.Once again it is up to Binti, and her intriguing new friend Mwinyi, to intervene —though the elders of her people do not entirely trust her motives— and try to prevent a war that could wipe out her people, once and for all.

Wild Is the Wind: Poems by Carl Phillips

“A powerful, inventive collection from one of America’s most critically admired poets.”

Phillips is the author of a dozen books of poetry and two works of criticism. He is Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also teaches creative writing. Phillips was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006, and since 2011 he has served as the judge for the Yale Series of Younger Poets.

Dear Reader,

The AALBC.com website redesign is taking shape (here is a preview. I hope to have it completed by the 20th anniversary of AALBC.com’ official launch.

This month I’m going to try something a little different with our eNewsletter; rather than sending one or two newsletters a month, I’m going to send a shorter email each week. The shorter mails are easier to create and can be more timely. The potential downside is that some readers, who are already be inundated with email, may want two or three extra emails from AALBC.com. Perhaps two emails is enough. Let me know what you think about this or anything else: troy@aalbc.com. Your feedback is important.

Reader, please consider purchasing your subscription to the AALBC.com eNewsletter. AALBC.com grows because of people like you. It is really that simple. For those of you who have already purchased your subscription — I thank you on behalf of AALBC.com and all of the authors and publishers who are supported as a result.