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My Life As An Ice-Cream Sandwich

Ebony-Grace Norfleet has lived with her beloved grandfather Jeremiah in Huntsville, Alabama ever since she was little. As one of the first black engineers to integrate NASA, Jeremiah has nurtured Ebony-Grace’s love for all things outer space and science fiction – especially Star Trek and Star Wars. But in the summer of 1984, when trouble arises with Jermiah, it’s decided she’ll spend a few weeks with her father in Harlem.

Book Pick by DeSimba Johnson (Junior Class of 2021)

How We Fight For Our Lives

“People don’t just happen,” writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifce the people who dared to raise us. The ‘I’ it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, ‘I am no longer yours'” Haunted and haunting , Jones’s memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve our a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignetts that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers int his boyhood and adolescence.

Book Pick by Samori Williams (Senior Class of 2020)

The Rage of Dragons

Game of Thrones meets Gladiator in this debut epic fantasy about a world caught in an eternal war, and the young man who will become his people’s only hope for survival.Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war. Young, gift-less Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He’s going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn’t get the chance. Those closest to him are brutally murdered, and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He’ll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die a hundred thousand times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him.

Book Pick by Iziah Washington (Sophomore Class of 2022)

The Myth of Race

Biological races do not exist–and never have. This view is shared by all scientists who study variation in human populations. Yet racial prejudice and intolerance based on the myth of race remain deeply ingrained in Western society. In his powerful examination of a persistent, false, and poisonous idea, Robert Sussman explores how race emerged as a social construct from early biblical justifications to the pseudoscientific studies of today.

Book Pick by Rahkeam Pickens (Freshman Class of 2023)

The Deep

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Book Pick by Howard Phillips (Class of 2023)

Tyler Johnson Was Here

When Marvin Johnson’s twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid.

The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it’s up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.

Sora