Here Are 9 Must-Read Black Authors To Add To Your Library | Essence

Tomorrow is the last day of Black History Month but there’s still plenty of books we’d recommend you check out! Here’s some books by black authors recommended by our library staff: ✨Brown Girl Dreaming by Jaqueline Woodson 🚗Clean Getaway by Nic Stone 🥎Fast Pitch by Nic Stone 🛗Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds 💕Twenty-Four Seconds From Now by Jason Reynolds 🌻We Are Monuments by Jas Hammonds ⛰️The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman 🪄Legendborn by Tracy Deonn 👀Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges | Bet

Due to a combination of systemic racism, marketability myths, erasure of Black authors and characters, overall lack of industry support, and more, only around 11% of romance novels published in 2023 were written by BIPOC authors (this number comes from the 2023 State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report by The Ripped Bodice, and is an average, as the percentage varies across different publishers). This shows us that, despite early pioneers like Vivian Stephens, and despite contributi