10 great books to read during Black History Month

Late last month, writer Jason Reynolds won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association, a lifetime achievement award that honors an author and their body of work for "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature."

Add this to the many, many honors Reynolds has already won — including the John Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal. He's also twice been a finalist for the National Book Award. Reynolds is a terrific storyteller, an honest writer and a truthteller about growing up Black in America. His writing is both heart-stopping and funny. If you're looking for something to read during Black History Month — or anytime — you'll find nobody better. Yes, he writes for teens, but these books are for anyone. Everyone.

Start with "Long Way Down," maybe, a story of loss and revenge. Or "All American Boys," written with Brendan Kiely, about a Black teen who is beat up by a white cop who thinks the teen has shoplifted and is resisting arrest.

Here are eight other titles to read this month — and any month. Every month.

"Black Boy," by Richard Wright. Wright's memoir, published in 1945, is about growing up in the Jim Crow South. He managed to flee his impoverished life in Mississippi for Chicago, but all he endured in the South stayed with him and informed his work. This is a powerful story.

"The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963," by Christopher Paul Curtis. Written for middle-grade children but a timeless, ageless story, this was Curtis' first book and won both the Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery Honor medal. It's the story of the Watsons, who head from Michigan to Alabama on a summer vacation. Told through the eyes of 10-year-old Kenny, the story is a marvelous, eye-opening balance of tragedy (the church bombing that killed four children) and humor.

"The Warmth of Other Suns," by Isabel Wilkerson. Pulitzer winner Wilkerson's nonfiction account of the Great Migration — Black people migrating from the South to the North between 1915 and 1970 — won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. It's filled with incredible, true stories.

"Take My Hand," by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Based on a true story, this novel follows a Black nurse in Alabama in 1973 who discovers the terrible inequities in reproductive health when two of her young clients, barely in their teens, are forced to undergo surgical sterilization.

"The Middle Passage," by Charles Johnson. Winner of the 1990 National Book Award for fiction, this tells the story of Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed enslaved man who finds himself on an illegal slave ship bound for Africa.

"The History of White People," by Nell Irvin Painter. Princeton University historian Painter explores the artificial concepts of race and whiteness, noting how many ethnicities were once considered "non-white" (Jews, Italians, Irish) and thus excluded from mainstream society.

"The Trees," by Percival Everett. Finalist for the 2022 Booker Prize, Everett's 34th book is a literary thriller, satire and murder mystery rolled into one. The Booker Prize judges said: "Part southern noir, part something else entirely, 'The Trees' is a dance of death with jokes — horrifying and howlingly funny — that asks questions about history and justice and allows not a single easy answer."

"Black Thunder: Gabriel's Revolt: Virginia, 1800," by Arna Bontemps. First published in 1936 and re-released in 1992, this novel is based on a true story — the doomed insurrection led by an enslaved Black man named Gabriel in 1800.

Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune's senior editor for books. books@startribune.com