Books like There Was a Party for Langston
By Jason Reynolds
For the kid who loves rhythm, wordplay, and stories that feel like they're bursting off the page, this one turns a library into a dance floor. Jubilant, rhythmic, drum-beat energy with deep reverence underneath the celebration.
A quiet, piano-loving boy — the son of a man once enslaved — grows up to compose music so joyful and rhythmic it earns him a new name: the King of Ragtime.
A rhyming journey traces hip-hop's roots from folktales, spirituals, and poetry through James Brown's showmanship to the four pillars of graffiti, breaking, DJing, and MCing that built a global culture.
A lyrical journey through the history of Black music in America, from spirituals and blues to jazz, soul, and hip-hop, packed with over 80 references to real artists like Billie Holiday and Kendrick Lamar.
A true story of a small boy in New Orleans's Tremé neighborhood who plays a trombone twice his size, chasing music even without money for an instrument, until Bo Diddley calls him up on stage.
A young left-handed girl picks up her brother's guitar, flips it upside down to play it her own way, and by age eleven has written "Freight Train," a song the world would come to know.
An aspiring young musician hauls his double bass through busy city streets on the long walk home from school, weaving between crowds while music fills his heart the whole way.
With a baby on her hip and laundry still waiting, a no-nonsense creator demands light and dark, earth and sky, and every living creature into being — then sits back satisfied with what she's made.
A confident Black boy affirms everything he is — creative, funny, brave, sometimes afraid, always resilient — celebrating his own worth in a string of joyful, declarative statements.
A Black boy growing up in segregated 1940s North Carolina loves to draw everything around him, but becomes a football star instead — until his dream of making art finds its way to him.
A boy settles into the barber's chair for a fresh cut, and with every snip of the clippers feels himself transform into something sharper, prouder, and more sure of who he is.
A young Japanese American artist grows up determined to draw, even as her family is sent to a WWII internment camp — and she goes on to create groundbreaking picture books that show children of every race together.
A child piano prodigy flees revolution in Venezuela for the United States, and despite feeling lonely and out of place, grows famous enough to be invited to play for President Lincoln at the White House.
