Throughout the Library’s Read Woke program, our librarians have been interviewing community members and collecting book recommendations designed to challenge people to educate themselves about others through deliberate, thoughtful reading. For the “Read Woke: Policing and Protest” program, African American Museum of Iowa Executive Director LaNisha Cassell discussed the museum, how the museum’s “Unwavering: 21st… View more
Cool Cuts and Happy Hair by Mechal Renee Roe These two picture books from Roe celebrate many different haircuts and styles for Black children with full page illustrations. Each beautiful, confidence-boosting style highlighting variations in hair texture from person to person is paired with affirmations to charge up self-esteem. Cool Cuts is intended for masculine-presenting… View more
Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American female astronaut is quoted as saying, “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” During Black History month we celebrate the unending creative contributions of the African American community. The unlimited imagination that Black excellence has modeled through history is witnessed in the American canon; whether it is W.E.B…. View more
See what the Cedar Rapids Public Library staff was reading and watching in 2020.
This alternative history for young adults stars Victoria-Margaret, crown princess of the British Empire. She is to spend an incognito summer of debutante balls and negotiations in Canada as she quietly gets to know August Callaghan, a potential husband, away from the glare of London. Genetics is the crown jewel of the Empire where politically… View more
Bree Matthews is a lot of things in this fantasy young adult work from Tracy Deonn. She’s Black. She’s young (and graduated early from high school to be accepted into an early college program at UNC-Chapel Hill). She’s grieving the recent death of her mother and the anger of a life unlived. But she is… View more
Historian and author Ibram X. Kendi has published five books and countless articles on the construction of an anti-racist movement including the 2016 National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and the New York Times bestseller How to Be an Anti-Racist. His 2016 work was adapted with author Jason Reynolds… View more
Humans are incredibly complex and incredibly simple and poet Dean Atta displays this poignantly in his debut novel The Black Flamingo. This bildungsroman follows Michael as he grows to understand himself through his Jamaican-Greek Cypriot heritage while growing up in London and accepting his queerness. Struggling to make friends, Michael is faithfully dedicated to Daisy… View more
Beloved actor, author, and activist George Takei is many things to many people; Sulu, helmsman of the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek, Broadway performer, groundbreaking activist for LGBTQIA+ people as well as Asian and Asian Americans, and author of the bestselling They Called Us Enemy, a graphic memoir of his childhood in the American concentration camps during… View more
Stephen Colbert said, “you can’t laugh and be afraid at the same.” In that case, as long as you’re reading this book, you’ll forget about everything else going on around you in the world right now. Wow, no thank you is the refreshing distraction you need in your life. A series of essays written by… View more
