June 2023 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured adult book for June is Don’t Cry For Me by Daniel Black. A Black father makes amends with his gay son through let­ters writ­ten on his deathbed in this wise and pen­e­trat­ing nov­el of empa­thy and for­give­ness. With pierc­ing insight and pro­found empa­thy, this acclaimed local author illu­mi­nates the lived expe­ri­ences of Black fathers and queer sons, offer­ing an authen­tic and ulti­mate­ly hope­ful por­trait of reck­on­ing and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. Spare as it is sweep­ing, poet­ic as it is com­pul­sive­ly read­able, Don’t Cry for Me is a mon­u­men­tal nov­el about one fam­i­ly grap­pling with love’s hard edges and the unex­pect­ed places where hope and heal­ing take flight. Watch our event fea­tur­ing Daniel in con­ver­sa­tion with Julian Win­ters here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured June book for Young Geor­gians is We Deserve Mon­u­ments by Jas Ham­monds. Fam­i­ly secrets, a swoon-wor­thy romance, and a slow-burn mys­tery col­lide in this YA debut that explores how racial vio­lence can rip­ple down through gen­er­a­tions in a fic­tion­al Geor­gia town. Watch an event with Jas in con­ver­sa­tion with Ebony LaDelle here.

May 2023 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured adult book for May is Flipped: How Geor­gia Turned Pur­ple and Broke the Monop­oly on Repub­li­can Pow­er by Atlanta-Jour­nal Con­sti­tu­tion reporter Greg Bluestein. Flipped is the defin­i­tive account of how the elec­tion of Rev­erend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff trans­formed Geor­gia from one of the staunchest Repub­li­can strong­holds to the nation’s most watched bat­tle­ground state, a sto­ry that will res­onate through the rest of the decade and beyond. Watch Greg dis­cuss Flipped at the 2022 Decatur Book Fes­ti­val here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured May book for Young Geor­gians is Anisa’s Inter­na­tion­al Day by Reem Faruqi. From the award-win­ning author of Unset­tled, meet Anisa, the adorable Pak­istani Amer­i­can hero­ine of this irre­sistible younger mid­dle grade nov­el about a girl who intro­duces her class to the art of mehn­di for Inter­na­tion­al Day. This book is filled with fun black-and-white inte­ri­or art, recipes, and activ­i­ties in the back! Read a Q & A with Reem about the book here.

April 2023 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured adult book for April, which is Nation­al Poet­ry Month, is the col­lec­tion The Con­ver­sa­tion Turns to Wide-Mouth Jars by Cathy Carlisi, Beth Gylys, and Jen­nifer Whee­lock. Read their bios at the pre­vi­ous link. Of this book, A.E. Stallings said, ​“This unique collection/​anthology uncan­ni­ly puts its fin­ger on the pulse of our pan­dem­ic con­cerns of lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion and our long­ing for com­mu­ni­ty and con­ver­sa­tion. Despite the dis­tinc­tive voic­es of the three women, these poems weave into a whole, or per­haps a bet­ter metaphor is a patch­work quilt, sewn by many hands, while col­ored threads of gos­sip and con­ver­sa­tion, obser­va­tion and con­fes­sion, tales of love and vio­lence, are pulled through with a sharp, squint­ing needle.”

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured April book from the Books All Young Geor­gians Should Read list is Impos­si­ble Moon by Bre­an­na J. McDaniel. A young girl under­takes an impos­si­ble trip to the moon, makes friends with the stars, and brings back some­thing price­less in this gen­tle and lyri­cal­ly told pic­ture book about fam­i­ly, his­to­ry, and mem­o­ry. Watch Bre­an­na read her beau­ti­ful sto­ry­book here.

March 2023 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured adult book for March is Big­ger Than Brav­ery: Black Resilience and Recla­ma­tion in a Time of Pan­dem­ic, edit­ed by Valerie Boyd. Read a review of the book in the AJC here. This anthol­o­gy shares the work of 31 Black writ­ers as they reflect on sur­viv­ing the tri­als of 2020. Ros­alind Bent­ley will present on her men­tor, Valerie Boyd, and dis­cuss Big­ger than Brav­ery at the 2023 Revival: Lost South­ern Voic­es fes­ti­val (Sat­ur­day, March 25^th at 3 p.m. ET at Decatur Library and on Zoom. Learn more and reg­is­ter here).

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured March book from the Books All Young Geor­gians Should Read list is Just Like Jesse Owens, by Ambas­sador Andrew Young, as told to his daugh­ter, Paula Young Shel­ton. As a boy, Andrew Young learned a vital les­son from his par­ents when a local chap­ter of the Nazi par­ty insti­gat­ed racial unrest in their home­town of New Orleans in the 1930s. While Hitler’s teach­ings pro­mot­ed White suprema­cy, Andrew’s father, told him that when deal­ing with the sick­ness of racism, ​“Don’t get mad, get smart.” To dri­ve home this idea, Andrew Young Senior took his fam­i­ly to the local movie house to see a news­reel of track star Jesse Owens rac­ing toward Olympic gold, show­ing the world that the best way to pro­mote equal­i­ty is to focus on the fin­ish line. The teach­ing of his par­ents, and Jesse Owens’ exam­ple, would be the guid­ing prin­ci­ples that shaped Andrew’s beliefs in non­vi­o­lence and built his foun­da­tion as a civ­il rights leader and advi­sor to Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Hear from Paula and the illus­tra­tor here.

Feb­ru­ary 2023 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

My Peo­ple: Five Decades of Writ­ing About Black Lives is by Char­layne Hunter-Gault. At just eigh­teen years old, Char­layne Hunter-Gault made nation­al news when she mount­ed a suc­cess­ful legal chal­lenge that cul­mi­nat­ed in her admis­sion to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia in Jan­u­ary 1961 — mak­ing her one of the first two Black stu­dents to inte­grate the insti­tu­tion. As an adult, Char­layne switched from being the sub­ject of news to cov­er­ing it, becom­ing one of its most rec­og­nized and acclaimed inter­preters. From the leg­endary Emmy Award-win­ning jour­nal­ist, My Peo­ple is a col­lec­tion of ground-break­ing reportage from across five decades which vivid­ly chron­i­cles the expe­ri­ence of Black life in Amer­i­ca today. Read (or lis­ten) to an inter­view with Char­layne here. Watch an author event with her, in con­ver­sa­tion with Dorothy Roberts, here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Our fea­tured Feb­ru­ary book from the Books All Young Geor­gians Should Read list is Stacey’s Remark­able Books by Stacey Abrams. Feb­ru­ary is Nation­al Library Lovers Month, and this book is a pic­ture book all about lov­ing your library! This is a com­pan­ion to the #1 New York Times best­seller and NAACP Image Award win­ner Stacey’s Extra­or­di­nary Words, from Stacey Abrams and artist Kitt Thomas. Stacey’s Remark­able Books is an inspir­ing tale, based on a true sto­ry from Stacey Abrams’s child­hood, about the life-chang­ing pow­er of books. Enjoy this video of the book being read by Stacey Abrams, and hear her read and talk about the first book in the series, Sta­cy’s Extra­or­di­nary Words, here.

Novem­ber 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

In Moth­er Mary Comes to Me: A Pop­cul­ture Poet­ry Anthol­o­gy, edit­ed by Karen Head and Collin Kel­ley, poets explore the inter­sec­tion of the sacred and the larg­er than life per­sona that Mary has become through­out the ages and how she still holds sway in 21^st cen­tu­ry as a fig­ure to be praised, feared and mined for pathos and humor. View our two vir­tu­al read­ings with the poets fea­tured in this anthol­o­gy here and here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Theo The­Saurus: The Dinosaur Who Loved Big Words is a pic­ture book by Shel­li R. Johannes, illus­trat­ed by Mike Moran. When a big vocab­u­lary leads to big con­fu­sion, Theo The­Saurus learns that there are some things you can say with­out any words at all! This sto­ry is Fan­cy Nan­cy for dinosaur lovers. View an event with Shel­li here.

Octo­ber 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Mon­ster in the Mid­dle by Tiphanie Yanique, the award-win­ning author of Land of Love and Drown­ing, is an elec­tric new nov­el that maps the emo­tion­al inher­i­tance of one cou­ple new­ly in love. View Tiphanie’s pan­el from the 2021 Decatur Book Fes­ti­val here. Tiphanie was also a pan­elist at the 2022 Decatur Book Fes­ti­val, and you may watch that here. You may view a vir­tu­al event with her here, and read an inter­view with her here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray is the first in her block­buster YA fan­ta­sy series, per­fect for fans of Firekeeper’s Daugh­ter and Iron Wid­ow. In it, fate binds two Black teenagers togeth­er as they jour­ney into a mag­i­cal jun­gle to hunt down a vicious mon­ster. View a vir­tu­al event with Ayana here. Read inter­views with her here and here. Geor­gia shares Ayana Gray with the great state of Arkansas where she now lives and teach­es. Beasts of Prey was the Arkansas Young Read­ers’ Selec­tion for ​“Great Reads from Great Places” at the Nation­al Book Fes­ti­val. Vis­it the Arkansas Cen­ter for the Book web­site for more infor­ma­tion and to watch their Nation­al Book Fes­ti­val video.

Sep­tem­ber 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Hon­orée Fanonne Jef­fers is an award-win­ning nov­el that tells the sto­ry of Ailey Pearl Garfield, as she embarks on a jour­ney through her family’s past, uncov­er­ing the shock­ing tales of gen­er­a­tions of ances­tors — Indige­nous, Black, and white — in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full her­itage, a lega­cy of oppres­sion and resis­tance, bondage and inde­pen­dence, cru­el­ty and resilience that is the sto­ry — and the song — of Amer­i­ca itself. Watch Hon­orée in con­ver­sa­tion with Tra­cy K. Smith here. Read an inter­view with her here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

There’s No Ham in Ham­burg­ers by Kim Zach­man is an enter­tain­ing and edu­ca­tion­al mid­dle-grade read. From hot dogs and ham­burg­ers to ice cream and piz­za, this fas­ci­nat­ing book is full of fun facts and sto­ries of the ori­gins of some of Amer­i­ca’s most pop­u­lar foods. Watch Kim’s video she did for a part­ner­ship between the Geor­gia Cen­ter for the Book and SCB­WI — South­ern Breeze (the Soci­ety of Chil­dren’s Book Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors) here. Watch an event with her here.

August 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

The Part­ed Earth by Anjali Enjeti spans more than half a cen­tu­ry and cities from New Del­hi to Atlanta. Enjeti’s debut nov­el is a heart­felt and human por­trait of the long shad­ow of the Par­ti­tion of the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent on the lives of three gen­er­a­tions. For read­ers of Jess Walter’s Beau­ti­ful Ruins, The Part­ed Earth fol­lows Shan on her search for iden­ti­ty after loss uproots her life. Above all, it is a nov­el about fam­i­lies weath­er­ing the last­ing vio­lence of sep­a­ra­tion, and how it can often take a life­time to find uni­ty and peace. Watch her event with the Geor­gia Cen­ter for the Book here. Read inter­views with Anjali here and here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Name Tags and Oth­er Sixth-Grade Dis­as­ters by Gin­ger Gar­rett is a mid­dle-grade nov­el about twelve-year old Liz­beth. When she has to start sixth grade all over again at a new school because of her par­ents’ divorce, she gets stuck sit­ting with the Weirdos. She’s also forced to wear a name tag until every­one learns her name — or makes up a new one for her. Mean­while, all her plans to reunite her par­ents go awry as she acci­den­tal­ly saves the school arts pro­gram and stands up for out­siders every­where. Find a brief dis­cus­sion guide from Lern­er here.

July 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Chas­ing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Mem­oir of the Jim Crow South writ­ten by Win­fred Rem­bert, as told to Erin I. Kel­ly, won the Pulitzer Prize for Biog­ra­phy in 2022. Vivid, con­fronta­tion­al, rev­e­la­to­ry, and com­plex, Chas­ing Me to My Grave is a sear­ing mem­oir in prose and paint­ed leather that cel­e­brates Black life and sum­mons read­ers to con­front painful and urgent real­i­ties at the heart of Amer­i­can his­to­ry and soci­ety. Chas­ing Me to My Grave presents Rem­bert’s breath­tak­ing body of work along­side his sto­ry, as told to Tufts Philoso­pher Erin I. Kel­ly. Watch our event with Win­fred’s wid­ow, Pat­sy Rem­bert, and Erin I. Kel­ly here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Run: Book One is a graph­ic nov­el writ­ten by Con­gress­man John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, and illus­trat­ed by L. Fury and Nate Pow­ell. Watch the book trail­er here. Run is the sequel to the #1 New York Times best­selling graph­ic nov­el series March—the con­tin­u­a­tion of the life sto­ry of John Lewis and the strug­gles seen across the Unit­ed States after the Sel­ma vot­ing rights cam­paign. In Run: Book One, John Lewis and long­time col­lab­o­ra­tor Andrew Aydin reteam with Nate Pow­ell — the award – win­ning illus­tra­tor of the March tril­o­gy — and are joined by L. Fury — mak­ing an aston­ish­ing graph­ic nov­el debut — to tell this often over­looked chap­ter of civ­il rights history.

June 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Dis­co, and Atlanta’s Gay Rev­o­lu­tion by Mar­tin Pad­gett is a non­fic­tion book that tells an elec­tric and inti­mate sto­ry of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedaz­zling drag clubs and bur­geon­ing rights activism. Watch to Mar­tin dis­cuss the book at last year’s Decatur Book Fes­ti­val here. Read a Q & A with the author from Atlanta Mag­a­zine here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Needle & Thread by David Pinck­ney is a YA graph­ic nov­el and com­ing-of-age yarn about self-dis­cov­ery, resilience, and the endur­ing pow­er of hav­ing a per­son believe in you! View the trail­er for the book to learn more here. Learn more about the artist of the book, Ennun Ana Iurov, here.

May 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Chron­i­cling Stanko­nia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South by Regi­na N. Bradley is a vibrant non­fic­tion book that reflects the ways that cul­ture, race, and south­ern­ness inter­sect in the late twen­ti­eth and ear­ly twen­ty-first cen­turies. Although part of south­ern hip-hop cul­ture remains attached to the past, Bradley demon­strates how younger south­ern­ers use the music to embrace the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mul­ti­ple Souths, mul­ti­ple nar­ra­tives, and mul­ti­ple points of entry to con­tem­po­rary south­ern black iden­ti­ty. Learn more about it here. Hear Dr. Bradley on a pan­el for us dis­cussing Rob Ken­ner’s The Marathon Don’t Stop: The Life and Times of Nipsey Hus­sle here. Lis­ten to her dis­cuss Chron­i­cling Stanko­nia with Kiese Lay­mon here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Fast Pitch is a mid­dle-grade nov­el from #1 New York Times best­selling author Nic Stone. It is a chal­leng­ing and heart­warm­ing com­ing-of-age sto­ry about a soft­ball play­er look­ing to prove her­self on and off the field. Read an inter­view with Nic about the book here, and lis­ten to Nic talk about the book here.

April 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Peach State: Poems by Adri­enne Su is a col­lec­tion of poet­ry that has its ori­gins in Atlanta, Geor­gia, the author’s home­town and an emblem­at­ic city of the New South, a name that reflects the Amer­i­can region’s invig­o­ra­tion in recent decades by immi­gra­tion and a spir­it of rein­ven­tion. Focused main­ly on food and cook­ing, these poems explore the city’s trans­for­ma­tion from the mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry to today, as seen and shaped by Chi­nese Amer­i­cans. The poems are set in restau­rants, home kitchens, gro­cery stores, and the hous­es of friends and neigh­bors. Often employ­ing forms — son­net, vil­lanelle, ses­ti­na, palin­drome, ghaz­al, rhymed stan­zas — they also mir­ror the con­stant nego­ti­a­tion with tra­di­tion that marks both immi­grant and South­ern expe­ri­ence. Read an inter­view with Adri­enne to learn more. We chose Adri­en­ne’s col­lec­tion as our 2021 Route 1 Reads pick, which is a pro­gram with oth­er Cen­ters for the Book. As part of this, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in a col­lec­tive vir­tu­al read­ing with oth­er select­ed poets, and you can watch that here. Adri­enne is towards the end, but we encour­age you to watch the whole read­ing. She also par­tic­i­pat­ed in a read­ing for Geor­gia Poet­ry in the Parks, which you may watch here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

We Are All Under One Wide Sky is a pic­ture book by Deb­o­rah Wiles. Chil­dren gig­gle, whirligigs spin ​’round, and song­birds sail the air in this beau­ti­ful, lyri­cal pic­ture book. We Are All Under One Wide Sky weaves togeth­er images of chil­dren, nature, and archi­tec­ture from around the world, both cel­e­brat­ing our diver­si­ty and show­ing how we are the same in so many ways. Whether tend­ing sheep in Afghanistan, water­ing tulips in the Nether­lands, or fly­ing kites in the Unit­ed States, chil­dren enjoy one anoth­er and the spa­cious world around them. They share pic­nics and play music, play games and climb trees. A peace anthem with a time­ly and impor­tant mes­sage, We Are All Under One Wide Sky shows us that what we have in com­mon is what is most important­: fam­i­ly, laugh­ter, love, nature, and friend­ship. We all share the same wide sky. Check out a video read­ing of the book here. Read an inter­view with Deb­o­rah here.

March 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Wild Spec­ta­cle: Seek­ing Won­ders in a World Beyond Humans by Janisse Ray, which is a mem­oir of one wom­an’s inten­tion­al explo­ration of the wild world. Read more about it here. We wel­comed Janisse last fall as part of the Con­ver­sa­tions at First Bap­tist series, and you may watch a record­ing of that event here. Check out Janisse talk­ing about her mem­oir here, and read oth­er essays by her here.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

The Strange Birds of Flan­nery O’Con­nor is a pic­ture book biog­ra­phy of the famous Geor­gia author by Amy Alz­nauer, with love­ly illus­tra­tions by Ping Zhu. Flan­nery was born March 25, 1925, so we cel­e­brat­ed this book in March for her birth­day! Learn more about the book here. Watch Amy and Ping dis­cuss their love­ly pic­ture book here, and read more about the book here.

Feb­ru­ary 2022 Fea­tured Books

Fea­tured Book All Geor­gians Should Read

Memo­r­i­al Dri­ve: A Daugh­ter’s Mem­oir is a chill­ing­ly per­son­al and exquis­ite­ly wrought mem­oir of a daugh­ter reck­on­ing with the bru­tal mur­der of her moth­er at the hands of her for­mer step­fa­ther, and the mov­ing, inti­mate sto­ry of a poet com­ing into her own in the wake of a tragedy. Learn more in this arti­cle from the New York Times, and read an inter­view with Natasha about the book in the South­ern Review of Books here, and vis­it Natasha’s web­site to read more about her and her oth­er work.

Fea­tured Book All Young Geor­gians Should Read

Why We Fly by Kim­ber­ly Jones and Gilly Segal is a sto­ry about friend­ship, priv­i­lege, sports, and protest from the best­selling authors of I’m Not Dying With You Tonight. Read about the authors’ inspi­ra­tion for writ­ing Why We Fly here, and lis­ten to an inter­view with the authors by Lois Reitzes here.