For Black Girls Like Me

The Only Black Girls in Town

Marcelo in the Real World

Dear Sweet Pea

The Lottie Project

Sundae Girl

P.S. I Miss You

Fighting Words

Saints and Misfits

8 Hours and 5 Minutes

There are three kinds of people in my world:

1. Saints, those special people moving the world forward. Sometimes you glaze over them. Or, at least, I do. They’re in your face so much, you can’t see them, like how you can’t see your nose.

2. Misfits, people who don’t belong. Like me—the way I don’t fit into Dad’s brand-new family or in the leftover one composed of Mom and my older brother, Mama’s-Boy-Muhammad.

Also, there’s Jeremy and me. Misfits. Because although, alliteratively speaking, Janna and Jeremy sound good together, we don’t go together. Same planet, different worlds.

But sometimes worlds collide and beautiful things happen, right?

3. Monsters. Well, monsters wearing saint masks, like in Flannery O’Connor’s stories.

Like the monster at my mosque.

People think he’s holy, untouchable, but nobody has seen under the mask.

Except me.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

For Black Girls Like Me

Mariama J. Lockington, 2019

The Only Black Girls in Town

Brandy Colbert, 2020

Marcelo in the Real World

Francisco X. Stork, 2008

Dear Sweet Pea

Julie Murphy, 2019

The Lottie Project

Jacqueline Wilson, Vicky Ireland, 1997

Sundae Girl

Cathy Cassidy, 2007

P.S. I Miss You

Jen Petro-Roy, 2018

Fighting Words

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, 2020