My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich

Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler

Okoye to the People: A Black Panther Novel

Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Nigeria Jones

A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson

Dear Rachel Maddow

This Is My America

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.

The story that I thought

was my life

didn’t start on the day

I was born

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

The story that I think

will be my life

starts today

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich

Ibi Zoboi, 2019

Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler

Ibi Zoboi, 2022

Okoye to the People: A Black Panther Novel

Ibi Zoboi, Noa Denmon, Marvel, 2022

Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Ibi Zoboi, Tracey Baptiste, Coe Booth, 2019

Nigeria Jones

Ibi Zoboi, 2023

A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson

Barbara Dana, 2009

Dear Rachel Maddow

Adrienne Kisner, 2018

This Is My America

Kim Johnson, 2020