Book Recs: 20 Picture Books by Black Authors

The uproar in response to police brutality against Black people has strengthened the Black Lives Matter movement and has forced everyone to (again) recognize and admit how ingrained systematic racism is in our society and the many areas that lack diversity.

An area where this discussion is also happening is book publishing, which is known for its lack of diversity among authors, the types of books published, and even among the professionals who work in this sector — editors, designers, publicists, agents, etc. Recently, the hashtag #PublishingPaidMe popped up on Twitter to discuss the disparity between how much authors of color are paid in contrast to White authors, who more often receive large advances for their books. In this New York Times article, renown author Jesmyn Ward talks about fighting for a higher advance despite winning several awards for her books.

We all need to work harder to stop and prevent racism in our society. To help, many people have turned to books to learn more, which has caused books about racism and Black experiences to now flood the best-seller lists. To encourage more people to read and engage with content by Black creators, media outlets, social media, bloggers, and booktubers are all recommending books by and about Black people and Black experiences.

While I am grateful to see these recommendation lists, they often solely contain adult books. I want to contribute a list of recommendations, but instead of adult books, I’ve decided to feature children’s picture books. Racism affects all facets of society. To combat it, we must also encourage more diverse children’s literature, including picture books.

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Book Recs: Dragons!

Here’s another prompt for #WyrdandWonder, a month-long celebration of all things fantasy. Click here to see the other prompts.

ten books featuring dragons

The prompt is actually “top ten dragons,” but I haven’t read that many fantasy books to do a decent post listing my top ten dragons. Instead, in this post I’ll list five books I’ve read that feature dragons I like and five books I’d like to read that feature dragons.

Five books about dragons I like

In Search of Lost Dragons by Elian Black’mor (illus.) and Carine-M (illus.)

Book Recs: Amazing Magical Systems

I’m so mad at myself. It’s already mid-May and I’ve yet to do one of these #WyrdandWonder prompts… until now. Initially, my plan was to post every day but that quickly got pushed aside as life got busy. But finally I’m able to post a prompt. Today I’ll feature

my top 10 magical systems

But it’ll be seven instead because I couldn’t think of any more to include.

By the way, #WyrdandWonder is a month-long celebration of all things fantasy. Click here to see the other prompts.

bending

Avatar: The Last Airbender by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (illus.)

Book Recs: Atmospheric Reads

Well, this is a bit out of character. Here I am with a book recommendation post that’s not based on a meme or book tag. I’d like to congratulate myself for stepping out of my comfort zone, but this is all because I haven’t seen a meme or book tag that focuses on only atmospheric stories.

I’ve been working on this post for weeks because I keep overthinking it. I feel weird recommending books sometimes because I start thinking that I haven’t read enough and I don’t know much, but I’ve gotten over myself for the moment and will share in this post a few books I’ve read that I’d describe as atmospheric.

The term “atmospheric” sometimes baffles me. I’ve only ever seen it applied to stories that are dark and gloomy and eerie, which makes me wonder if it’s only such books that can be described as atmospheric. But I’m sure that’s not right. I call a story atmospheric if it convinces me of a particular feeling… Okay, that probably didn’t make much sense, but I now realize that this is hard to explain. For me, an atmospheric novel is one that convinces me of a particular “feeling” about the setting, which doesn’t necessarily has to be dark and eerie.

So, here are a few novels that have a strong sense of atmosphere:

What’s On My Bookshelf Tag

I have reviews and other stuff to post, but I’m so not in the mood for them. Instead, here’s a tag! 😀 Yep, these are more fun to do and quick too.

This tag was created by Naty at Naty’s Bookshelf. I wasn’t tagged. I found it on Never Not Reading and filed it away to do on a day like this — lazy weekend.

Rules:

• Link back to me so I can see everyone’s answers! (Naty’s Bookshelf)
• Also link back to the person who tagged you!
• Name one book for each category; try not to repeat books to make this more fun!
• Tag at least 5 people

A library book

The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg (illus.)

It’s a graphic novel about a guy who travels from the north pole to the south pole, where he meets his true love, but it’s impossible for them to be together. I’ve had this library book on my shelves for over a year now (or has it been two years). The librarian overlooked it when I sought to check it out, which has made it easy for me to procrastinate on reading it. I refuse to return it without first reading it, and — gosh damn it! — I better read it this summer.

‘I Spy’ Book Challenge | Book Tag

Another day, another book tag. This one is the ‘I Spy’ Book Challenge that I saw on Becky’s blog, Blogs of a Bookaholic. I liked the concept and decided to give it a go. It was created by booktuber Books and Lala, who was inspired by her son’s I Spy books.

Instructions:

Find a book that contains (either on the cover or in the title) an example for each category.

You must have a separate book for all 20.

Get as creative as you want and make it happen in under 5 minutes!!

* * *

My plan was to search my physical book shelves and snap photos of my choices, but since my shelves are stacked two and three books deep, contain over 800 books, and are very disorganized (because of a recent home improvement project), I’ll instead refer to my digital shelves where I’ve recorded all the books I own. It’ll make it possible for me to complete this in 5 minutes (hopefully).

….yeeaa…that 5 minutes thing didn’t work out. I totally cheated.

Animal | Weapon | Transportation | Food