Juneteenth Reads for All Ages

Kids

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  Juneteenth Is

  by Natasha Tripplett; illustrated by Daniel J. O'Brien
  
  This book is an ode to the history of the Black community in the United States, a tribute to Black joy, and a portrait of familial love.

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  Juneteenth Cookbook: Recipes and Activities for Kids and Families to Celebrate

  by Alliah L. Agostini with chef Taffy Elrod; illustrated by Sawyer Cloud

  The Juneteenth Cookbook introduces the history of Juneteenth to kids through vibrant recipes, activities, and games drawn from Black American cultural traditions.
   

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  All Good in the Hood

  by Dwayne Reed; illustrated by Gladys Jose

  A bounce-to-the-beat story, set against the backdrop of a Juneteenth celebration, about a young boy who's afraid of the sounds in the city but is comforted by his older brother, who tells him not to worry: "It's all good in the hood."

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  Jayylen's Juneteenth Surprise

  When Jayylen's grandfather, Paw Paw Jimmy, begins preparing for a big Juneteenth celebration, Jayylen has a lot of questions. Most importantly, what is Juneteenth? His mother and Paw Paw Jimmy explain that the holiday marks the anniversary of when enslaved African Americans found out that they were free. Paw Paw Jimmy plays some zydeco for him, which is the type of music they will dance to at the celebration. Jayylen practices every day so that he will be able to play the frottoir (a percussion instrument similar to a washboard) for everyone. But will he be able to pull off an even bigger surprise for the day?

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  Juneteenth

  by Kevin P. Winn with Kelisa Wing

  Juneteenth explores the history around the celebration in a comprehensive, honest, and age-appropriate way. Developed in conjunction with educator, advocate, and author Kelisa Wing to reach children of all races and encourage them to approach our history with open eyes and minds

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  Build a House

  by Rhiannon Giddens; illustrated by Monica Mikai

  Written as a song to commemorate the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth—which was originally performed with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma—and paired here with bold illustrations by painter Monica Mikai, Build a House tells the moving story of a people who would not be moved and the music that sustained them.

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  Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem

  by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle; illustrated by Alex Bostic

  A poet and activist presents this deeply emotional picture book in which she traces the solemnity and celebration of Juneteenth, from its 1865 origins in Galveston, Texas, to contemporary observances all over the U.S. 

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  A Flag for Juneteenth

  by Kim Taylor

  On June 19, 1865, young Huldah and her close-knit community of enslaved African Americans on a plantation in Texas process the news of their freedom and celebrate together by creating a community freedom flag, in this powerful story about the first Juneteenth.

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  The Night Before Freedom: A Juneteenth Story

  by Glenda Armand; illustrated by Corey Barksdale

  While gathering in Galveston, Texas, for a cherished family tradition—Grandma’s annual retelling of the story of Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S.—8-year-old David learns all about this historic day in history.

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  Juneteenth

  by Van G. Garrett; illustrated by Reginald C. Adams and Samson Bimbo Adenugba

  A lyrical picture book about our newest national holiday, Juneteenth, follows the annual celebration in Galveston, Texas—the birthplace of Juneteenth—through the eyes of a boy coming to understand his place in Black American history, in a story from three Texan creators.

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  The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States

  by Alliah L. Agostini; illustrated by Sawyer Cloud

  On June 19, 1865—more than two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—the enslaved people of Texas first learned of their freedom. That day became a day of remembrance and celebration that changed and grew from year to year. The Juneteenth Story provides an accessible introduction for kids to learn about this important American holiday.

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  All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom

  by Angela Johnson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

  In 1865, members of a family start their day as slaves, working in a Texas cotton field, and end it celebrating their freedom on what came to be known as Juneteenth.

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  Juneteenth for Mazie

  by Floyd Cooper

  Little Mazie wants the freedom to stay up late, but her father explains what freedom really means in the story of Juneteenth, and how her ancestors celebrated their true freedom.

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  Juneteenth Jamboree

  by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Yvonne Buchanan

  Joining her parents in a community celebration of Juneteenth, Cassie learns about the day when slaves in Texas were freed some two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and wonders why the news took so long to reach them.

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  Juneteenth

  by Rachel Koestler-Grack

  On June 19, 1865— two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—Galveston, Texas became the last place in the country to learn the slaves were free. Today, Juneteenth is a joyful occasion with parades, speeches, music, and more! This engaging book teaches the fascinating origins and traditions of Juneteenth, honoring the freedom of African Americans.

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  Let's Celebrate Emancipation Day & Juneteenth

  by Barbara deRubertis

  Abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth fought for freedom from slavery for all African Americans. They fought with speeches, writings, and even daring rescue missions! Every year on both Emancipation Day and Juneteenth we honor and continue their fight for freedom and equality.

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  Opal Lee

  by Sheila P. Moses

  Introduces readers to the teacher and community leader responsible for making Juneteenth a national holiday to mark the end of enslavement for Black Americans, helping millions of people learn about important aspects of American history. 

  
   

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  Juneteenth

  by Emily Dolbear

  Learn the basics about Juneteenth, also called Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, and how the holiday celebrates the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Additional features include detailed captions and sidebars, critical-thinking questions, a phonetic glossary, an index, and sources for further research.

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  The Real History of Juneteenth

  by Elliott Smith

  Juneteenth is the celebration of the day enslaved people in Texas were told they were freed—two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Explore Juneteenth's little-told history, from the first Jubilee to the making of a national holiday.

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  A Kids Book About Juneteenth

  by Garrison Hayes

  This important book discusses Juneteenth, a celebration which recognizes the end of the enslavement of Black people in America, helping readers understand its history and celebrate the future.
   

Teens

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  Miss Juneteenth (DVD)

  A former beauty queen, and single mom, prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the "Miss Juneteenth" pageant.

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  Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow

  by Henry Louis Gates with Tonya Bolden

  This is a story about America during and after Reconstruction, one of history's most pivotal and misunderstood chapters. In a stirring account of emancipation, the struggle for citizenship and national reunion, and the advent of racial segregation, the renowned Harvard scholar delivers a book that is illuminating and timely. Real-life accounts drive the narrative, spanning the half century between the Civil War and Birth of a Nation. Here, you will come face-to-face with the people and events of Reconstruction's noble democratic experiment, its tragic undermining, and the drawing of a new "color line" in the long Jim Crow era that followed. In introducing young readers to them, and to the resiliency of the African American people at times of progress and betrayal, Professor Gates shares a history that remains vitally relevant today.

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  Daughters of Jubilation

  by Kara Lee Corthron

  In the Jim Crow South, white supremacy reigns and tensions are high. But Evalene Deschamps has other things to worry about. She has two little sisters to look after, an overworked single mother, and a longtime crush who is finally making a move. On top of all that, Evvie's magic abilities are growing stronger by the day. Her family calls it jubilation; a gift passed down from generations of black women since the time of slavery. And as Evvie's talents waken, something dark comes loose and threatens to resurface. And when the demons of Evvie's past finally shake free, she must embrace her mighty lineage, and summon the power that lies within her.

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  A Sitting In St. James

  by Rita Williams-Garcia 

  1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family&;s objections, to sit for a portrait. While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations; from the big house to out in the fields of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts. This astonishing novel from award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork; empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.

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  Come Juneteenth

  by Ann Rinaldi

  Although born a slave to Luli's family, Goose feels loved and respected by the family to which she is attached, but when Union soldiers arrive and tell her that slavery ended more than two years prior, Goose feels betrayed like never before and runs away to experience real freedom for the first time in her life.

Adults

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  On Juneteenth

  by Annette Gordon-Reed

  Combining personal anecdotes with poignant facts gleaned from the annals of American history, Gordon-Reed shows how, from the earliest presence of Black people in Texas to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state, African Americans played an integral role in the Texas story. Reworking the traditional “Alamo” framework, she powerfully demonstrates, among other things, that the slave- and race-based economy not only defined the fractious era of Texas independence but precipitated the Mexican-American War and, indeed, the Civil War itself.

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  How the Word is Passed

  by Clint Smith 

  A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view; whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted.

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  Sweet Home Cafe Cookbook: A Celebration of African American Cooking

  by Albert Lukas and Jessica B. Harris, with contributions by Jerome Grant

  A celebration of African American cooking with 109 recipes from the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Sweet Home Cafe. Showcasing African American contributions to American cuisine, the café offers favorite dishes made with locally sourced ingredients, adding modern flavors and contemporary twists on classics. Now both readers and home cooks can partake of the café's bounty. Featured recipes include Pea Tendril Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes, Hoppin' John, Sénégalaise Peanut Soup, Maryland Crab Cakes, Jamaican Grilled Jerk Chicken, Shrimp & Grits, Fried Chicken and Waffles, Pan Roasted Rainbow Trout, Hickory Smoked Pork Shoulder, Chow Chow, Banana Pudding, Chocolate Chess Pie, and many others. More than a collection of inviting recipes, this book illustrates the pivotal—and often overlooked—role that African Americans have played in creating and re-creating American foodways. 

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  Juneteenth

  by Ralph Ellison

  Shot on the Senate floor by a young black man, a dying racist senator summons an elderly black Baptist minister from Oklahoma to his side for a remarkable dialogue that reveals the deeply buried secrets of their shared past and the tragedy that reunites them. Daughters of Jubilation by Cara Lee Corthron—not quite Juneteenth but a woman with magic powers passed through generations of Black women. 

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  Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore

  edited by Francis Edward Abernethy et al.

  Juneteenth Texas reflects the many dimensions of African-American folklore. The personal essays are reminiscences about the past and are written from both black and white perspectives. They are followed by essays which classify and describe different aspects of African-American folk culture in Texas; studies of specific genres of folklore, such as songs and stories; studies of specific performers, such as Lightnin' Hopkins and Manse Lipscomb and of particular folklorists who were important in the collecting of African-American folklore, such as J. Mason Brewer; and a section giving resources for the further study of African Americans in Texas. Of particular note is a chapter by William H. Wiggins Jr. titled, "Juneteenth: A Red Spot Day on the Texas Calendar"

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  Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Freedom

  edited by Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller

  Using excerpts from the thousands of interviews conducted with ex-slaves in the 1930s by researchers working with the Federal Writer's Project, this astonishing collection makes available in print the only known recordings of people who actually experienced slavery—recordings that had gathered dust in the Library of Congress until they were rendered audible for the first time specifically for this collection.

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  Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America

  by W. Caleb McDaniel

  The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice—and reparations. Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. In the years that followed before and during the CivilWar, she gave birth to a son and was forced to march to Texas. She obtained her freedom a second time after the war and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for $20,000 in damages—now known as reparations. Astonishingly, after ten years of litigation, Henrietta Wood won her case. In 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500 and the decision stuck on appeal. While nowhere close to the amount she had demanded, this may be the largest amount of money ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery.

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  To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors After the Civil War

  by Tera W. Hunter

  Hunter follows African American working women from their newfound optimism and hope at the end of the Civil War to their struggles as free domestic laborers in the homes of their former masters. We witness their drive as they build neighborhoods and networks and their energy as they enjoy leisure hours in dance halls and clubs. We learn of their militance and the way they resisted efforts to keep them economically depressed and medically victimized. Finally, we understand the despair and defeat provoked by Jim Crow laws and segregation and how they spurred large numbers of black laboring women to migrate north. Hunter weaves a rich and diverse tapestry of the culture and experience of black women workers in the post-Civil War south. Through anecdote and data, analysis and interpretation, she manages to penetrate African-American life and labor and to reveal the centrality of women at the inception—and at the heart—of the new south.

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  Watermelon and Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth and Black Celebrations

  by Nicole A. Taylor

  All-day cook-outs with artful salads, bounteous dessert spreads, and raised glasses of “red drink” are essential to Juneteenth gatherings. As a master storyteller and cook, Taylor bridges the traditional African-American table and 21st-century flavors in stories and recipes. Nicole synthesizes all the places we’ve been, all the people we have come from, all the people we have become, and all the culinary ideas we have embraced.

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  Juneteenth: The Story Behind the Celebration

  by Edward T. Cotham Jr.

  This is the first scholarly book to delve into the history behind Juneteenth. Using decades of research in archives around the nation, this book helps separate myth from reality and tells the story behind the celebration in a way that provides new understanding and appreciation for the event.