Mama’s Library Summers

Two sisters spend their summer taking in books featuring African American figures in Noel’s transportive first-person telling, which, per an author’s note, is based on memories from “a time when schools did not teach Black history.” For the narrator’s Mama, “summer vacation means reading books—lots of them!” In mixed-media illustrations that focus on the protagonists and the individuals they read about, Peoples captures the brown-skinned family’s drive to the library, where the children head in to choose their reads (“Only books about Black people, Mama’s directions”). Upon their return home to “disappear into our books,” the narrator is shown engaging with luminaries including Harriet Tubman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Martin Luther King Jr. Later, “Mama holds book review contests... Winner gets an extra slice of Mama’s homemade sweet potato pie.” It’s a celebratory love letter to libraries, literature, and the significance of representation. Creators’ notes conclude. Ages 5–7. (Mar.)