This February, we want to celebrate Black History and Black Futures by honouring Black experiences and cheering Black excellence. Here is a list of BC-published books authored by Black authors from varied backgrounds on a variety of topics—from food history and relationships to artists and poetry, along with children’s books to delight and inspire young minds.
Empowering Young Black Girls
These books centre smart, creative, and tenacious young girls who are determined to overcome their fears and achieve their dreams.
Brown Girl in the Snow by Yolanda T. Marshall (Greystone Books)
This beautifully illustrated children’s book (for kids aged 4-8) takes inspiration from a traditional Caribbean children’s song, with the young protagonist Amina adding her own twist to the lyrics as she adapts to a move from tropical Caribbean to her new snowy home:
“There’s a brown girl in the snow, tra la la la la, where none of her plants will grow.”
Guyanese-born Canadian author Yolanda T. Marshall introduces greenhouses and gardening through Amina’s determination to grow her favourite plants in her new home, and to keep her roots alive in a new environment.
Brown Girl in the Snow is A Globe & Mail Best Book of the Year 2025 and A CBC Best Book of the Year 2025.
Out now
Anna Carries Water by Olive Senior and Laura James (Tradewind Books)
Commonwealth Prize-winning author Olive Senior shows young readers the power of determination in this poetic family story of Anna and her older brothers and sisters set in Jamaica, as Anna learns to carry water from the spring every day.
The book received a starred review from Kirkus which says, “James, of Antiguan background, allows her bold acrylic paintings in tropical colors to sprawl across wide double-page spreads of lush Caribbean landscapes. The hummingbirds and butterflies add a bit of whimsy to Anna’s cover portrait…When water easily comes out of a faucet, young readers rarely think about the difficult chore of carrying water, but they will empathize with Anna’s desire to reach an important milestone.”
Out now
Food History for Young Readers
Learn the true story of one of the most popular, beloved, and expensive culinary ingredients in the world in a child-friendly narrative.
Part of the Orca Biography series for middle-grade readers, this illustrated nonfiction book tells the story of how Edmond Albius, an enslaved boy, discovered how to hand-pollinate vanilla, a technique that is still used all over the world today. Despite the accomplishment of inventing his technique, le geste d’Edmonde (Edmond’s gesture), he did not receive compensation or recognition as he was an enslaved person. Today it is recognized that Edmond’s method of pollination was key to bringing vanilla to the world, helped to create a billion-dollar industry and gave us the flavor we love to use in cooking, baking, medicine and, of course, ice cream.
This thought-provoking book highlights the accomplishments of enslaved people and the continuing erasure of their contributions to the world.
Booklist’s starred review describes the book as “moving and bittersweet… [it] discusses the reality of slavery and the racial violence and prejudice formerly enslaved individuals experienced.”
Out now
Culture and Relationships
How do you practice a compassionate and inclusive relationship style without confronting internalized and latent racism in yourself and in your culture?
Patterson, a polyamorous Black man, explores the intersections of racism and polyamory and their impact on people of colour navigating an already misunderstood lifestyle. Acknowledging that the complications people of colour face in monogamous relationships are also present in polyamorous ones, Love’s Not Color Blind puts forward the framework—through research, anecdotal testimony, and analogy—for understanding, identifying, and ultimately confronting the manifestations of racism within polyamorous communities. Whether you’re a community leader or you just like to date a lot, this is an invaluable tool for creating a more inclusive polyamory.
Out now
Art and Artists
A play that asks, “Who gets to make art, and who gets to destroy it?”
Selma Burke: Carving a Sculptor’s Life by Caroline Russell-King and Maria Crooks (Talonbooks)
Winning the Theatre BC Canadian Playwriting Competition, two Betty Mitchell Awards, and two Calgary Theatre Critics’ Awards, this play chronicles the life of Dr. Selma Hortense Burke, an African American sculptor who explored major historical events of the past century: lynchings, the Harlem Renaissance, the Holocaust, the assassination of Martin Luther King.
Dr. Burke was steadfast in the face of a society that didn’t always recognize her talents, a husband who demolished her work, and a government who stole it. What makes her life extraordinary is her persistence in practising her art as her way of showing the world that it’s easy to destroy but not so easy to build, but it is important.
Out on March 3, 2026
Exploring the Politics/Poetics of Bodies
Experience poetry that will make you identify with the speaker’s struggles, enrage you, and move you to practise vulnerability and resilience in community.
allostatic load by Junie Désil (Talonbooks)
In this collection of poems about the intersection between chronic illness and racialization, Junie Désil navigates the racialized interplay of chronic wear and tear during tumultuous years marked by global racial tensions, the commodification of care, and the burden of systemic injustice.
melanie brannagan frederiksen of The Winnipeg Free Press notes that, “The speaker’s experiences of individual and bodily and psychic harms are inseparable from the systemic harms of the climate crisis, anti-Black racism and colonialism.”
Out now