Books into Films: Black Authors and Characters Edition
February 12, 2021 - There are many books that have been made into films, and some of my favorites feature Black authors and/or Black characters. Here is a list of recommendations for which the Library has both the book and the film in its catalog (where these descriptions are taken from).
12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
The harrowing account of a Black man, born free in New York State, who was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in 1841.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
A woman in Harlem attempts desperately to prove her fiancé́ is innocent of a crime while she is pregnant with their first child.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
This is the story of two sisters—one a missionary in Africa and the other a child-wife living in the South—who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
After witnessing her friend Kahil's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life becomes complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night he died.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women—black and white, mothers and daughters—view one another.
Hidden Figures by Margo Lee Shetterly
As the United States raced against Russia to put a man in space, NASA found untapped talent in a group of African-American female mathematicians that served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
Roots by Alex Haley
The author shares the saga of an African-American family that extends from his ancestor, Kunta Kinte, an African brought to mid-eighteenth-century America as a slave, to himself.
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
One motherless daughter's discovery of the strange and wondrous places we find love, set in South Carolina in 1964.
Ellen Miles, Programming & Outreach Coordinator
February 12, 2021
