“Uptown is a caterpillar.
Well, it’s really the Metro-North train
as it eases over the Harlem River…
Uptown is a stage.
The Apollo Theater has showcased
the greatest entertainers in the world…
Uptown is a barbershop.
It’s a place where last night’s
ball game can be more important than
what style haircut you want.”
April is National Poetry Month, and that excerpt is from multiple award-winning author and illustrator, Bryan Collier’s Uptown, a book described as “engagingly energetic“ by Kirkus Reviews. The thirty fiction and nonfiction books selected for National Poetry Month cover a wide range of topics, such as the alphabet, shoes, family, President Obama, food, music, and love; there’s even a retelling of Dante’s Inferno by John Agard. Go to our category page Genres, Themes, and… to select more picture, middle grade, and young adult books for your home or classroom library—or to donate. Happy Reading!
Uptown – Bryan Collier
The Neighborhood Mother Goose – Nina Crews
Some Kind of Love: A Family Reunion in Poems – Traci Dant
The Distant Talking Drum - Isaac O. Olaleye
Brothers & Sisters: Family Poems – Eloise Greenfield
Coconut Kind of Day: Island Poems – Lynn Joseph
My Feet Are Laughing – Lissette Norman
Praise Song for the Day – Elizabeth Alexander
Young Cornrows Callin Out the Moon – Ruth Forman
Wonders: The Best Children's Poems of Effie Lee Newsome – Rudine Sims Bishop
Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry – Ashley Bryan
Speak to Me: (And I Will Listen Between the Lines) – Karen English
The Sun Is So Quiet – Nikki Giovanni
Shoe Magic – Nikki Grimes
America, My New Home – Monica Gunning
Pass It On: African American Poetry for Children – Wade Hudson
The Blacker the Berry – Joyce Carol Thomas
There Is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me – Alice Walker
A Moose Boosh: A Few Choice Words About Food – Eric Shabazz Larkin
The Young Inferno – John Agard
Poetry from the Masters: The Pioneers – Wade Hudson
Blues Journey – Walter Dean Myers
Poetry from the Masters: The Black Arts Movement – Useni Eugene Perkins
The Way a Door Closes – Hope Anita Smith
Locomotion – Jacqueline Woodson
The Song Shoots Out of My Mouth: A Celebration of Music – Jaime Adoff
Street Love – Walter Dean Myers
Now Sheba Sings the Song – Maya Angelou
You Don't Even Know Me: Stories and Poems About Boys – Sharon Flake
The 100 Best African American Poems – Nikki Giovanni
