As Black History Month draws to a close, we reflect upon a month of celebration and education at Palmers Green Library. Staff and volunteers worked diligently to put together a calendar of activities and resources to highlight the indelible impact that Black people have made on the literary and wider world.
Black History Month Children’s Book Display at Palmers Green Library
We ran over ten different activities and sessions for children, including craft sessions, class visits, a half-term craft day and storytimes. Over 100 children participated in these sessions to learn about influential Black people and stories throughout history and have a go at making their own Carnival Masks, Kwaanza mats, Windrush postcards, Anansi spiders and much more in celebration of Black history and culture. We thank all those who brought their children along to learn about Black History while having fun with crafts. We hope they enjoyed these sessions as much as we did!
African drum used for a storytime session. Woven paper Kwaanza mat made during a craft session.
For the adults, we encouraged visitors to diversify their reading lists with a display that brought together books across genres and formats by Black authors. We highlighted the works of some well-known and beloved authors, such as Malorie Blackman and Maya Angelou, and some newer authors making an important impact on the global literary stage, such as Marlon James and Akwaeke Emezi.
The display is located on the First Floor at Palmers Green Library and will be up until the end of next week. Many thanks to all those who have already issued items from this display. All items in the display will remain available to check out at the counter or self-service machine during this period. Thereafter, they will return to their regular homes throughout the different sections in the in the main collection. We encourage you to continue to support Black authors and celebrate Black Heritage and Culture by borrowing these and other books by Black authors throughout the year.
Hot tip: Look out for a black octagonal sticker on the book spine for books written by Black authors.
Black Literature label
For those of you who aren’t able to make it in to see the display in person before it goes down, here’s a look at the spotlighted authors (along with some original drawings and recommendations by our very own Palmers Green Library staff!):
MAYA ANGELOU
“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.“
– Maya Angelou, Poems
MAYA ANGELOU was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis Missouri, on April 4, 1928. Growing up, she endured the overt racism that was prevalent in the Southern United States at the time, as well as the struggles and traumas of family life. Following the murder of her abuser when she was eight, Angelou, stricken by guilt and fear of the consequences of speaking out, became mute for almost five years. Poetry helped her find her voice again, after her teacher challenged her to speak by saying, “You do not love poetry, not until you speak it”.
This advice rang true, and Angelou would later become one of the most moving speakers and performers of her lifetime. Angelou was proud of her title as “the people’s poet” and was chosen by Bill Clinton to be the first poet to make an inaugural recitation in over 30 years. In her own words, “Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life”, and what an extraordinary life she composed for herself.
Memoirist, poet, screenwriter, playwright, fry cook, scholar, teenage mother, actress, director, producer, nightclub performer and civil rights activist – there were no limits to what Angelou endured and enjoyed in her tumultuous lifetime. She recounts these experiences, as well as stories from her childhood and extensive travelling, across a series of seven autobiographies. Her first autobiography was the highly influential and unabashed, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which flouted the apologetic traditions of Black Autobiography.
Throughout her career, Angelou defied what was considered acceptable for a poet, by engaging in a range of commercial pursuits, including a collaboration with Hallmark. She broke barriers in academia by earning over fifty honorary scholarships and assuming a role as a full-time university professor, despite having never obtained a bachelor’s degree. She would continue to defy expectations in her later years by continuing to frequent the lecture circuit well into her eighties. A true artist in every sense of the word, Angelou released her final work, Mom & Me & Mom in 2013, the year before she died.
Explore Maya Angelou’s work here: Search Results for Maya Angelou (enfield.gov.uk)
MALORIE BLACKMAN
“I used to comfort myself with the belief that it was only certain individuals and their peculiar notions that spoilt things for the rest of us. But how many individuals does it take before it’s not the individuals who are prejudiced but society itself?“
– Malorie Blackman, Noughts & Crosses
MALORIE BLACKMAN OBE began writing at twenty-eight years old in order to address the dearth of Black protagonists in children’s books, which had persisted since her own childhood. She has since written more than sixty novels, short stories, early-reader books, and picture books. She was the UK’s first Black Children’s Laureate, a position which she held from 2013 to 2015.
Blackman is best known for her multiple award-winning Noughts & Crosses series, set in a segregated, alternative 21st century Britain, where the Black elites, known as the Crosses, rule over the White underclass, the Noughts. This forbidden love story confronts racism head on in an imaginative and thought-provoking way. The series was recently dramatized for television in the hit BBC series, Noughts + Crosses, and Blackman released the sixth and final instalment of the series, Endgame, in 2021.
Born in Clapham to Barbadian parents, who came to the UK as part of the Windrush Generation, Blackman endured prejudice and scepticism within the publishing industry to emerge as one of Britain’s most prestigious and best loved children’s writers.
Explore Malorie Blackman’s work here: Search Results for Malorie Blackman (enfield.gov.uk)
AKWAEKE EMEZI
“Understand this if you understand nothing: it is a powerful thing to be seen.”
– Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater
AKWAEKE EMEZI is a Nigerian writer and multidisciplinary artist. At only 35 years old, they have already written seven books, three of which were published in 2022 alone. Their debut novel, Freshwater, is a semi-autobiographical work, which sees the protagonist, Ada, uncover her identity as an “ogbanje”, an Igbo trickster spirit born into a human body to torment the human mother by dying unexpectedly and being born again into the body of the next child to repeat the cycle. Ada develops fractured selves, as her spirit siblings emerge to protect her from the traumas and confusions of human life and try to pull her away from her friends and family and back to the spirit world.
Emezi, who identifies as an ogbanje and as non-binary transgender, often centres LGBTQ characters and themes in their work. Their YA science-fiction novels Pet and its prequel Bitter, follow the adventures of a monster-hunting transgender teenager, while The Death of Vivek Oji is a devastating exploration of gender identity, family and loss. They have also released a memoir, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, a queer romance novel, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, and a poetry collection, Content Warning: Everything. Emezi is a dazzling and vital literary talent whose work will appeal to fans of Toni Morrison, Eimear McBride and Helen Oyeyemi.
Explore Akwaeke Emezi’s work here: Search Results for Akwaeke Emezi (enfield.gov.uk)
MARLON JAMES
“Make me tell you something else about reading. You see this? Every time you open this you get free. Freeness up in here and nobody even have to know you get free but you.“
– Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
MARLON JAMES was born in Kingston, Jamaica to a detective mother and a lawyer father. He left Jamaica to launch his literary career and escape violent homophobia and poor economic prospects. After his debut novel, the award-winning John Crow’s Devil was rejected over 70 times, he went on to become the first Jamaican to be shortlisted for and then win the Man Booker Prize for his 2009 sophomore novel, The Book of Night Women. The controversial historical fiction novel about a slave revolt employs spiritualism and shocking expressions of female sexuality and empowerment to complicate the traditional slave narrative.
His next novel, the violent and polyphonous A Brief History of Seven Killings, about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley has garnered comparisons to Quentin Tarantino. James expertly plays with language and form, using Jamaican patois and over 75 characters to provide a sage and cutting history of his home-country.
James’s most recent work, the fantasy series, Dark Star trilogy, has been dubbed the African Games of Thrones, a comparison which George R. R. Martin himself has affirmed. The series features three versions of the same story told by a misanthropic, gay assassin and a cunning, elderly witch and incorporates elements of African mythology and Caribbean folklore. James was inspired by past Man Booker Prize winner Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, as well as Tomi Adeyemi and N.K. Jemisin.
Explore Marlon James’s work here: Search Results for Marlon James (enfield.gov.uk)
NEW IN
If you’re still on the hunt for some more Black Literature to add to your reading list, we have the following books New In by Black Authors this month:
General Fiction
‘An Ocean Apart’ by Sarah Lee Search Results for An Ocean Apart Sarah Lee (enfield.gov.uk)
Crime / Thriller
‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite Search Results for My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite (enfield.gov.uk)
‘Tail of the Blue Bird’ by Nii Ayikwei Parkes Search Results for Tail of the Blue Bird Nii Ayikwei Parkes (enfield.gov.uk)
Fantasy / Sci-Fi
‘Skin Folk: Stories’ by Nalo Hopkinson Search Results for Skin Folk Stories Nalo Hopkinson (enfield.gov.uk)
Non-Fiction
‘Black British Lives Matter: A Call for Equality’ edited by Lenny Henry & Marcus Ryder Search Results for Black British Lives Matter Lenny Henry (enfield.gov.uk)
‘We Don’t Need Permission: How Black Business Can Change Our World’ by Eric Collins We don’t need permission : how Black business can change our world (enfield.gov.uk)
‘DIY with Jay’ by Jay Blades MBE Search Results for DIY with Jay Jay Blades (enfield.gov.uk)
‘A Visible Man’ by Edward Enninful Search Results for A Visible Man Edward Enninful (enfield.gov.uk)
‘How to Write About Africa’ by Binyavanga Wainaina How to write about Africa (enfield.gov.uk)
‘Home Is Not a Place’ by Johny Pitts & Roger Robinson Home is not a place (enfield.gov.uk)
Again, these items can be found on the First Floor Display area at Palmers Green until the end of next week. After that, they will return to their relevant section within the Main Collection. Don’t forget, you will be able to identify books written by Black Authors amongst items in the main collection by the black octagonal label on their spine.
If you have any book recommendations or ideas for events or activities to continue the celebration of Black History and championing of Black authors, you can visit any of our libraries and have a word with a staff member at the counter.
Additionally, you can pop any feedback, ideas or suggestions into the comment box below. Did you discover any Black writers this Black History Month? Did you or your child attend any of the BHM events at Palmers Green or any of the other Enfield Libraries? What would you like to see next year? We’d love to hear from you!
Happy Black History Month from all of us at Palmers Green Library!
We look forward to your next visit!
R.A.
ENFIELD LIBRARIES 