JCPLA Reader's Advisory Roundtable: Afrofuturism

The next Reader’s Advisory Roundtable will be Wednesday, June 14 at 9:30am at the O’Neal Library (50 Oak Street Mountain Brook, AL 35213). The topic up for discussion will be graphic novels and manga. Childrens, teens, adults…we’ll talk about them all! If you’d rather attend online, a Zoom option will be available.

At this month’s meeting:

Holley W, O’Neal
Shawn C, Pinson
Erika W, Powderly
Gelenda N, BPL Southside
Cara W, Center Point
Tamara H, Irondale
Pam J, BPL Southside
Nia, Bessemer

We assembled on April 12th to discuss Afrofuturism and one of the topics that came up was finding a definitive explanation of the genre. Every website had something different to say about it.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture defines a different tract: Afrofuturism expresses notions of Black identity, agency and freedom through art, creative works and activism that envision liberated futures for Black life. Explore their exhibit on Afrofuturism here: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/afrofuturism

Award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor says this about it:

“I am an Africanfuturist and an Africanjujuist. Africanfuturism is a sub-category of science fiction. Africanjujuism is a subcategory of fantasy that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative. Africanfuturism is similar to “Afrofuturism” in the way that blacks on the continent and in the Black Diaspora are all connected by blood, spirit, history and future. The difference is that Africanfuturism is specifically and more directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches into the Black Diaspora, and it does not privilege or center the West.” Read more of Nnedi Okorafor’s thoughts here: http://nnedi.blogspot.com/2019/10/africanfuturism-defined.html

Black science fiction has been around for a long time. Author Nisi Shawl has traced it back to the mid 1850s (http://www.nisishawl.com/CCHBSF.html). One of our meeting participants today brought up W.E.B. Dubois’s short story, “The Comet,” written in 1920. Read it at Project Gutenberg here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15210/15210-h/15210-h.htm#Chapter_X

Black Girl Nerds wrote this pretty thoughtful piece. I can’t find a date on it, but it’s obviously post “Children of Blood & Bone:” https://blackgirlnerds.com/the-importance-of-black-science-fiction-and-why-every-black-person-should-read-the-genre/

Roundtable members expressed frustration in finding a unified explanation and in finding the harder science fiction/futuristic titles as many “best of” lists skew towards what we would traditionally call the fantasy/speculative side of fiction.

Thanks to Shawn C. at Pinson for sharing these links that explore some of these issues:

https://www.readingwomenpodcast.com/blog/2020/02/05/ep-81-afrofuturism-and-africanfuturism

https://www.readingwomenpodcast.com/blog/2020/02/19/ep-82-afrofuturism-and-parable-of-the-sower

In taking a stroll around the internet, I see that the Chicago Public Library goes back to Nnedi Okorafor in their “Afrofuturism in Science Fiction and Fantasy” reader advisory page: “(Note that some writers, such as those by Nnedi Okorafor, make a distinction between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism.)” We also discussed a few strategies for incorporating more of these titles into displays. The highlights were sprinkling them in with related topics that are not necessarily sci fi/fantasy (climate fiction, for instance, for something dystopian/dystopian adjacent) and using them in readalike displays if the topic or writing style but not necessarily the story is similar. Does that make sense? Also, let us know if you have any ideas, tips, or tricks!

Authors of note (may be duplicated in the individual title section)

Octavia Butler
P. Djeli Clark
Samuel Delaney
Nnedi Okorafor
N.K. Jemisin

ADULT:

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The radically speculative odyssey of a young Black woman in a post-apocalyptic America and the community she cultivates despite the horrors of climate change and social inequality.

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt...natural, and that's putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was "wrong". But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that disabled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
In her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, Nnedi Okorafor introduced us to Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime: to attend the prestigious Oomza University. Despite her family's concerns, Binti's talent for mathematics and her aptitude with astrolabes make her a prime candidate to undertake this interstellar journey. But everything changes when the jellyfish-like Medusae attack Binti's spaceship, leaving her the only survivor. Now, Binti must fend for herself, alone on a ship full of the beings who murdered her crew. There is more to the history of the Medusae—and their war with the Khoush—than first meets the eye. If Binti is to survive this voyage and save the inhabitants of the unsuspecting planet that houses Oomza Uni, it will take all of her knowledge and talents to broker the peace.

Destroyer by Victor LaValle, illustrated by Dietrich Smith
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein beseeched his creator for love and companionship, but in 2017, the monster has long discarded any notions of peace or inclusion. He has become the Destroyer, his only goal to eliminate the scourge of humanity from the planet. In this goal, he initially finds a willing partner in Dr. Baker, a descendant of the Frankenstein family who has lost her teenage son after an encounter with the police. While two scientists, Percy and Byron, initially believe they’re brought to protect Dr. Baker from the monster, they soon realize they may have to protect the world from the monster and Dr. Baker’s wrath.

Bitter Root by David F. Walker and Chuck Brown, illustrated by Sanford Greene
Once known as the greatest monster hunters of all time, the Sangerye family specialized in curing the souls of those infected by hate, but those days are fading. A terrible tragedy has claimed most of the family, leaving the surviving cousins split between curing monsters and killing them. Now, with a new breed of monster loose on the streets of Harlem, the Sangerye family must come together, or watch the human race fall to untold evil.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors' artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight. The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive.

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
It is a time of calamity in a major metropolitan city's Department of Elevator Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson, the first black female elevator inspector in the history of the department, is at the center of it. There are two warring factions within the department: the Empiricists, who work by the book and dutifully check for striations on the winch cable and such; and the Intuitionists, who are simply able to enter the elevator cab in question, meditate, and intuit any defects. Lila Mae is an Intuitionist and, it just so happens, has the highest accuracy rate in the entire department. But when an elevator in a new city building goes into total freefall on Lila Mae's watch, chaos ensues.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark
Rising science fiction and fantasy star P. Djèlí Clark brings an alternate New Orleans of orisha, airships, and adventure to life in his immersive debut novella The Black God's Drums.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times)

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
One of the most highly praised novels of the year, the debut from an astonishing young writer, Freshwater tells the story of Ada, an unusual child who is a source of deep concern to her southern Nigerian family. Young Ada is troubled, prone to violent fits. Born “with one foot on the other side,” she begins to develop separate selves within her as she grows into adulthood. And when she travels to America for college, a traumatic event on campus crystallizes the selves into something powerful and potentially dangerous, making Ada fade into the background of her own mind as these alters―now protective, now hedonistic―move into control. Written with stylistic brilliance and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord
A proud and reserved alien society finds its homeland destroyed in an unprovoked act of aggression, and the survivors have no choice but to reach out to the indigenous humanoids of their adopted world, to whom they are distantly related. They wish to preserve their cherished way of life, but doing so may mean changing their culture forever. Working together to save this vanishing race, a man and a woman from two clashing societies will uncover ancient mysteries with far-reaching ramifications. And as their mission hangs in the balance, the unlikely team—one cool and cerebral, the other fiery and impulsive—just may find in each other their own destinies . . . and a force that transcends all.

YOUNG ADULT:

Skyward by Joe Henderson, illustrated by Lee Garbett and Antonio Fabela
One day, gravity on Earth suddenly became a fraction of what it is now. Twenty years later, humanity has adapted to its new low-gravity reality. And to Willa Fowler, a woman born just after G-day, it's...well, it's pretty awesome, actually. You can fly through the air! I mean, sure, you can also die if you jump too high. So you just don't jump too high. And maybe don't get mixed up in your Dad's secret plan to bring gravity back that could get you killed...

Black Star by Eric A. Glover, illustrated by Ariella Jovellanos
In the future, interstellar travel is past its prime and sending shuttles beyond our solar system—even for vital scientific research—is a life-threatening gamble. However, in order to retrieve samples of an alien flower that may hold the key to saving countless lives, Harper North and her crew of scientists must journey to Eleos, a dangerous planet in deep space.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Sunny Nwazue lives in Nigeria, but she was born in New York City. Her features are West African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a "free agent" with latent magical power. And she has a lot of catching up to do. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But as she’s finding her footing, Sunny and her friends are asked by the magical authorities to help track down a career criminal who knows magic, too. Will their training be enough to help them combat a threat whose powers greatly outnumber theirs?

CHILDREN’S:

Amari and the Night Brothers by B. B. Alston, illustrated by Godwin Akpan
Artemis Fowl meets Men in Black in this exhilarating debut middle grade fantasy, the first in a series filled with #blackgirlmagic.

Arcade and the Triple T Token by Rashad Jennings
While at the library—Arcade’s favorite place to be—a mysterious old woman gives him a golden arcade token that grants him a unique gift. A gift that allows him to time travel between different places, including his own future. From sitting in the dugout with Babe Ruth to hanging on to the back of a bucking bull to performing life-saving surgery on a dog, Arcade has no shortage of adventure! Together with his older sister, Zoe, Arcade explores life’s biggest thrills and challenges, and the two also have a big mystery to solve. Who is the rightful owner of the incredible Triple T Token that leads to such astounding adventures?

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
Seventh grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from the tragedy. But on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up in his bedroom and steals Eddie's notebook. Tristan chases after it--is that a doll?--and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to wrestle the journal out of the creature's hands, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world.

Last Gate of the Emperor by Kwame Mbalia
Yared Heywat lives an isolated life in Addis Prime -- a hardscrabble city with rundown tech, lots of rules, and not much to do. His worrywart Uncle Moti and bionic lioness Besa are his only family... and his only friends. Often in trouble for his thrill-seeking antics and smart mouth, those same qualities make Yared a star player of the underground augmented reality game, The Hunt for Kaleb's Obelisk. But when a change in the game rules prompts Yared to log in with his real name, it triggers an attack that rocks the city.

Area 51 Interns: Alien Summer by James Murray
It's the first day of summer vacation, and Viv Harlow just wants to relax with her friends at the beach before they all go to different high schools next year. She is definitely not interested in visiting her mom's office, even if Director Harlow works at the famous Area 51. But when an alarm sounds beneath the secret base and a whole race of aliens escape, she's about to get much more than she bargained for.

Dragons in a Bag by Zetta Elliott
When Jaxon is sent to spend the day with a mean old lady his mother calls Ma, he finds out she's not his grandmother--but she is a witch! She needs his help delivering baby dragons to a magical world where they'll be safe. There are two rules when it comes to the dragons: don't let them out of the bag, and don't feed them anything sweet. Before he knows it, Jax and his friends Vikram and Kavita have broken both rules! Will Jax get the baby dragons delivered safe and sound? Or will they be lost in Brooklyn forever?

Black Panther books for kids:

https://www.feministbooksforkids.com/black-panther-books/

https://www.helpingkidsrise.org/post/wakanda-forever-15-marvel-black-panther-books-for-kids-video

Spider-Man (Miles Morales) Comics:

https://www.marvel.com/comics/characters/1016181/spider-man_miles_morales

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Miles_Morales_Comic_Books