TBF Authors Nominated for NAACP Awards

February 9, 2021

The Texas Book Festival sends a heartfelt congratulations to the authors nominated for the 52nd NAACP Image Awards. The awards ceremony will air on BET Saturday, March 27 at 8:00 PM ET, and non-televised award categories will live stream between March 22 and 26. 

Among the books nominated this year are many penned by authors who’ve presented to Texas Book Festival audiences throughout the years, including Michael Eric Dyson (TBF 2016), Ibrim X. Kendi (TBF 2019), Walter Mosley (TBF 2018, 2014), Barack Obama (TBF 2006), Tochi Onyebuchi (TBF 2019), Jason Reynolds (TBF 2017), Eric Velasquez (TBF 2019), and Jacqueline Woodson (TBF 2018). 

Three of the nominations are for books featured at the TBF 2020 Virtual Festival:

The full list of nominees can be found here and below.

Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction

Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall 

Lakewood by Megan Giddings

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

The Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosley

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction

A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Berry and Kali Nicole Gross

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

Driving While Black by Gretchen Sorin

Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson

We’re Better Than This by Elijah Cummings

Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author

A Knock at Midnight by Brittany Barnett 

Greyboy: Finding Blackness in a White World by Cole Brown 

Lakewood by Megan Giddings

The Compton Cowboys by Walter Thompson-Hernandez

We’re Better Than This by Elijah Cummings 

Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography

A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Arshay Cooper

A Promised Land by Barack Obama (Crown)

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice by Deborah Draper

The Dead Are Arising by Les Payne and Tamara Payne

Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL’s First Black Player by Willie O’Ree

Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional

Do Right by Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Space by Valerie Harrison

Living Lively by Haile Thomas

The Black Foster Youth Handbook by Ángela Quijada-Banks

The Woman God Created You to Be: Finding Success Through Faith–Spiritually, Personally, and Professionally by Kimberla Lawson Roby

Vegetable Kingdom by Bryant Terry

Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry

Homie by Danez Smith

Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry by John Murillo

Seeing the Body by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

The Age of Phillis by Honorée Jeffers

Un-American by Hafizah Geter

Outstanding Literary Work – Children

I Promise by LeBron James, Nina Mata

Just Like a Mama by Alice Faye Duncan, Charnelle Pinkney Barlow

Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice by Nikki Grimes and Laura Freeman

She Was the First!: The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm by Katheryn Russell-Brown and Eric Velasquez

The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver by Gene Barretta and Frank Morrison

Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens

Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson

Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Dear Justyce by Nic Stone

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginningby Ibrim X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds

This Is Your Time by Ruby Bridges