128 pages. Published August 6, 2024 by Quarto. Non-fiction.
Shining Bright, Shining Black combines two previous and excellent books, Young, Gifted and Black, and Young, Gifted and Black Too, with some new material. It celebrates 100 Black leaders from the past and present and from all over the world, including: Naomi Osaka, Nina Simone, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Barack and Michelle Obama, Naomi Campbell, Albert Luthuli, Wangari Maathai, Sidney Poitier, Maya Angelou, Ava Duvernay, the Williams sisters, Misty Copeland, Beyonce and Solange, Mo Farah, Ntando Mahlangu, Basquiat, and many, many more. In other words, this book has range.
If you haven’t read the two books it compiles, you’re in for a treat here, and you’ll learn more than you can imagine about Black icons across history. So important, because Black histories are often hidden: you may not learn them in school, or if you do, perhaps you’ll get only some random fraction as suits some syllabus. So, this is extra special for its 40,000 foot view of Black history—across time, and across the Diaspora.
At the end of the book is an excellent timeline, as well as a set of questions for discussion and reflection. Also a list of Black trailblazers, and some of the many professions these icons had or have.
Get this for yourself, your library, friends, family, everyone you know, little and big. Very highly recommended.
Thanks again to Quarto for early access to a DRC.
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Harare Review of Books 
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