Books for African Canadian Children & Teens from James Lorimer & Co. Ltd., Publishing (Canada)
My forthcoming novel Dancehall Rebel will be available through Lorimer in February of 2024!
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Publication Date: February 2024
ISBN: 9781459418141
Interest ages: 14-18
For a full listing of Lorimer novels with African Canadian protagonists (written by African Canadian authors), please visit their website:
by Eddie Kawooya
New to Canada, Ace is battling ignorance, bullying, and a new culture. Now he seeks to regain his confidence and show himself he has the tools to make it in his new life.
In his debut novel, Eddie Kawooya presents a fish-out-of-water story of immigration and the pains and joys of integration into a new and sometimes frightening environment.
Arriving in Canada, Ace finds himself living in a basement apartment, having to integrate into a new community where he is the “African.” Struggling with his grades and his self worth, he finds ignorance and bullying at school until he falls in with a crew of international misfits who understand what he’s going through.
With their support, Ace starts to regain the confidence he lost in the move and his subsequent troubles. He wants to show himself and his misfit friends that he has the tools to make it in his new life. This book tackles self esteem and how it can be easily lost when one feels alone.
At the core of this story is the isolation a child feels after his world is snatched from him, and the journey of self worth and self confidence he must undertake to rise above it. (2024)
by Kevin heronJones
Not Talking About You portrays racism as it occurs amongst young Canadians today. It explores the impact on the target and on bystanders who have to decide how to react when they find a racist youth in their midst.
Kevin HeronJones has written this book to reflect his and other young Black people’s experiences with racism in school. He sees an urgent need to talk about how young people exhibit racist behaviour, to portray it honestly, and to explore how young people can confront it and speak out.
Part of a well-off middle-class family living in suburban Toronto, Khalil moves for grade eight to a school that does not have many racialized students. He is befriended by school sports star Cameron, who convinces Khalil to play basketball. Khalil is uncomfortable with his friend’s racist statements and behaviour, despite Cameron’s professed admiration for Black culture. As his discomfort grows, Khalil is left with a choice: accept this as “reality” or take a stand for what’s right, even if it costs him friendships.
Not talking About You portrays racism as it occurs amongst young Canadians today. It explores the impact on the target and on bystanders who have to decide how to react when they find a racist youth in their midst. (2022)
by Carlos Anthony
Shades of Black is an honest and authentic portrayal of life as a young Black male teen in today’s culture and environment at an urban school in Toronto’s Etobicoke neighbourhood.
Romero, a Guyanese Canadian, is a sensitive kid who is just starting to attend an inner-city-style school with a large racialized population. Romero falls in with a friendly crew but finds himself in trouble when a shot is fired in the school cafeteria — and he gets stuck with the gun. Meanwhile, the police, often using brutal tactics and targeting young Black males, try to find out who the shooter was.
To humanize and critique the Black male experience and dispel the myth that vulnerability and empathy equal weakness, Carlos Anthony draws on his own recent experiences as a teen in school in Etobicoke. His novel is an authentic – and rare -- representation of Black youth culture and the experiences of Black teens in Canada’s public schools. (2023)
by Jawara Pedican
Udoka Clendon is a first-year university student and a product of basketball systems that have produced professional players.
From very young, he’s been pushed relentlessly by his family on a troubling pursuit for an athletic scholarship. He is burdened by expectations and self-doubt. Udoka tries to reignite his passion for the game. Now, he’s been given a final opportunity at the city-wide tournament to rediscover his confidence and his sense of purpose—all of which he fears he has lost forever.
With the clarity and poetic style of a seasoned writer, and drawing on his own time as an elite sports prospect, Jawara Pedican shows the trials and traumas of becoming fixated on a dream of sports stardom. (2023)
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