The summer months are a time to slow down, take our time, and enjoy some of life’s simple luxuries. For me, that means delving into a good book — especially one with an interesting author, backstory, or connection to something important and/or unexpected.
You know how they say once you buy a car in a certain color, you start seeing that same car all the time? That has happened with me and books lately, with three of the last five books I’ve read having some connection to Howard University, which inspired this particular list of recommendations. While not an exhaustive list (we hope you’ll help us compile a more complete one!), the below includes a few tidbits on several books either authored by HU alumni, or which take place on its campus.
To be inspired.
HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience
Edited and Introduced by Journalist Ayesha Rascoe (BA ’07)
“HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience” is a collection of essays by 17 well-known professionals representing various industries and arts forms, all of whom are esteemed alumni of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Edited and introduced by National Public Radio Journalist and Howard University alumni Ayesha Rascoe, each essay details the unique college experience of its author — from media icon Oprah Winfrey, to journalist April Ryan and musician Bradford Marsalis — offering insight on how they chose their institution, what it was like to walk its grounds, and how their education impacted and shaped the people they have become.
In the introduction, Rascoe explains that despite being a shy and introverted middle schooler, she decided she was going to be a journalist when she grew up. Though she earned entry into the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and visited her mother’s (and some of her sibling’s) HBCU Winston-Salem State University, she wanted to attend a school with “brand recognition,” and to her, that meant Howard University. Her account of the first time she saw and walked the Yard is a perfect introduction to a book full of similar firsts from the other HBCU alumni in the collection: watching sororities and fraternities stroll for the first time, experiencing a marching band, seeing a sea of students (and faculty) who looked like them, and much more. What was it like for comedian and actor Roy Wood Jr. to attend Florida A&M University (FAMU) where his parents met, and why did author Nicole Perkins choose Dillard University despite full scholarships to Texas Southern University and FAMU? Read their personal and important accounts in the book Rascoe called “well overdue” during a February 2024 interview at DC Public Library.
During the interview, conducted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, and founder of Howard University’s Center for Journalism and Democracy Nikole Hannah-Jones, Rascoe said that when publisher Algonquin Books approached her about the collection, she was shocked that one didn’t exist. “They said that no major publishing company had the stories of HBCU graduates in their own words, talking about the importance of these institutions,” she explained, noting that the existence of such a book should have been done long ago, and though she was busy as the newly appointed host of Weekend Edition, she knew she needed to do it.
“I wanted this book to be that love song, that love letter to HBCUs.”
“I thought about how Howard had impacted my life and how it had really set me on a course. And then I thought about all these people from all of these different generations and different career paths … how all of these people had gotten their start at HBCUs and how the world is better for it,” said Rascoe. “I wanted this book to be that love song, that love letter to HBCUs.”
Watch the Interview:
For a coming-of-age tale with elements of family disfunction, classism, and womanhood in the 1950s.
The House of Eve
Set in the 1950s, “The House of Eve” takes readers on a journey from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., following the stories of two young women navigating themes of womanhood, including becoming a mother, chasing one’s dreams, and falling in love.
Fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to become the first in her family to attend college, but along the way falls in love with a local Jewish boy. Their “taboo love affair” and resulting pregnancy threatens her plans to move beyond the poverty and desperation she experiences at home. Eleanor Quarles from Ohio arrives in D.C. with “ambition and secrets,” meeting the handsome William Pride at Howard University and falling madly in love with the medical student. However, William’s affluent parents, described as part of the city’s Black elites, don’t exactly accept the young woman into their hearts or their exclusive community. Eleanor hopes that a baby will change things. The stories of these two women intertwine and collide in surprising ways, leading both women to make decisions that “shape the trajectory of their lives.”
“It’s an epic love story filled with lots of twists and turns, and lots of ‘isms,” said author Sadeqa Johnson during a 2023 interview at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. When asked about the origins of the story, the New York Times best-selling author said she drew inspiration for her teenaged main character from her own family. Johnson’s grandmother birthed her mother at 15, resulting in a complex relationship between the women. Explaining that the topic wasn’t discussed in the family, it made the author want to examine the themes at work in such dynamics. “I started thinking about shame and secrecy, and what this sort of thing does to the mother-daughter relationship,” she said, acknowledging the love the women had for each other, but that there still was a “tumultuous turmoil between them” that she couldn’t figure out.
“I started the House of Eve with the question of ‘what if?’ What if my grandmother had other opportunities when she became pregnant as a teenager? What would those opportunities look like and how had her life been different? That was the beginning for me,” said Johnson.
Read this novel and delve into what it meant to be a Black woman and a mother in the 1950s (and maybe contemplate what’s changed and what hasn’t), and explore themes of sacrifice and social status, as well as the other challenges facing Black women during this era.
Watch the Interview:
For lovers of magic and folklore — with a side of historical realism.
Monsters We Defy
Set in 1925, a young D.C. woman living on “Black Broadway” — today known as U Street — can communicate with spirits. This “gift” that once saved her life comes with a “trick,” a curse that makes 23-year-old Clara Johnson unable to turn away those seeking her help. A mother asks Clara to consult the spirits for help with her son, seemingly under a curse of his own, only for people from the community to start to disappear. Indebted to a Spirit who offers her a way to her freedom and perhaps to the bottom of what’s happening in D.C., Clara jumps at the chance, not realizing that her task — stealing an ancient, magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the city — will require the help of an unlikely group of friends and allies.
“Monsters We Defy,” written by Leslye Penelope, who studied film production and computer science at Howard University, is a historical fantasy novel with elements of mystery interwoven. In pursuit of the ring, Clara partners with Israel Lee, a supernaturally enhanced jazz musician indebted to his own Spirit who also wants the ring. They enlist the help of Clara’s former circus freak roommate, a pickpocketing Pullman Porter, and a vaudeville actor. The crew’s plots take them all over the city, including a professor’s office at Howard.
Penelope, who also writes as L. Penelope, is an award-winning author of fantasy and paranormal romance. Her debut novel, “Song of Blood & Stone,” was selected as one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time,” while “Monsters We Defy” won the 2023 Audie Award for Best Fantasy Audiobook. During a 2023 interview on the “Between the Reads” podcast, Penelope discussed the real-life Clara Johnson who inspired the main character in her book. During her research, she came across an article in the Washington Post about D.C.’s 1919 riots and the real Clara (whom the author explained went by Carrie), who was just 17 years old at the time. Police stormed her home and entered her bedroom where Clara and her father were hiding. “Both of them were armed, so when the police started shooting, they shot back,” said Penelope, explaining that while both Clara and her father were wounded, Clara shot a white police detective. Although she was initially charged and convicted with manslaughter, the second judge on her appeal allowed her to plead self-defense and she was freed, over a year later.
“When she was first arrested, the Black community did rally around her,” said Penelope. “There were fundraisers in the community, not just in D.C, but all over. Black newspapers all around were talking about this 17-year-old girl and so she became sort of minor celebrity, and after she’s released, she kind of fades into history.” While she tried to find out what happened to Clara, the author found no clear answers, and was reminded of more recent examples of Black women facing gunfire from police officers. “Obviously it reminded me of Breanna Taylor and other Black women who have been killed by police, in their own homes, and this is just a situation where it turned out differently. She was able to fight back. The whole story of the D.C. riots were Black people fighting back,” Penelope said.
Penelope makes a magical heroine out of a Black woman, immortalizing Clara Johnson and by extension other Black women too often forgotten by history. Weaving together African American folk magic, fantasy, history, and romance, “The Monsters We Defy” is the perfect summer read for those who like a little history with their fantasy.
Watch the Interview:
For a mystery with a subject that hits close to home.
Monday’s Not Coming
by Tiffany D. Jackson (BA ’04)
“When your whole world goes missing … it plagues you.”
Howard alumni Tiffany D. Jackson based her fictional thriller Monday’s Not Coming in D.C. The novel takes you into the life of Claudia Coleman, who is struggling with the disappearance of her best friend Monday Charles.
When the young woman Claudia considers a sister doesn’t show up for the first day of school, she’s understandably worried — though others don’t seem to notice. When the first day turns into the second day, and the first week into the second week, Claudia becomes convinced something bad has happened. Claudia knows Monday wouldn’t desert her, especially now, and despite Monday’s family’s refusal to give her straight answers, the girl begins digging into the disappearance on her own. The more she digs and discovers, the less the people around her can remember about the last time they saw Monday. The book questions, “How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?”
Inspired by personal experience and driven by the tendency for missing Black girls to receive less media coverage than their white counterparts, Jackson said she wrote “Monday’s Not Coming” after recalling a time when her best friend Tara was out of school due to an injury and she realized that Tara was her only friend, and a big part of her world. “When children go missing, what do their best friends do?” questioned Jackson in a 2018 Epic Reads video. Noting that she does a lot of research for books like this one, as it is loosely based on real life cases, Jackson spoke to lawyers, doctors, and social workers to “get the meat and background of a story.”
That research is evident in a book that not only focuses on the very real issue of missing children of color but also looks at the impact of gentrification on a community’s mental health. Read the New York Times bestselling novel described as “compelling, twisted, and grounded in an emotional reality.”
What the Video:
Honorable Mention
Though not specifically taking place on Howard’s campus, but on the campus of a fictionalized HBCU that includes references and imagery reminiscent of the University, “The Secret Life of Maggie Gray” is the first book in a series taking place at Drew Collins University, an underground institution founded during the civil rights era for magical beings of African American decent.
Maggie Grey tells a fantastical story one day: one that includes Black people who have magic, led by a man (and his family of vampires) who assaulted her grandmother many years ago. It’s a story she’s heard all her life, one she thought was about as true as the Easter bunny. Well, she soon learns the truth and is accepted into a magical HBCU where she befriends a witch, siren, nymph, talking cat named Quan, and a shapeshifting wolf who all change her life completely. The series follows Maggie and her friends as they discover more about who they are and the world around them (above and below), work to solve a murder, and begin to question and challenge the “First Family.”
The series is by up-and-coming author Granger and includes two other books: Book 2: The First Family and Book 3: When a Wolf Loves the Moon.
What are you reading this summer? Share your summer reading list with us — especially those Howard University inspired, or alumni-authored finds and we’ll share them with the HU community.
Send your book recommendations to magazine@howard.edu.
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