Chidiogo Akunyili-Parr 

I Am Because We Are: An African Mother’s Fight for the Soul of a Nation (House of Anansi, 2022)

"On the journey of piecing together her truth, I discovered that strength and pain are mirrors of one another, for strength grows to protect from pain, and pain builds strength."

{https://www.instagram.com/p/Cfork1UukDd/}

Otoniya J. Okot Bitek

A is for Acholi (Wolsak & Wynn, 2022)

“A is for the apple that was lobbed at us from a garden far away & exploded in our compound.”

Dionne Brand      

Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems (Penguin Random House Canada, 2022)

An immense achievement, comprising a decades-long career– new and collected poetry from one of Canada’s most honoured and significant poets.

Kern Carter      

Boys and Girls Screaming (DCB Young Readers, 2022)

"In our names alone, our mother created her own epic."

{https://www.instagram.com/p/ClROMKbrSx0/}

Jillian Christmas      

The Magic Shell (Flamingo Rampant, 2022)

Auntie entrusts Pigeon Pea with a magic cowrie shell that whisks them back in time and across continents to visit with their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers and others.

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CPTmzbZMntx/} 

Andrea A. Davis, PhD      

Horizon, Sea, Sounds: Caribbean and African Women’s Cultural Critiques of Nation (Northwestern University Press, 2022)

“And so, in this book I ask how we might reconsider the terms of the Canadian nation-state and Black women’s relationship to it.” 

Matthew Dawkins      

Until we Break (Wattpad, 2022)     

“But, these days, Naomi was beginning to realize that silence didn't necessarily mean peace. Some silences were wars.”

{https://www.instagram.com/p/Ciuub3dLJwk/}

Zetta Elliott      

The Witch's Apprentice (Random House Children’s Books, 2022)

Said by Quayesha when Jax asks her if it's dangerous to be a Black witch: “Women like us always pay a price for having too much power."

{https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl6KRLIuLi_/}

Deborah Falaye      

Blood Scion (HarperTeen, 2022)

“You have to decide what matters most: your humanity or your survival.” 

{https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjs-avtLGkx/}

Michael Fraser      

The Day-Breakers (Biblioasis, 2022)

In The Day-Breakers, Michael Fraser imagines the selflessness of Black soldiers who fought for the Union during the American Civil War, of whom hundreds were Black Canadians, fighting for the freedom of their brethren and the dawning of a new day.

Anais Granofsky      

The Girl in the Middle: Growing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor (HarperCollins Canada, 2022)

2022 Ontario Speaker's Book Award

With compassion and vivid storytelling, Granofsky shares her experience of living in opposite worlds, and demonstrates how generational shame, grief and prejudice ultimately lead to love and forgiveness.

Shauntay Grant      

My Fade is Fresh (Penguin Random House, 2022, illustrated by Kitt Thomas)

“Yesterday at 10 o'clock I walked into the barbershop / My busy browning biggish hair was growing almost everywhere!” 

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CkcUPRpLlWq/}

Wes Hall      

No Bootstraps When You’re Barefoot: My Rise from a Jamaican Plantation Shack to the Boardrooms of Bay Street (Random House Canada, 2022)

From one of Canada's most successful business leaders, the founder of the BlackNorth Initiative and the newest and first Black Dragon in the Dragon's Den comes a rags-to-riches story that also carries a profound message of hope and change.

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CkbUqF7p5CN/}

Lawrence Hill      

Beatrice and Croc Harry (HarperCollins Canada, 2022)

So begins the adventure of a brave and resilient Black girl’s search for identity and healing in bestselling author Lawrence Hill’s middle-grade debut.

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CYmVA7Bp90K/}

Natalie Hodgson and Rajean Willis      

Water Love (Plum Leaf, 2022, illustrated by Sahle Robinson)

“Miss Meia always bringin' somethin' new / North Preston Surf Program / Black kids swimmin', conquerin' fears of water

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CeRY5SDpPbE/}

Tajja Isen      

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service (Penguin Random House Canada, 2022)

Some of My Best Friends is interested in the gaps between what we say and what we do; what we do and what we value; what we value and what we imagine to be possible.       

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CgNJnNjuOUW/}

Carl E. James, PhD and Leanne Taylor, PhD      

First-Generation Student Experiences in Higher Education: Counterstories (Routledge, 2022)

“Education will get you to the station. While little education will get you near the station [like high school], the more education you get, gets you to the platform.”       

Michele Johnson, PhD and Funké Aladejebi, PhD (Ed.)      

Unsettling the Great White North: Black Canadian History (University of Toronto Press, 2022)

2022 Best Edited Collection Book Prize Award from the Canadian Studies Network 

"This collection foregrounds the multiplicity of Black experiences in Canada and challenges any conception of Blackness/es in Canada as linear, unchanging homogenous, and recent.”

Michele Johnson, PhD (Ed.)      

Louise and Jamiekan Langwij: Commemorations and Critical Perspectives (African World Press, 2022)

“This work honours the contributions of Louise Bennett-Coverley – creator, performer and icon of Jamaican culture – and assesses the evolution, impact and international influence of the Jamiekan Langwij (Jamaican Language) that Bennett championed during her remarkable career.”

El Jones      

Abolitionist Intimacies (Fernwood, 2022)

“Abolition is not only a political movement to end prisons; it is also an intimate one deeply motivated by love.”

Kevin Heron Jones      

Not Talking About You (Lorimer, 2022)

“I wasn’t talking about you. You’re not one of them. You’re different. We’re friends.”

{https://www.instagram.com/p/ClNS8htstv3/}

Bushra Junaid 

The Possible Lives of WH, Sailor (Running the Goat, 2022)

“What truths would you utter from your mouth / If you could tell us your story, / Something of your history?”

{https://www.instagram.com/p/ClrgB-APfp-/}

Chelene Knight      

Junie (Bookhug, 2022)

"Junie is a book that asks the world to slow down and pay attention to the living and loving around all of us, and that love can be reimagined, rebirthed, and redefined."

Chad G. Lucas      

Let the Monster Out (Abrams, 2022)

"Fear can't win if you don't face it alone."

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CdrLKIUrFlu/}

Yolanda T. Marshall      

Christmas Elves Being Themselves! (Chalkboard, 2022)

This is a Christmas story which encourages children to be their merriest selves.

Hot Cross Buns for Everyone (Chalkboard, 2022)

This book features the joy of community and a shared understanding of food.

{https://www.instagram.com/p/Clcr61RAhgR/}

Janice Lynn Mather

Uncertain Kin (Penguin Random House Canada, 2022)

“Let it find every dark corner of my home.” 

Suzette Mayr      

The Sleeping Car Porter (Coach House Books, 2022)

2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize      

“R. T. Baxter, dentist-to-be, man who longs to lance gums and extract pathological third molars, standing      here, next to this train, caught in this hurricane.”

{https://www.instagram.com/p/ChC2yg_ricD/}

Louisa Onomé      

Twice as Perfect (Feiwel & Friends, 2022)

"I'm tired of being better. I am better already. I want to be happy, too."

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CgfBDHcJ0er/}

Cadence Weapon a.k.a Rollie Pemberton      

Bedroom Rapper: Cadence Weapon on Hip Hop, Resistance and Surviving the Music Industry. (Penguin Random House, 2022)

 Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what’s happened in the last two decades of hip-hop.

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CejiTB9peu6/}

Rahma Rodaah      

Dear Black Child (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 2022, illustrated by Lydia Mba)

“Dear Black Child, the universe is vast, so take up as much space as you can.” 

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CjDzoYWJj57/}

Jael Richardson      

Because You Are (HarperCollins Canada, 2022, illustrated by Nneka Myers)

“You are just right, just enough, as you are.”

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CgeX2COgu0N/}

Liselle Sambury      

Blood Like Fate (Simon & Schuster, 2022)

“My choices have the power to change futures.  I just never thought they would make mine worse.”

{https://www.instagram.com/p/ChCf2fZLl_R/}

Olive Senior      

Hurricane Watch: New and Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2022)

Hurricane Watch collects Olive’s four books of poetry alongside new work written during the pandemic.

Sadé Smith      

Granny’s Kitchen (Feiwel and Friends/MacKids, 2022)

“Gyal, you betta can cook!” 

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CjvRWgauUAt/}

Tasha Spillett-Sumner      

Beautiful You, Beautiful Me (Owlkids, 2022), illustrated by Salini Perera

“I’m a part of you, and you’re a part of me. I'm beautiful like me, and you’re beautiful like you.”

{https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck06JuMA2AS/}

Tanya Turton      

Jade is A Twisted Green (Dundurn, 2022)

"She was not home, nor was she supposed to feel like it, but this mundane fact of her being an intentional visitor brought her the solace she needed to lie a few extra minutes, eyes closed, air warm, letting the sun make love to her melanin."       

{https://www.instagram.com/p/CidEjDzuEOp/}