Toni Morrison

Enslow's African-American Biographies series is a consistent school-library workhorse, and Toni Morrison — Nobel laureate, Random House editor, champion of Black literary voices — is exactly the kind of figure middle-grade students should encounter. The writing is accessible, the photographs are included, and the achievement arc is inspiring. The brevity leaves Morrison's actual novels underexplored, but that is a feature of the series format, not a failure of this book.