Beverly Books | Red at the Bone: A Novel

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Red at the Bone: A Novel

Jacqueline Woodson

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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR.

“A spectacular novel that only this legend can pull off.”

—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST, in The Atlantic.

“An exquisite tale of family legacy….The power and poetry of Woodson’s writing conjures up Toni Morrison.”

— People

“In less than 200 sparsely filled pages, this book manages to encompass issues of class, education, ambition, racial prejudice, sexual desire and orientation, identity, mother-daughter relationships, parenthood and loss….With Red at the Bone, Jacqueline Woodson has indeed risen—even further into the ranks of great literature.”

—NPR

“This poignant tale of choices and their aftermath, history and legacy, will resonate with mothers and daughters.”

—Tayari Jones, bestselling author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE, in O Magazine.

An unexpected teenage pregnancy pulls together two families from different social classes and explores their histories—reaching back to the Tulsa race massacre of 1921—and exposes the private hopes, disappointments, and longings that can bind or divide us from each other, from the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming.

Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson's taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child.

As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony—a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody's family—reaching back to the Tulsa race massacre in 1921—to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history.

As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives—even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.

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Posts about this title from Beverly Books

Beverly Books\ \ Kristian\ \ • Mar 26 2025

Audiobooks you need for Black History Month

Looking for books to listen to during #blackhistorymonth (or the other 11 months?) Here’s a range of genres from many talented authors that are so worth reading. All of these books are fantastic. Escape into other worlds or brush up on history—there’s something for everyone! Check out each author’s backlist and you’re set. :)

All audiobooks I received through @librofm Audible got nothing on them!

18 books

Posts about this book from across Bindery

Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • May 8

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💭 do you have a favorite book dedication?

recommending books i enjoyed using their dedications (part two)!

📚 books mentioned: - I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea - Lucha of the Night Forest by Tehlor Kay Mejia - Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar - These Vengeful Gods by Gabe Cole Novoa - The Black Girl Survives in This One, edit by Desiree S. Evans - Conditions of a Heart by Bethany Mangle - Transmogrify!: 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic: An LGBTQ+ Young Adult Fantasy Anthology of Unforgettable Adventures, edited by g. haron davis - A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper - Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson - We Have Reached the End of Our Show by Ali Gordon - Nimona by N.D. Stevenson - The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong

👗💄: - dress is from Mac Duggal, rented from Nuuly - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)

thank you to Get Underlined, HarperCollins, Saga Press, Wildling Press, and Berkley Pub for the gifted copies!

#bookrecsfromdedications #bookdedications #bookrecs #nycinfluencer #bookstagram @fiercereads @getunderlined @knopfyoungreaders @flatiron_books @simonteen @harpercollins @sagapressbooks @riverheadbooks @wildlingpress @acebookspub @berkleypub @macduggal

book dedications • recommending books based on their dedications • book dedication recs • horror books • fantasy books • science fiction books • literary fiction • unique books • diverse books • Fierce Reads • Make Me A World • Knopf • Flatiron • Simon Teen • Riverhead Books • ACE Books

12 books

Beverly Books\ \ Kristian\ \ • Mar 26 2025

Audiobooks you need for Black History Month

All audiobooks I received through @librofm Audible got nothing on them!

18 books

Sapph-Lit\ \ Nina\ \ • Feb 10 2025

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Happy Black History Month from Sapph-Lit 💗

Remember that Black history is also American history, it doesn’t stop & start in just one month. These books are for every month of every year! Read up, open your purse, and buy titles you’re interested in from indie bookstores 🫡✨

48 books

Sapph-Lit\ \ Nina\ \ • Nov 7 2024

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If you’ve been on BookTok in the last few days, I’m sure you’ve seen the several few accounts talking about how we should keep politics out of the BookTok space. I won’t give you their account names, their full arguments, because frankly they don’t deserve the time of day, but I want to be crystal fucking clear: Reading is political. It has always been political.\ \ Anti-literacy laws made it illegal for enslaved and free people of color to read or write. Between 1740 to 1867, it was illegal to even teach POC to read or write.\ \ Why? Because to read is to inform. To learn. To uplift and expand. To liberate. Literacy and education was, and still is, a threat to white heteropatriarchy.\ \ In 2023 alone, the American Library Association (ALA) tracked 4,240 unique titles of books that faced censorship attempts, a 92% increase from the year prior. This does not include what’s called “soft censorship,” where “books are purchased but placed in restricted areas, not used in library displays, or otherwise hidden or kept off limits due to fear of challenges illustrate the impact of organized censorship campaigns on students’ and readers’ freedom to read.” This is just the tip of the iceberg, because many book challenges are not even reported to the ALA.\ \ Of these 4,240 books, “titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts.”\ \ 47% PERCENT. The most challenged reportedly being the incredible memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kebab.\ \ Project 2025 holds extreme views about book bans. It is an extension of arguments we've already se en: that all LGBTQ content is pornography; that all the people who make it are pedophiles; that the teachers and librarians who allow kids access to LGBTQ books are groomers. This is where those arguments lead. First Amendment rights will not apply, meaning we will no longer have freedom of speech to protect us.\ \ According to the New York Times, researchers surveyed 1,300 U.S. library workers in 2022, who reported that they had "experienced more than 8,000 incidents that the researchers labeled traumatic, such as threats, assault or harassment. The library workers also cited other stressors that made their jobs more difficult, including conflicts with library administrators, aging buildings and the fallout over book bans."\ **Libraries are meant to be a safe space, but because of book bans and budget cuts (hello Eric Adams!) our libraries are threatened. **Brooklyn Public Library founded Books Unbanned in 2022 to support the rights of teens nationwide to read what they like, form their own opinions, and work together with peers across the nation to defend and expand the freedom to read. Student aged (13-26) U.S. residents can get digital library card full access to a number of libraries so they can read banned books no matter where they live.\ \ In publishing Sapph-Lit books, in sharing sapphic stories and celebrating queer joy and supporting LGBTQIA+ authors, we are engaging in a political act. \ \ Below are some of my favorite banned books. Which is your favorite?\ \ 01. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison\ 02. Beloved by Toni Morrison\ 03. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky\ 04. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Johnson\ 05. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls\ 06. Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien\ 07. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins\ 08. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silver\ 09. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini\ 10. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel\ 11. The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones\ 12. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel\ 13. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender\ 14. Critical Race Theory by Kimberle Crenshaw\ 15. Persepolis by Maryjane Satrapi\ 16. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison\ 17. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou\ 18. Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo\ 19. Red at the Bone by Jaqueline Woodson\ 20. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Reading is Political

Duh. But especially now that I run a sapphic publishing imprint.

8 books

Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Sep 21 2024

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banned books week

please read & support banned books and the freedom to read this Banned Books Week and beyond!

1 book