Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude

young adult

Entertainment, It's Lit

'We Just Basically Share One Brain': The Root Presents: It’s Lit! Gets Collaborative With Maika and Maritza Moulite

If you weren’t one of the millions resigned to spend New Year’s Eve alone this year (thanks again, COVID), you may have placed special significance on who joined you to welcome in 2021, a year we hope will guide us out of the darkness, despair and disillusionment of that year (come through, Age of Aquarius!).…

By

Maiysha Kai

Published

January 1, 2021
Beauty + Style

The 'Costumes' We Wear

It’s the time of year where I try to decipher whether I’d prefer to channel my inner pumpkin or Catwoman. It’s always one of the two. I’ve never tried to dress up as anything else for Halloween. Though I’m in complete awe of people who get really creative and can make costumes, I’ve never been…

By

Maiysha Kai

Published

October 30, 2020
Entertainment, It's Lit

8 New Books to Pick Up for Kids and Young Adults (and Less Young Adults Who Like Young Adult Books)

It’s no secret that in recent years, the Young Adult—or “YA”—book category has been booming. But not everyone who browses young adult books is making a purchase for the teen or tween in their life. Half of these titles—some available for pre-order, some already on sale—are as excellent as reading choices for folks over 18…

By

Janelle Harris Dixon

Published

October 29, 2020
Beauty + Style

Thanks to This 16-Year-Old Author, Black Girls at Predominantly White Schools Are Telling Their Stories

If you’ve never been Black surrounded by a constant overwhelm of White—at school, your place of work, in your neighborhood—just know there can never be enough memoirs, screenplays or comedies to exhaust the complex experience. You are ever a racial ambassador, an explainer of non-white culturisms, a human Google for thoughtless questions, a pioneering barrier-breaker…

By

Janelle Harris Dixon

Published

October 9, 2020
Entertainment, Movies

Watch: The Sun Is Also A Star's Yara Shahidi Talks Destiny, Identity and Whether She Believes in Love at First Sight

Do you believe in love at first sight? In destiny? Star-crossed lovers? Well, The Sun Is Also A Star explores those very possibilities with two of the prettiest people in Hollywood. Per the film’s press release: College-bound romantic Daniel Bae and Jamaica-born pragmatist Natasha Kingsley meet—and fall for each other—over one magical day amidst the…

By

Tonja Renée Stidhum

Published

May 6, 2019
Entertainment, Movies

The Hate U Give Aims to Create Empathy While Offering a Portrait of Why Black Lives Matter

The Hate U Give is a New York Times best-selling young adult novel by Angie Thomas that chronicles the life of Starr Carter, a 16-year-old who is from a poor, black neighborhood, but attends a fancy private school in the ‘burbs. One sad, fateful night, Starr’s best friend Khalil is shot and killed by a…

By

Danielle Young

Published

July 17, 2018