Read Africa

Read Africa is a program co-sponsored by Africa Access and the Center for African Studies at Howard University. Read Africa promotes accurate, balanced books that have been vetted by African Studies scholars. Our titles help expand American perspectives on Africa by promoting books that are country specific, avoid stereotypical portrayals and generic images of Africa, and highlight African agency and solutions.

Read Africa 2025

In February 2025, as part of the Read Africa 2025 program, educators and librarians in the DC Metro area received free books when they committed to sharing Read Africa books! This program has come to an end.

Read Africa Aloud is a project which features author readings of outstanding books on Africa together with classroom applications and fun activities for children.

The World Area Book Awards sponsor webinars on books recognized by one of the awards. The series of webinars is called Global Read Webinar Series. Each webinar features a presentation by an award-winning author with discussion on how to incorporate multicultural literature into the classroom.

Americans often have limited knowledge about Africa. Accurate, balanced books can change and expand what we know, think and feel about Africa. Here are books that have been vetted by African Studies scholars.