Finding Langston

Written by Lesa Cline-Ransome

It's 1946. Langston's mother has just died, and now they're leaving the rest of his family and friends. He misses everything–Grandma's Sunday suppers, the red dirt roads, and the magnolia trees his mother loved.

In the city, they live in a small apartment surrounded by noise and chaos. It doesn't feel like a new start, or a better life. At home he's lonely, his father always busy at work; at school he's bullied for being a country boy.

But Langston's new home has one fantastic thing. Unlike the whites-only library in Alabama, the Chicago Public Library welcomes everyone. There, hiding out after school, Langston discovers another Langston–a poet whom he learns inspired his mother enough to name her only son after him.

Book 1 of 3: The Finding Langston Trilogy

A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
Winner of the 2019 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction
A Junior Library Guild selection and An ILA Teacher's Choice Title