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Carmen Kynard

@ckdigidesign

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Educator. Designer. Devotee of Black Radical Traditions & Black Feminisms... remixed with Black Visual Stylings.

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I pledged to read 125 books in 2025 and I did (more than that actually, but many were short novellas). Before January 1, 2025 dropped, I knew I needed an escape and otherwiseworld to make it through the chaos. I always read a lot of academic articles and non-fiction for the classes I teach every semester, so I didn’t count that in my 125 goal. If BlackBookTok, BlackBookStagram, BlackAFReaders, ReadingAppCousins, or my BookClubFam started hyping any messy, dramatic, foolish, WTF-Did-I-Just-Read typa title in 2025, I MOST DEFINITELY read that book! Even though the rest of the U.S.A. might be out here struggling to read and comprehend basic words, BLACK WOMEN IS OUT HERE R.E.A.D.I.N.G. up a storm. Count me in that number!

My favorite read of 2025 was The Reformatory by Tananarive Due. My other top favorites for 2025 are: Black Girl Unlimited (Echo Brown); The Day God Saw Me As Black (Danyelle Thomas); Empire of AI (Karen Hao); Ring Shout (P. Djélí Clark), Son of the Morning (Akwaeke Emezi); and Zeal (Morgan Jerkins).

Monday’s Not Coming by YA author Tiffany Jackson was also a 2025 favorite. I read all of Jackson’s books this year and fell in love with The Weight of Blood, Let Me Hear a Rhyme, Grown, Allegedly, and Storm: Dawn of a Goddess.

The King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby was another favorite. I read all of Cosby’s books in 2025, but I started with King so it will always be most memorable (cuz it was a WILD ride).

And lest folx think I’m playin about my love of urban fiction, one title also made my all-time fave list: Demon’s Dream: An Expected Love by Elle Kayson. Elle did that– all 750 pages! Demon is forever my bookbae. IYKYK!

Let’s see if I can read 126 books this year so that I can sustain my mind and soul again! Television is getting whiter and so are movies and so are school curricula and so is Twitter and so is Nicki Minaj and so is GenAI and etcetera. As the elders would say: all you gotta do is STAY BLACK. I’m reading my way onwards. More details of the full 125+ books are at carmenkynard.org by @ckdigidesign

(Books 21-30) The grades are in and the semester is officially over. I’ll close by sharing this semester’s YA novels. My graduate class centered 30+ Black Speculative Young Adult (YA) novels across two weeks. Black YA AfroFuturism is where I see possibility and shape/place-shifting. There are now so many fabulous Black Speculative YA books that I had to narrow the choices down by focusing only on Black Speculative YA books that intersect with stories of schooling.

*All starred books are texts in the series not out yet or that I haven’t read yet, so, sorry, can’t tell you nuthing about those yet. Full list/slideshow is at: carmenkynard.org

#BlackYALiterature #BlackMagicalYouth by @ckdigidesign

(Books 11-20) The grades are in and the semester is officially over. I’ll close by sharing this semester’s YA novels. My graduate class centered 30+ Black Speculative Young Adult (YA) novels across two weeks. Black YA AfroFuturism is where I see possibility and shape/place-shifting. There are now so many fabulous Black Speculative YA books that I had to narrow the choices down by focusing only on Black Speculative YA books that intersect with stories of schooling.

*All starred books are texts in the series not out yet or that I haven’t read yet, so, sorry, can’t tell you nuthing about those yet. Full list/slideshow is at: carmenkynard.org

#BlackYALiterature #BlackMagicalYouth by @ckdigidesign

(Books 1-10) The grades are in and the semester is officially over. I’ll close by sharing this semester’s YA novels. My graduate class centered 30+ Black Speculative Young Adult (YA) novels across two weeks. Black YA AfroFuturism is where I see possibility and shape/place-shifting. There are now so many fabulous Black Speculative YA books that I had to narrow the choices down by focusing only on Black Speculative YA books that intersect with stories of schooling.

*All starred books are texts in the series not out yet or that I haven’t read yet, so, sorry, can’t tell you nuthing about those yet. Full list/slideshow is at: carmenkynard.org

#BlackYALiterature #BlackMagicalYouth by @ckdigidesign

This is the last of "A Zine Per Day"! The final Zine 10 was created by Kellan @kellansvinyl in honor of the book, The Trouble With Black Boys...And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education, by Pedro Noguera. These are a few of my fave pages. For more of Kellan’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-the-trouble-with-black-boys.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.

#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign

A Zine Per Day Continues! This is day 9 of 10. Zine 9 was created by Amanda in honor of the book, Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language & Race in the U.S., by H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman. These are a few of my fave pages. For more of Amanda’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-articulate-while-black.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.

#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign

A Zine Per Day Continues! This is day 8 of 10. Zine 8 was created by Sarah @sarah.jamnik in honor of the book, Young, Gifted & Black: Promoting High Achievement among African American Students, by Theresa Perry, Claude Steele, and Asa Hilliard. These are a few of my fave pages. For more of Sarah’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-young-gifted--black.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.

#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign

A Zine Per Day Continues! This is day 7 of 10. Zine 7 was created by Renee in honor of the book, Black Teachers on Teaching, by Michele Foster. These are a few of my fave pages. For more of Renee’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-black-teachers-on-teaching.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.

#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign

A Zine Per Day Continues! This is day 6 of 10. Zine 6 was created by Omar and Rachel ( @omar.serna123 ) in honor of the book, Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, by the father and son team, John Rickford and Russell Rickford. These are a few of my fave pages. For more of Omar and Rachel’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-spoken-soul.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.

#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign

A Zine Per Day Continues! This is day 5 of 10. Zine 5 was created by Deja in honor of the book, A Voice from the South, by Anna Julia Cooper. Let’s take it back to 1892! These are a few of my fave pages. For more of Deja’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-a-voice-from-the-south.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.

#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign

A Zine Per Day Continues! This is day 4 of 10. Zine 4 was created by Alexis @a.davjs in honor of the book, The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double Dutch to Hip Hop, by Kyra Gaunt. These are a few of my fave pages. For more of Alexis’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-the-games-black-girls-play.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.
#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign

A Zine Per Day Continues! This is day 3 (of 10). Zine 3 was created by Chris @drifty_p in honor of the book, Word from the Mother: The Language of Black America, by none-other than Geneva Smitherman. These are a few of my fave pages from Chris’s “Nuthin But a G Thang”! For more of Chris’s zine-flipbook, you gotta go to: https://www.fugitivelearning.com/canon-word-from-the-mother.html

*In my grad class, we read 100s of newly pubbed articles on the rhetorics and histories of Black Education. Tracing the full intellectual and political tradition of Black Education is IMPOSSIBLE though. So various zines are dotted across the course website created by graduate students, like this one, to honor the canons/cannons and classics we need to know. It’s a way to focus on the newest scholarship without erasing deeply entrenched Black intellectual genealogies as white curricula so often do.
#SemesterWrapUp #BlackEducationCanons #BlackZineADayKeepsTheIgnoranceAway #EachOneTeachOne by @ckdigidesign