In Detroit, 1945, eleven-year-old Betty’s house doesn’t quite feel like home. She believes her mother loves her, but she can’t shake the feeling that her mother doesn’t want her. Church helps those worries fade, if only for a little while. Activists like Paul Robeson stir African Americans in her community to stand up for their rights. Betty finds purpose in volunteering for the Housewives League, which supports black-owned businesses. Soon, the American civil rights icon we now know as Dr. Betty Shabazz is born.
Inspired by Betty's real life - but expanded upon and fictionalized in collaboration with novelist Renée Watson - Ilyasah Shabazz illuminates four years in her mother’s childhood with this book, painting an inspiring portrait of a girl grappling with self-acceptance and belonging that will resonate with young readers today.
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Ilyasah Shabazz , third daughter of Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz, is an educator, activist, motivational speaker, and author of multiple award-winning publications, including X: A Novel . She is also an active advocacy worker and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
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RENEE WATSON is the Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award-winning author of the novels Piecing Me Together, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, Betty Before X, co-written with Ilyasah Shabazz, and two picture books: Harlem's Little Blackbird and A Place Where Hurricanes Happen. Renee is the founder of I, Too, Arts Collective, a nonprofit commi
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