A couple of months ago, novice author Kim Reid edged out Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jim Sheeler to win the Colorado Book Award, as New West Books & Writers notes. “No Place Safe: A Family Memoir” recalls Reid at 13, when her mother, an investigator in Atlanta, probed the murders of up to 21 black children between 1979 and 1981.

This week, The Washington Post suggests several books, including Reid’s, to complete the celebration of December as National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month.

“Kids should never have to talk about how they’d defend themselves if a killer ever tried to get them, but we talked about it,” Reid says, adding that her childhood was abbreviated as a result. Reid, a physics research assistant, is working on her next book.