B&N using AI to pick books for their blackface stunt is adding insult to injury -- they didn't even bother to pay a human to choose books somewhat intelligently. I see "The Secret Garden" is one of the books they chose, and the protagonist there is very explicitly white. She's a spoiled child of English colonizers, and has has been raised by Indian servants who she sees as inferior because of their race, and that's a significant aspect of who she is at the beginning of the book.
Tor has posted a recommendation list of
23 Retellings of Classic Stories From Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors which I'm pretty sure is a comment to Barnes and Noble's stupid stunt, and a good example of what they could and should have done. (I'm not sure if all of those books have authors or protagonists of color, but I think most of them do.)