The Tryout

Written by: Christina Soontornvat and Joanna Cacao

First line: Breathe... Just breathe...

Why you should read this book: This is a memoir that recounts the trauma of the author's experience. As one of two students of color in her suburban school, Christina has more than the usual reservations about starting middle school, but when she and her best friend Megan decide to try out for the cheerleading squad, she begins to develop a little optimism and self-esteem. Cheerleading is a lot of work, and as she trains, Christina starts to feel Megan slipping away from her, even as she develops a greater understanding of her own cultural heritage and her parents' struggles as a mixed-race couple. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You think more things ought to be popularity contests. 

Mr. Jimmy from around the Way

Written by: Jeffrey Blount

First line: She and her quiet sorrow were the beginning of his giving, nudging him quietly yet powerfully from his youthful preoccupations and awakening a long-forgotten oath.

Why you should read this book: James Ferguson, the wealthiest Black man in America, is a deeply ethical and honorable man, who keenly feels the disgrace of having the single (understandable) indiscretion he's committed in his entire life broadcast across social media. Fleeing to the poorest corner of Mississippi with his tail between his legs, he seeks to do penance for his sins by living in isolation like a hermit monk, until he happens to notice that the occupants of the other twenty-two houses on his street are afflicted with the most abject poverty imaginable in America. Then he uses his stellar work ethic and massive fortune to help his new neighbors while battling racists, classists, and his own demons. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's kind of hard to suspend disbelief; Mr. Jimmy is preternaturally saintly, his enemies are comically evil, and his solutions are all kind of magical. 

When the Schools Shut Down: A Young Girl's Story of Virginia's "Lost Generation" and the Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka Decision

Written by: Yolanda Gladden, Dr. Tamara Pizzoli, and Keisha Morris

Why you should read this book: This autobiographical picture book follows the experience of Yolanda Gladden, a Black girl born in segregated Topeka the year that Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional. When Yolanda is finally old enough to go to school, racist local lawmakers decide to fight integration by closing down all public schools. For five years, the Black community rallies to create their own grassroots school system where children like Yolanda are educated and learn to love learning for five years until another Supreme Court decision forces the community to reopen the public schools and remain integrated.

When Women Were Dragons

Written by: Kelly Barnhill

First line: Greetings, Mother— I do not have much time.

Why you should read this book: Over the course of a few hours in 1955, when Alex was still a little girl, hundreds of thousands of women suddenly, and, apparently, of their own volition, turned into large, beautiful, fearsome dragons (often devouring their male oppressors in the process) and flew away, leaving behind children, family, and the smouldering remains of their homes. Alex's mother isn't among the dragons, but her aunt is, and "dragon" becomes an especially dirty word, even as Alex's younger orphan cousin (who Alex is told in no uncertain terms has always been her sister) seems fascinated with a subject that no one ever, ever discusses. This novel by an award-winning fantasy author harnesses the power of women who are larger on the inside than the are on the outside, who have swallowed their rage for too long, and who are still realizing how much power they possess. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You might not find much to enjoy if you're some kind of misogynist.

Negroland: A Memoir

Written by: Margo Jefferson

First line: I was taught to avoid showing off.

Why you should read this book: In a prose memoir that reads like poetry, Jefferson recounts her own story, steeped in the influence of race, class, and gender, set in the context of her family and community and everything that came before her. Born in Chicago among the Black elite, she is taught from her earliest memories that she must be impeccable in word, deed, and appearance, to uphold the image projected by the privileged, perfected society that molded her: a group intentionally set apart from, and quietly superior to, other Black people along with all of white America. As she grows up through the civil rights movement and finds her own path and her own personality, the weight of inequality and expectations causes her to question and examine the principles of her own upbringing, her own individual identity, and her right to perfect imperfection.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your parents didn't raise you at all.

Buy Negroland: A Memoir here!

A Wish in the Dark

Written by: Christina Soontornvat

First line: A monster of a mango tree grew in the courtyard of Namwon Prison.

Why you should read this book: This is exactly the kind of story that modern readers of children's fantasy love: it's got magic mixed with realism, determined and admirable but flawed characters whose faults can be redeemed, a powerful message of social justice and equality, along with a compelling story set in a detailed and wonderful world. Pong is an orphan, born in Namwon Prison to a mother who died before he knew her, and it seems terribly unfair that the law requires him to stay in prison until he turns thirteen, and to be always branded with a mark that indicates he's been incarcerated. But the world outside Namwon Prison isn't any more fair, with the divide between rich and poor starkly delineated by their access to light, and when Pong finally finds his way out of prison, he must decide whether to protect himself from those who want to see him back in prison or use his talents to help others overcome impossible odds.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're still trying to prove your worth to your parents, or you just found out you're adopted.

Buy A Wish in the Dark here!

Junebug

Written by: Alice Mead

First line: I've got the sail hauled in tight.

Why you should read this book: Reeve McClain, Jr.—Junebug to his friends, family, and neighbors—dreams of sailing ships, but right now he's mostly concerned with the likelihood that he's going to be forced to join a gang, as happens to all the ten-year-old boys who live in his housing project. Junebug has a wish, and a plan to launch that wish into the universe, but he's got to contend with his negligent aunt and trouble with people in his neighborhood and taking care of his little sister, along with the possibility that his mother might take a better job that would force him to move and change schools and introduce a lot of uncertainty in his life. Fast-paced, high-interest, and charming.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are overly concerned with dumping in America's waterways. 

Words by Heart

Written by: Ouida Sebestyen

First line: Old Bullet had guessed they were going somewhere—Lena's folks—before they came out the door.

Why you should read this book: Lena is probably the smartest kid in school, but she's keenly aware that being the only Black family in town means that some people are going to have a problem with her success, even though her papa moved them from the deep south specifically for the better opportunities he thinks await the family out west. Papa is a "turn the other cheek" sort of guy, but Lena doesn't understand why she has to be the one to suffer and sacrifice for the pleasure of wealthy white people or the pettiness of poor ones. The world isn't fair, but Lena has her father's beliefs to guide her as she makes choices about how to live and what kind of person to be.

Why you shouldn't read this book: To be frank, while I get that the author is intent on making a point about Christian forgiveness, I think this is a pretty rough way to get there, and the fact that the author appears to be a white woman whose thesis is that young Black girls need to forgive unforgivably racist horror (literally by protecting criminal white people from the consequences of their actions) doesn't exactly sit well with me.  

From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

Written by: Gene Sharp

First line: One of my major concerns for many years has been how people could prevent and destroy dictatorships.

Why you should read this book: Based on a study of numerous countries that made a shift from dictatorship to democracy, Sharp outlines the process of employing proven tactics of nonviolent struggle to overthrow fascist regimes. His findings can be summarized in two words—solidarity and persistence—and the very short book does an excellent job of explaining how to employ these tactics, and why they work. The appendix comprises a list of 198 nonviolent actions that can be employed by the resistance to chip away at a regime's power, generate sympathy for the cause, and cause oppressive governments to crumble and cede power to the people.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You support a fascist dictator.

Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness

Written by: Anastasia Higginbottom

First line: When grown-ups try to hide scary things from kids...it's usually because they're scared too.

Why you should read this book: This book, written specifically for white children, begins to unpack the casual assumptions that lead to white people dismissing systemic racism, embracing "color blindness" as an alternative to confronting racism, and looking away from things that make them uncomfortable as acceptable responses to a problem they don't believe belongs to them. Racism, the little girl in this book comes to understand, is very much a white person's problem, and that ignoring it makes one complicit in inequality and human suffering. Understanding racism may feel uncomfortable, but, it is only the first step: opposing racism requires a series of conscious decisions to look at things that you might not want to see, be honest about truths that might be unpleasant, and to take action in the name of justice whenever and wherever the situation arises.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you think you definitely shouldn't read this book, you definitely should.

Stone Butch Blues

Written by: Leslie Feinberg

First line: Dear Theresa, I'm lying on my bed tonight missing you, my eyes all swollen, hot tears running down my face.

Why you should read this book: Jess Goldberg has always known herself to be different, assigned female at birth but never fulfilling the expectations the world around her held for girls. As a teenager, Jess discovers there are other people like her, and she begins frequenting gay bars and coming to understand her identity: she is a stone butch, a woman who loves women but doesn't present in a feminine way. In the years before the Stonewall Riot, and the decades before the AIDS crisis mobilized the community, Jess suffers every violation society has to offer women like her, but learns, through the pain, how to love others and, finally, how to love herself.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Violence, rape, homophobia, transphobia. It's a brutal narrative.

An American Marriage

Written by: Tayari Jones

First line: There are two kinds of people in the world, those who leave home and those who don't.

Why you should read this book: Roy and Celestial, a young, professional, newlywed couple, have suffered a few setbacks in their first year of marriage, but when Roy is falsely accused and convicted of rape and sentenced to twelve years in prison for being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time, their prospects appear truly bleak. The genius in this book, I think, is the author's use of voice: three separate character are portrayed through the use of first person narrative, with Roy and Celestial's voice changing and maturing over time, and an epistolary chapter comprising Roy's correspondence with his wife and family while incarcerated. In many ways it's an emotionally difficult story, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the payoff at the end, but it's incredibly well-written, provocative and realistic and heartbreaking.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't understand why anyone would ever leave home.

Each Kindness

Written by: Jacqueline Woodson

First line: That winter snow fell on everything, turning the world a brilliant white.

Why you should read this book: There's a sense of bittersweet nostalgia on every page, words and images, in the story of a little girl who rejects, out of hand, the new kid in school because her clothes are secondhand. Gradually, as the new girl, Maya, continues to make friendly overtures and the teacher speaks of kind acts, Chloe comes to regret her behavior, but by then it is too late. Maya has left the school, Chloe can never make up for her cruelness, and she must live with the consequences of her childish decisions.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You like being a snob and it never makes you feel bad about yourself.

Fagin the Jew

Written by: Will Eisner

First line: I was born Moses Fagin, the only son of Abraham and his wife, Rachael.

Why you should read this book: An older, wiser Eisner, toward the end of his life began to examine the racist stereotypes he employed during his career as a cartoonist, and sought to make amends by telling more honest stories about his own people, the Jews. In this unusual volume, he imagines a backstory for the villain Fagin in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, one that recognizes the difficulties of life in Dickensian England and the paucity of opportunities for most Jews. Fagin learns crime as a child because there is no other way to survive, and even when he tries to become an upstanding citizen, a single incident sends an otherwise kind, loving, and hardworking man into a life of constant wrongdoing, for lack of any other options in survival.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've never read Oliver Twist. 

In Real Life

Written by: Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang

First line: Anda, wake up!

Why you should read this book: Anda is a shy and nerdy teenager who begins to develop her own self-confidence when she’s invited to play as a team member in an online game, and offered missions that pay real life money. When she comes to understand that her online “enemies” are actually impoverished Chinese teenagers, working at the most boring part of the game to create in-game value that they can then sell to rich American gamers, she begins to develop a social conscious and an interest in helping others. Anda’s attempts to unionize the Chinese gamers backfires at first, but eventually things work out for the best.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: The feel-good ending seems a bit forced and unbelievable; it works out a little too easily considering things that could potentially happen to a poor Chinese teenager.

The One and Only Ivan

Written by: Katherine Applegate

First line: I am Ivan.

Why you should read this book: In this remarkable story, Ivan has come to terms with his status as a roadside attraction, a gorilla inhabiting an artificial domain in a circus-themed mall, whose best friends are an elderly elephant and a stray dog. But Stella, the elephant, has a chronic injury and the owner of the mall needs a new attraction, so he acquires Ruby, a baby elephant, who cannot accept her captivity as the other animals have, and whose future seems less certain and less comfortable. Ivan is determined to save Ruby, but if he is to have any hope of succeeding, he must find a way to communicate to humans the plight, and the needs, of wild animals living in captivity.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: It made me cry like crazy—way more of a tearjerker than Bridge to Terebithia—throughout the entire second half of the book.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture

Written by: Peggy Orenstein

First line: Here is my dirty little secret: as a journalist I have spent nearly two decades writing about girls, thinking about girls, talking about how girls should be raised.

Why you should read this book: Like many modern mamas, Orenstein thought she could shield her daughter from the pernicious effects of gender-based body and education issues, only to find that there is no escaping the culture at large and that her daughter would admire the Disney princesses without ever having watched a Disney film. She embarks on an in-depth examination of the commercialization of childhood, particularly as it pertains to girls' concepts of agency, self-image, achievement, and sexuality. From the Disney marketing machine and the American Girl flagship to toddler beauty pageants and social networking, Orenstein observes the way little girls are marketed to and (if the parents don't express their own values) molded by a materialist culture that seeks to commodify their innocence and profit from their insecurities.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your job involves figuring out how to make money from the natural proclivities of children.

Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and New England.

Edited by: Jack Zipes

First line: A long time ago in a kingdom by the sea there lived a Princess tall and bright as a sunflower.

Why you should read this book: There is extensive scholarly material included in the introduction and in part three, but most readers can glean the full force of the message by reading the tales, in which the girls and women take center stage, doing the questing, fighting, adventuring and thinking, wherever they need to be done. These princesses find that they can rescue their own princes, or that sometimes the princes aren't worth the bother and they should go off with some other man who appreciates them more, or that men in general aren't what they need at the moment, and they can find perfect happiness on their own. Some of the tales are better for younger readers, and others are more appropriate for a more mature audience, but they all envision a world where women take action, rather than waiting passively to become a prize for someone else.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Still waiting for your prince to come.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Written by: Gregory Maguire

First line: A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind's forward edge, as it she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.

Why you should read this book: I know I'm pretty late to the party, but I really adored this intense, imaginative work, which paints a full picture of the life of the so-called Wicked Witch of the West, who, in other works, tormented Dorothy during her journey through Oz. Glinda (bubble-headed and class-conscious, but essentially kind-hearted), the Wizard (cruel, calculating, amoral, and self-serving), and even the Wicked Witch of the East (crippled and full of pious self-righteousness) are given detailed treatments and complex personalities, but it is Elphaba, the green-skinned Animal-rights activist and lifelong outsider who becomes the most sympathetic protagonist. Civil rights, political machinations, religious argument, and, above all, a running discussion on the nature of good and evil are among the thought-provoking terrain covered in this ground-breaking fantasy novel.

Why you shouldn't read this book: For you, it was all about Judy Garland and those ruby slippers.

Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

Written by: Tracy Kidder

First line: Six years after the fact, Dr. Paul Edward Farmer reminded me, "We met because of a beheading, of all things."

Why you should read this book: In turn heartbreaking, inspiring, astonishing, painful, and eye-opening, this Pulitzer-winning book recounts the life and work of Dr. Paul Farmer, as seen through the eyes of writer Tracy Kidder, who accompanies him around the world, from Haiti to America to Peru to Russia and back to Haiti, documenting Farmer's determination to eradicate multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, AIDS, and any other disease that comes him way amidst populations that most of the planet has already decided should be allowed to die. Farmer's unrelenting work on behalf of the poorest and most downtrodden people of the world serves as a wake-up call that anyone, anywhere can make a difference if he or she is determined to change the world, and this book demonstrates how Farmer's advocacy for the poor has changed the world: building clinics and houses, cleaning up water supplies, and negotiating with the international groups that determine treatment protocols, distribute funds, and control drug prices. Kidder's sensitive reporting helps the average reader understand the mind of a nearly super-human genius, rendering his subject accessible and encouraging a little more compassion, understanding, and determination from his audience.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've already assuaged your white liberal guilt with your checkbook.