Closer

Written by: Mirian Gershow

First line:

Why you should read this book: The impacts of several crude racist incidents at an Oregon high school ripple through the community, causing a series of unexpected outcomes. We view the incidents and their fallout through three sets of eyes: Woody is the school guidance counselor who desperately wants to help his students and address the problems in his school, but has no idea how, Stephanie is the mother of the bullied student, overburdened with other worries and responsibilities, and Lark is the girl whose best friend's life is the most changed. Everybody makes mistakes, but some people pay more dearly than others. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It just seems problematic to me for a white woman to write a novel about racism that centers around how racism impacts white people. 

In the Beautiful Country

Written by: Jane Kuo

First line: I am leaving the only home I've ever known.

Why you should read this book: Anna's parents want to leave Taiwan and immigrate to America so she can have a better life, but once she arrives, Anna questions how the "Beautiful Country" can ever provide her with a better life than she had at home when her parents must work constantly at their failing restaurant, she doesn't speak the language or understand the customs, and some racists seem determined to hurt the family until they give up and return to Taiwan. But Anna has no choice but to keep moving forward, until eventually she makes some friends and her parents figure out the magic formula for success in a new home. Written in the form of a long prose poem, this is a fast, emotional, and personal story that brings the modern immigrant experience to life.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You think being polite to bullies will make them stop.

New Kid

Written by: Jerry Craft

First line: This is how I feel every single day of my life, like I'm falling without a parachute.

Why you should read this book: What Jordan wants to is to go to a school that offers an enhanced art education, or at least to stay in the local school where he knows everyone; what Jordan is getting, at his mother's insistence, and despite his own and his father's misgivings, is to go to a private prep school where he's one of three Black kids in his grade. As the year unfolds, he begins to make friends with all different kinds of other kids while navigating microaggressions from students and teachers alike, trying to maintain his credibility in his own neighborhood, and learning how to handle bullies and weirdos and his own insecurity. A fast-paced year later, Jordan really is a new kid, one who can stand up for himself and others and still be kind, even when that kindness hasn't necessarily been earned.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You already have a closet full of salmon-colored polo shirts and shorts. 

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!

When We Say Black Lives Matter

Written by: Maxine Beneba Clarke

First line: Little one, when we say Black Lives Matter, we're saying Black people are wonderful-strong.

Why you should read this book: This is a lyrical, read-aloud story in which Black parents explain to a Black child what they mean when they say, “Black Lives Matter.” Some of the language and imagery discusses the violence, pain, and fear that has accompanied the struggle for equality and hindered the progress of the civil rights movement. More of the book focuses on the positive: strength, joy, solidarity, courage drawn from the past, and the narrator’s hope for a radiant future for their child. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's for very young people and seems best suited as a bedtime story or perhaps a jumping off point for a slightly older kids.

Get When We Say Black Lives Matter here

Nisrin's Hijab

Written by: Priya Huq

First line: Alright, big hand for Nicole!

Why you should read this book: Following a sudden, gruesome, and apparently racially motivated act of violence, Bangladeshi-American teen Nisrin chooses to wear a headscarf, although her family is secular and their reactions to her decision range from confusion to anger. In school, her hijab elicits aggression from teachers and students, made even more complicated by the fact that she knows very little about Islam (the narrative makes it seem like her choice is motivated by PTSD rather than religious sentiment, which is then further complicated by her family's experience of violence prior to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971). By holding firm to ideas that she always feels but can't always express, Nisrim is able to find a new path forward while also repairing the relationships that suffered after her original ordeal. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I wonder how a reader who wore a hijab for religious reasons would feel about this story, in which the hijab symbolizes many things, but not a submission to God.

Buy Piece by Piece the Story of Nisrin's Hijab here

Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman

Written by: Kristen R. Lee

First line: The pizza drivers don't deliver here after seven.

Why you should read this book: Savannah Howard just wanted to attend the historically Black university ten miles away from the Memphis housing project where she grew up, but after years of sacrificing her social life for grades she finds herself the recipient of a full scholarship at an ivy league school, and her mother won't hear of her going anywhere else. From the moment she sets foot on the Wooddale campus, Savannah finds herself the target of multiple microaggressions, followed almost immediately by multiple incidents of overt racism, all of which is swept under the rug by an administration intent on protecting a white legacy student with his name on a brand new building. How much is Savannah willing to rock the boat in the pursuit of justice, what metric can she use to discern friend from foe, and will she ever feel comfortable on a campus where her voice and her truth seem so unwanted?

Why you shouldn't read this book: The racism starts out unpleasantly and escalates in alarming and increasingly terrifying ways.

Buy Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman here

The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Written by: Sonya Renee Taylor 

First line: Long before there was a digital media and education company or a radical self-love movement with hundreds of thousands of followers on our website and social media pages, before anyone cared to write about us in newsprint or interview me on television, before people began to send me photos of their bodies with my words etched in ink on their backs, forearms, and shoulders (which never stops being awesome and weird), there was a word...well, words. 

Why you should read this book: Radical self-love asks us to embrace our bodies, with all their unique diversities and divergences, for their remarkable abilities to contain our spirits and allow us to live our lives, and to take this love to the extreme and extend to all bodies the same joyful and shameless celebration. Taylor categorizes the cultural shame and narrow boundaries of acceptable forms as body terrorism and assures us that whoever we are, however we look, and whatever our abilities, we are enough, and worthy of kindness, first from ourselves, but also from the world. Full of provocative inquiries and reflections, this remarkable and important book provides a road map for active and healthy change that every reader can use to improve the world, to increase their own comfort in their own skin.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You lack a corporeal form and don't interact with anyone who lives in a body. (This book should be required reading for being human.)

Front Desk

Written by: Kelly Yang

First line: My parents told me that America would be this amazing place where we could live in a house with a dog, do whatever we want, and eat hamburgers till we were red in the face. 

Why you should read this book: Recent immigrants from China in the 1990s, Mia's family has found themselves homeless and living in a car, so managing a motel seems like a golden opportunity for their prosperity, even if the owner is a liar, and a cheapskate, and a racist, and some other, unmentionable things. But Mia is determined to make her new life work and sets herself up as assistant and manager and front desk attendant so her parents can take care of all the other work that needs to be done. With her can-do attitude, Mia begins to make friends, and with her interest in the English language, she begins to understand the power of a well-worded letter, along with her own agency and the knowledge that she has the ability to create positive change in the world through her writing.  

Why you shouldn't read this book: You believe you can tell if people are bad by looking at them.

Go Set a Watchman

Written by: Harper Lee

First line: Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical.

Why you should read this book: Jean Louise Scout returns to the sleepy southern town where she never fit in as a child to spend time with her aging father, Atticus, her sometimes sweetheart, Henry, and an assortment of disapproving friends and family. Maycomb should be timeless, as far as she's concerned, but as she muddles through her visit, its people seem different, more sinister, than she remembered, and she questions all her old relationships and understandings, particularly as they pertain to race relations. This book is primarily of interest to scholars of the author and perhaps writing enthusiasts interested in the progression of an idea from trunk novel to Pulitzer.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It seems fairly obvious that Lee never intended for it to be published, and that she was probably coerced into releasing the manuscript at a time in her life when she was not truly capable of consent.

A Taste of Colored Water

Written by: Matt Faulkner 

First line: It was Abby Finch who started it all. 

Why you should read this book: It's an introduction to the concepts of Jim Crow, segregation, racism, and the civil rights movement for very young readers. When small town kids Lulu and her cousin Jelly hear that the water fountains in the city dispense "colored water," they imagine rainbow streams of candy-flavored drinks, but when they finally finagle their way to the city, they receive a rude awakening; not only is colored water plain old water from an old fountain, racism, which apparently does not exist in their small town, creates a sad ending to their adventure. Includes a nice appendix in which the author discusses Jim Crow laws at greater length. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's a decent book and I enjoyed it, but as much as I'm a huge fan of Matt Faulkner, there's a much better book called White Socks Only by Evelyn Coleman that covers this same territory from the perspective of a Black child and is slightly less circumspect and slightly more self aware. 

Gone Crazy in Alabama

Written by: Rita Williams-Garcia

First line: Vonetta, Fern, and I didn't sleep well last night or the night before.

Why you should read this book: School's out and the Gaither girls are off again, this time headed to Alabama, where Big Ma has returned to live with her own mother. Alabama is even more different from New York than Oakland was, and Black people in the south still live by different rules that clash with the ideals they learned in California: how can they even be related to a sheriff who's white and in the KKK? Delphine, who has always taken care of her family, finds that she has to deal with all the same problems, plus a whole passel of new issues including a decades-old family feud, the clashing of the old and the new, unpleasant chores, the return of their once-beloved uncle, an amorous neighbor, overt racism, and really, really bad weather.

Why you shouldn't read this book: While it ends well, I felt this one was a bit sadder/scarier than the first two books in the trilogy.

Native Son

Written by: Richard Wright

First line: BRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNG!

Why you should read this book: In Chicago, in 1940, a young Black man, Bigger Thomas, is forced to take a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy white family in order to keep his mother and siblings fed and housed, but the Daltons are like no people he's ever encountered, and a lifetime of being forcibly othered by white people makes it difficult for Bigger to comprehend them, let along navigate their universe. Forced by their rebellious daughter Mary to associate with Communists and confront inequality, Bigger's fate seems sealed his first fateful day on the job, but suddenly, in the midst of chaos and despair, Bigger begins to come alive and starts thinking critically about the world and his place in it. There may be no justice for a Black man in Bigger's shoes, but with the help of a Jewish Communist layer, Mr. Max, he begins to see himself, his situation, and his country in a different light.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you're a Black person who is currently feeling traumatized by systemic racism and inequality, this might not be a happy journey for you.

Motherhood So White

Written by: Nefertiti Austin

First line: "Come on, August, grab your pullover."

Why you should read this book: When thirty-six-year-old romance author Nefertiti Austin starts noticing what she calls the "mommie-jones," her desire for children, coupled with her fears of failed relationships and her respect for the grandparents who raised her when her own parents could not rise to the task, lead her to pursue adoption. But she soon realizes that adopting a stranger's child is an uncommon notion in the Black community, and further, that there are no resources or representation for single Black adoptive mothers, and that many of the people in her social and family circles cannot understand this decision. Undaunted, she navigates the foster system, adopts a little boy (and eventually his younger sister), works through her emotions surrounding her family of origin, and decides to write this book to offer other Black women the narrative that was unavailable to her as she began her journey. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You can't understand why anyone would want to devote their lives to raising anybody's child, even their own.

Octavia E. Butler's Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Adapted by: Damian Duffy and John Jennings

First line: The trouble began long before June 9, 1976...but June 9 is the day I remember.

Why you should read this book: While it's categorized as science fiction, this absolutely brutal time travel story reads more like a work of horror. Dana, a young black author married to a young white author, finds herself mysteriously whisked back and forth from her own time and place—southern California in the 1970s—to antebellum Maryland, where she must repeatedly save Rufus, the white slave owner who will eventually/has already (depending on your orientation in time) become her ancestor after sexually assaulting a slave. With the knowledge that her own existence depends on Rufus's survival, Dana feels compelled to save his life over and over, despite him becoming increasingly irredeemable, but the truly terrifying aspects of this story are Dana's experience of American slavery.

Why you shouldn't read this book: This is a graphic novel adaptation, and while it's very, very good for what it is, you may get more out of the original text-based work. I had to check Wikipedia to understand a major plot point at the end of the story.

Writing the Other: Bridging Cultural Differences for Successful Fiction

Written by: Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward

First line: First and foremost, because we are writers.

Why you should read this book: Somewhere between the white washing of literature and rampant cultural appropriation lies a sweet spot for writers: one in which an author successfully creates realistic characters of cultures, races, genders, age, ability, and sexuality that differ from the author's own experience and the narrow lens of white, western, heteronormativity that often dominates fiction, (with an emphasis on speculative fiction). While the work may be difficult, it is also rewarding, and the book features exercises as well as examples from successful and unsuccessful writing to demonstrate how an author can challenge their own assumptions, gather more information, and avoid offensive gaffes, creating richer worlds and characters that ring true for a wider number of readers. Addressing common mistakes of perception and expression while offering tips and techniques for broadening perspective and viewing reality with clearer eyes, this slim volume is a powerful resource for those seeking to widen their understanding and sharpen their rhetorical abilities.

Why you shouldn't read this book: While a great deal of the information here could be considered universally useful, it's specifically geared to writers of fiction.

Everfair

Written by: Nisi Shawl

First line: Lisette Toutournier sighed.

Why you should read this book: What if indigenous Africans had technological superiority over Europeans at the turn of the last century, and what if this reality existed within a society that allowed open discussion of race and sexuality in the same time period? This vast, populous steampunk alternate-history narrative follows an unlikely cast of Fabians, missionaries, escaped slaves, and oppressed native peoples in their attempts to build a socialist paradise in the wake of Leopold II's colonization of the Congo. Beginning with young Lisette Tourournier's love affair with a bicycle in France, the story criss crosses continents and decades, proposes complex love polygons among people with multiple loyalties, and introduces fabulous technologies and solutions in a dense and nuanced story that operates as science fiction and social commentary and a few other things.

Why you shouldn't read this book: I guess this book is not for unabashed racists, but they probably don't read interesting steampunk novels anyway.

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.

Abbott

Written by: Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä, and Jason Wordie

First line: So, Detective, you think it was negro militants did this?

Why you should read this book: As a black woman living in Detroit in 1972, Elena Abbott can't escape racism and sexism, but as an investigative journalist committed to telling the stories that mainstream news doesn't want to cover, she's pretty much throwing herself into maelstroms of casual bigotry and hatred. But this is actually a Lovecraftian horror story in which Abbott, seeking out connections among murders, mutilations, disappearances, and visions, finds herself pursued by hideous monsters, and the white supremacist ideology at the heart of the problem is the least of her worries as the body count mounts and the story she's trying to cover seems poised to swallow her whole. Just a really stunning graphic novel that seamlessly combines its themes and influences to create something new and remarkable.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're easily spooked.

Americanah

Written by: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

First line: Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemalu likes the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, this lack of smell that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew well had all smelled distinctly.

Why you should read this book: At one point in the narrative the main character thinks that it's annoying when someone asks what a book's about, because a book can be about many things, as this book is. It's about growing up in Nigeria and it's about being a young African adult living in America; it's about politics and it's about sociology, it's about family and it's about culture; it's about race and racism and gender and class and the internet and home and relationships and economics and fairness and desire and depression and crime and necessity, and other things. At its heart, to me, this book felt like a very unconventional love story, one in which the simple course of true love is interrupted by the stupidest kind of politics and the main characters are forced apart for most of the story because the world we live in doesn't love lovers as much as it loves money and class and geopolitical boundaries.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't even know how to listen to discussions about race.