Books About Race in America

A Boy at War is the first of three novels by Harry Mazer that feature Adam Pelko as their protagonist. Published in 2001 by Simon & Schuster, it was followed by A Boy No More (2004) and Heroes Don’t Run (2005). Sergeant Harry Mazer was born in New York City in 1925 and served in the United States Air Force in the European theater of World War II from 1943-1945. He was awarded the Purple... Read A Boy at War Summary

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All American Boys is a young-adult novel published in 2015. This modern-day narrative tells the story of an incident of police brutality through the alternating voices of two high school students: Rashad, whose chapters are written by author Jason Reynolds, and Quinn, whose chapters are written by author Brendan Kiely. While Rashad and Quinn never actually meet in the novel, their lives intersect in a powerful way after a violent act of racism rocks their... Read All American Boys Summary

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Twelve-year-old Amal’s dreams of becoming a teacher are shattered when she disrespects the powerful landlord of her Pakistani village and is forced into a life of servitude in the New York Times bestselling Amal Unbound (2018). Author Aisha Saeed is a Pakistani-American teacher, writer, and attorney as well as a founder of the We Need Diverse Books organization. In Amal Unbound, Saeed calls attention to contemporary global inequities, exploring themes of social injustice, education, and... Read Amal Unbound Summary

A Map of Home is a 2008 coming-of-age novel by Randa Jarrar. The novel follows the life of Nidali, a girl of Palestinian, Greek, and Egyptian descent who grows up between Kuwait, Egypt, and the United States. The novel contains three parts, each of which correspond to Nidali’s time in these three different countries. During her childhood, Nidali navigates extreme circumstances, grappling with violence, family conflict, and the backdrop of war, all while exploring her... Read A Map of Home Summary

American Born Chinese is a graphic novel published in 2006 by the American author and illustrator Gene Luen Yang, who also wrote the graphic novel Boxers (2013) and the graphic memoir Dragon Hopes (2020). Through three interweaving stories that span from the 16th century to the present, American Born Chinese explores issues of Chinese American identity, anti-Asian racism, and assimilation. American Born Chinese is the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book... Read American Born Chinese Summary

Eleven-year-old Pakistani-American Amina Khokar lives in Milwaukee with her mother, father, and brother, Mustafa. At school, a Korean girl named Soojin Kim is her best friend. Amina is distressed when Soojin befriends Emily, a girl who has historically joined in on racially-motivated taunts against Soojin and Amina. The situation is complicated when Amina, Emily, and Soojin—along with the class oddball, Bradley—are assigned to the same group for an Oregon Trail project in their social studies... Read Amina's Voice Summary

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Dear Martin by Nic Stone was originally published in 2017. It is a work of realistic fiction that provides a frank depiction of identity, racism, and adolescence in contemporary America. The New York Times bestseller also gained attention when it was named as a finalist for the William C. Morris Award. Stone's other well-known works include Dear Justyce (2020) and Fast Pitch (2021).This guide uses the paperback version of the novel, published by the Ember... Read Dear Martin Summary

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Front Desk is the debut novel of Asian-American author Kelly Yang. First published in 2018, the children’s book became a New York Times bestseller and was mentioned on multiple Best Books of the Year lists including NPR, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, the Washington Post, Amazon, School Library Journal, the New York Public Library, and the Chicago Public Library. Front Desk also made ALA’s Booklist of the Top Ten Debut Novels of 2018. It won the 2019... Read Front Desk Summary

Ghost Boys is a middle-grade novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes, an award-winning writer on the Black experience. Set in contemporary Chicago, the novel is a first-person narrative about the life and death of 12-year-old Jerome Rogers, a boy Officer Moore kills one afternoon as Jerome plays with a toy gun near his neighborhood. A popular and critical success that taps into the modern civil rights movement that is Black Lives Matter, this novel is a... Read Ghost Boys Summary

How it Went Down is a work of young adult fiction written in 2014 by award-winning author Kekla Magoon. Though a work of fiction, the pressing narrative deals with the “postmortem account of a tragic shooting” (Los Angeles Times), and as such, is a well-needed critique of social reform and racial bias.The narrative begins with the tragic death of a 16-year-old black male, Tariq Johnson. He’s shot and killed by Jack Franklin, a white male... Read How It Went Down Summary

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