Staff Picks
Social Justice Reads for Teen Activists
- Kei G.
- Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Collection
Each year, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for his activism and legacy within the civil rights movement. This year for Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Monday, January 16) learn more about historic and modern experiences with racial injustice and get inspired to effect change with any of these YA #OwnVoices titles:
Kneel
Published in 2021
When his best friend is unfairly arrested and kicked off the team, Russell Boudreaux kneels during the national anthem in an effort to fight for justice and, in an instant, falls from local stardom to become a target of hatred.
We Are Not Free
Published in 2020
For fourteen-year-old budding artist Minoru Ito, her two brothers, her friends, and the other members of the Japanese-American community in southern California, the three months since Pearl Harbor was attacked have become a waking nightmare: attacked, spat on, and abused with no way to retaliate--and now things are about to get worse, their lives forever changed by the mass incarcerations in the relocation camps.
The Beautiful Struggle
Adapted for Young Adults
Published in 2021
"A memoir from Ta-Nehisi Coates, in which he details the challenges on the streets and within one's family, especially the eternal struggle for peace between a father and son and the important role family plays in such circumstances"-- Provided by publisher.
The Truth About White Lies
Published in 2022
"An unflinching story about Shania, a white girl who, after moving to a gentrifying city, reckons with her role in racism there, the historical and present day effects of white supremacy, and the danger in silence"-- Provided by publisher.
All-American Muslim Girl
Published in 2019
Sixteen-year-old Allie, aged seven when she knew her family was different and feared, struggles to claim her Muslim and Arabic heritage while finding her place as an American teenager.
This is My America
Published in 2020
While writing letters to Innocence X, a justice-seeking project, asking them to help her father, an innocent black man on death row, teenaged Tracy takes on another case when her brother is accused of killing his white girlfriend.
Why We Fly
Published in 2021
Told from alternating points of view, Chanel and Eleanor's rocky start to senior year gets more complex when the cheerleading team kneels for the national anthem and each girl grapples with the consequences.
Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman
Published in 2022
Upon arriving at the prestigious Wooddale University, seventeen-year-old Savannah Howard comes face-to-face with microaggressions and outright racism--but if she stands up for justice, will she endanger her future?
Light It Up
Published in 2019
Told from multiple viewpoints, Shae Tatum, an unarmed, thirteen-year-old black girl, is shot by a white police officer, throwing their community into upheaval and making it a target of demonstrators.
Sanctuary
Published in 2020
In 2032, when sixteen-year-old Vali's mother is detained by the Deportation Forces, Vali must flee Vermont with her little brother, Ernie, hoping to reach their Tía Luna in the sanctuary state of California.
One of the Good Ones
Published in 2021
Although distraught, Happi is also unsettled by the way people have idealized the memory of her sister who was killed after attending a social justice rally-- why do people have to be perfect in order to be missed? As a way to honor the memory, however, Happi and her other sister Genny go on a roadtrip using the original "Green Book"-- but the trip reveals secrets neither sister knew about the dead Kezi.
The Awakening of Malcolm X
Published in 2020
While in Charlestown Prison in the 1940s, young Malcolm Little reads all the books in the library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam, and emerges as Malcolm X.
All the Days Past, All the Days to Come
Published in 2020
When she returns to her home in Mississippi after finishing law school, Cassie Logan becomes involved in voter registration drives and other aspects of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
The Hate U Give
Published in 2017
After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.
This Place is Still Beautiful
Published in 2022
"The Flanagan sisters are as different as they come. Seventeen-year-old Annalie is bubbly, sweet, and self-conscious, whereas nineteen-year-old Margaret is sharp and assertive. Margaret looks just like their mother, while Annalie passes for white and looks like the father who abandoned them years ago, leaving their Chinese immigrant mama to raise the girls alone in their small, predominantly white Midwestern town. When their house is vandalized with a shocking racial slur, Margaret rushes home from her summer internship in New York City. She expects outrage. Instead, her sister and mother would rather move on. Especially once Margaret's own investigation begins to make members of their community uncomfortable. For Annalie, this was meant to be a summer of new possibilities, and she resents her sister's sudden presence and insistence on drawing negative attention to their family. Meanwhile Margaret is infuriated with Annalie's passive acceptance of what happened. For Margaret, the summer couldn't possibly get worse, until she crosses paths with someone she swore she'd never see again: her first love, Rajiv Agarwal. As the sisters navigate this unexpected summer, an explosive secret threatens to break apart their relationship, once and for all. This Place Is Still Beautiful is a luminous, captivating story about identity, sisterhood, and how our hometowns are inextricably a part of who we are, even when we outgrow them."--Front jacket flap.
Punching the Air
Published in 2020
From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. The story that I thought was my life didn't start on the day I was born. Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. "Boys just being boys" turns out to be true only when those boys are white. The story that I think will be my life starts today. Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it' With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.