Good morning/afternoon/evening/night –
My coworker’s 14-year-old son is struggling to find books that he can connect with and enjoy.
His biggest complaint is that he doesn’t relate to characters that aren’t Black/Biracial, like he is.
Can anyone suggest a book or series that he may enjoy?
(He’s not into romance genre – he enjoys race cars, superheroes, and basketball, if that helps)
Many thanks 🙏🏽
Edit for update:
I got 4 books for him today; Rick Riordan’s KANE (vol. 1) Ghost and Miles Morales by Jason Reynolds, and The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (the kid plays basketball, and also – maybe the writing style will seem more palatable?)
Sincere thanks to everyone with book suggestions and supportive comments. Literacy is so important for one’s future success. My hope is that getting him started with these books will open him up to reading more diverse stories for the sake of reading for enjoyment!
Much love 🫶🏽
by Zealousideal_Log9056
33 Comments
Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees by Rob Kent
It might be a little young for him – but it meets his requirements. It’s about a Black/Biracial kid and the series has a tech loving main character who is like a super hero who fights evil.
From the authors note on his website, “It was this line of thinking that led me to start poking around bookstores in search of books our child might one day read and I saw something that had always been true, I just hadn’t ever really seen it: the section for books about black kids was sparse and depressing. ”
http://www.middlegradeninja.com/2014/11/an-afterword-for-banneker-bones-and.html
The Crossover series by Kwame Alexander
Anansi boys by Neil gaiman was fun, and all The main characters are black, with like 2 exceptions (though I don’t think I’d call them main characters) though it’s never outright mentioned that the characters are black, it’s more inferred through the text
Rivers of London. The main character is not 14, he’s 24. But he is biracial and is an English copper.
***Ghost*** by Jason Reynolds.
Ramadan Ramsey was one of my favorite books last year. It’s not specifically YA but a great story.
There is “Dear Martin” by Nic Stone but it deals with some pretty heavy subject matter
Nnedi Okorafor writes African futurist books, and Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone is fantastic fantasy set in Africa. N. K. Jamisin’s The City We Became is worth a look, but can be a but much for some people. Technically LeGuin’s Earthsea is about people with dark copper skin, but this gets skipped over a lot.
The Kane chronicles by Rick Riordan and The fifth season by NK Jemisin
Maybe lovecraft country as well.
StarLion: Thieves of the Red Night by Leon Langford
Nubia: The Reckoning by Omar Epps
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
King of Dead Things by Nevin Holness
Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams
Pet by Akwaeki Emezi
Forged By Blood by Ehigbor Okosun
The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass
This is My America by Kim Johnson
Like Thunder by Nnedi Okorafor
Blood Debts by Terri J. Benton-Walker
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole
The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds
Children of Blood & Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
The Shadow Sister by Lily Meade
Survive the Dome by Kosoko Jackson
Kings of B’More by R. Eric Thomas
Solo by Kwame Alexander
Maybe The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter? The author wrote it because when his son was born, he reflected on the fact there’s a lack of Black characters in epic fantasy and wanted to change that.
[High Score by Destiny Howell!](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58719171) Such a great book!
The Earthsea series by Ursula K LeGuin. All of the people of the archipelago of Earthsea are black, apart from the Kargads, who are the only white race in the series.
Miles Morales has some YA novels that are enjoyable!
Definitely the Miles Morales Spider-Man books by Jason Reynolds.
Honestly, anything by Jason Reynolds. He is black and his books feature black people. In particular he might like *Ghost* (which is the beginning of a series) and *Spider-Man: Miles Morales.* Miles Morales is afro-latino and the lead in “Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse.”
If he is willing to read something fantastical, *Tristran Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky* is fantastic.
He might like the graphic novel *Class Act* by Jerry Craft. It’s the second book in a series that is very popular.
<i>edited to add</i>
Does he want books with male lead characters or is he open to other genders?
The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris – I wish I could read this book again for the first time! A teenage boy can see the future of any object he touches. On a regular day, he picks up a family photo and has a vision of himself holding it and crying. He struggles with whether or not he should try to prevent a tragedy when he doesn’t even know what it is yet.
I’m also a big fan of the author Tiffany D. Jackson, who writes thriller/horror tropes with Black leads. My favourites have been Grown and The Weight of Blood. Earlier this year she was featured in a short story collection called The White Guy Dies First, 13 scary stories by authors of colour.
Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes (not to be confused with Ghost, which is also excellent.)
Solo by Kwame Alexander
Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
Kings of B’More by R. Eric Thomas
The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters
Charming as a Verb by Ben Philippe
Burn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado
Black Enough: Stories of Being Young and Black in America by Ibi Zoboi
When You Look Like Us by Pamela N. Harris. A teenager — maybe 14 or 15 — living in Newport News, Virginia, lives a kind of rough-ish life with his grandma and his sister. His sister goes missing and the cops basically think she just got in with the wrong crowd and won’t actually investigate. He and this girl from his church investigate and figure out what really happened. Recently published so it might have some extra interest because of that.
The Forest Demands Its Due by Kosoko Jackson
The Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Things We Couldn’t Say by Jay Cole
The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
Kings of B’More by R. Eric Thomas
Starlion: Thieves of Night Leon Langford
The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
There Goes the Neighborhood by Jade Adia
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
Beasts of Prey by Ayana Grey
The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass
Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles
Solo by Kwame Alexander
Washington Black by Esi Edyguan
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Rosanne Brown
Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
The Guilded Ones by Namina Forna. The main characters are girls, if that matters to a 14 year old boy. 😀
Check out the Winding Circle series by Tamora Pierce. Daja in it is a proto-African/Amalgam anthrop
The gilded ones by namina forma It’s about girls who are the descendants of demons and are trained as soldiers but there are things the empire is covering up. It goes so much deeper and I think everyone should read this series. The female main character is black.
New Kid by Jerry Craft. It’s a graphic novel.
I saw an author by the name of LaDarrion Williams promoting his book “Blood at the Root”, I believe it was on the Today Show? Anyway, I haven’t read it yet but it is on my list. It has good reviews and it sounds like it could be right up his alley. It’s about a black teenager thrown into a world of magic.
What about non fiction books? What are his hobbies? Does he play any sports? Would he be interested in biographies of sports figures?
I used to be a high school English teacher. I asked my students what kind of movies they like and then tried to find books in a similar genre. If they liked horror movies, then I’d try to help them find age appropriate horror books. And so on.
I would also suggest manga or anime books and magazines as well. Reading is reading.
Chain gang all stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
It’s a dystopian fiction that kinda reminds me of hunger games meets death race.
I believe it’s been popular on TikTok but I’m not on TikTok so not sure 100% but it’s been shortlisted for some awards.
Legendborn – the mc is female though
I haven’t read this yet myself, and the main character is female, but I’ve heard Legendborn is very good 🙂
The hate you give! There’s a movie on Hulu too, he might find it cool to read the book and then watch the movie
I would highly recommend looking at winners of the [Coretta Scott King Awards](https://www.ala.org/awards/books-media/coretta-scott-king-book-awards), which specifically honors books by Black authors about the Black experience. The award is for both children and young adult novels, so there may be sorting through it a bit but it’s a great reference point. Some examples of young adult winners include “Monster” by Walter Dean Myers, “Miracle’s Boys” by Jacqueline Woodson, and many well known novels like “The Hate U Give” and a number of Jason Reynolds books (recommended by others).
*Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry* by Mildred D. Taylor.
I read this book for my 8th grade English class and it has stuck with me ever since (I’m almost 40 now). It is a very powerful novel that won a Newberry award about a black family living in the 1930s south. It covers some heavy themes about the racism and segregation of that time.
Hi there, I work with diverse middle-grade books although my recommendations tilt scifi/fantasy, if he’s open to it:
* Tons of stuff by **Kwame Alexander**: [The Crossover](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18263725-the-crossover) is a middle-grade series about basketball.
* [Tristan Strong](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39884337-tristan-strong-punches-a-hole-in-the-sky?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_14) series by Kwame Mbalia (fantasy): Under Rick Riordan’s imprint, a middle-grade *American Gods* set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods.
* [New Kid](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39893619-new-kid) (comic book): An artistic Black middle school student transfers from public school to an elite, predominantly White private school and must contend not only with typical middle school challenges but also with microaggressions and code-switching.
* [Hoodoo](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23719417-hoodoo) (paranormal, horror): A boy tries to ward off an evil spirit in 1930s small-town Alabama. When the foreboding Stranger comes to town, Hoodoo Hatcher must use the folk magic passed down in his extended family to save the day.
* [The Ear, the Eye and the Arm](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/633270.The_Ear_the_Eye_and_the_Arm?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15) by Nancy Farmer (scifi): Afrofuturist novel set in 2194. It’s about a notorious general’s three children to escape from their kidnappers in the technologically advanced and crime-infested capital of Zimbabwe.