As most of you know, February is Black History Month and we wanted to do something to celebrate this part of America’s heritage. So we’re joining the conversation about the black authors, celebrities, activists, teachers, inventors, advocates and religious figures who have helped shape this country. Since this is primarily a Young Adult Book Blog, we’ve created a list of 10 contemporary YA books worth checking out, written by black authors or featuring African American main characters.
I’m really thankful that I had the chance to explore this topic because it forced me to acknowledge the blatant lack of diversity in YA literature. It reminded me of a conversation that Kathryn and I had last year, after reading an article about what we (as readers) picture when we envision book characters. Kathryn (who is from Korea), remarked that she’d never realized before, but she usually pictures all the characters as white, regardless of the description. We decided that this must be because most books that we read feature white characters. But that led to a very long and interesting conversation about what it’s like to never envision someone like yourself, as the main character in a book. Maybe we should do a blog discussion on that one day. 
Anyway, I put that conversation out of my mind until I started researching books for this list, featuring black lead characters (my first clue should have been that out of all the best selling books I’ve been reading, I couldn’t think of one- geesh). Wow- it took me a lot longer to make this list than I wished it had, and not because it consumed so much time but because diversity in YA books should be/needs to be so much more prevalent. Why isn’t it? I mean, just take a glance down the top YA books at the moment and notice how much the main characters look the same, not just in color, but in many other ways. And this may just be me, but it seems like YA authors embrace the topic of sexuality more often than they offer us a cast of diverse characters, which got me wondering if it’s just simply because one is more trendy to write about at the moment than the other? It would be a shame if the motivation came from a place of popularity-hunting.
Since I’m by no means an expert on the subject, I found some really great articles that discuss the issue, by people with much more authority to do so than me. This article from The Wire, looks at the history and ongoing problem of race in YA lit (did you know that this discussion started in 1965, and apparently hasn’t moved very much forward in all these years?).
YA authors Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo have become two of the biggest voices, advocating diversity in teen lit, even running the site Diversity in YA . Check out this interview they did with Hello Giggles, where they talk about their mission and what needs to be done to make change happen.
Another topic that I was made aware of a few months ago is a bit of overt racism taking place on YA book covers. Our book club had lunch with author Diana Peterfreund and she was telling us that one of her covers (For Darkness Shows the Stars), unfairly came under fire for presenting a very white female model, representing what some believed was a not-so-white female main character. She felt that the cover was not only beautiful, but that her character is meant to be a tanned-white girl from futuristic New Zealand, and while this model might not have been perfect, it certainly wasn’t a racist gesture. Nonetheless, I became aware that “Whitewashing” is something that does in fact happen on YA covers, more often than you’d want to believe. Check out this ALA article, which looks at several examples of Whitewashing (I would like to make a quick note that book covers are often at the discretion of the Publishers, not the authors, and it is a bit unfair and presumptuous to place the blame on authors who might not have had a single voice in choosing their book cover- gag, can you imagine letting someone else choose this for you!?). Huffington Post also took a look at this issue- you should check out their pretty handy slide show!
Well, anyway, this is an important part of Black History Month, having these discussions and not only thinking about how far we’ve come, but also how far we can still go. So now, for our Top Ten Tuesday- drum roll please- check out these 10 awesome books! (All book descriptions came from Goodreads).
1. The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, by Heidi W. Durrow (p. 2010)
This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white. In the tradition of Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, here is a portrait of a young girl - and society’s ideas of race, class, and beauty.
2. Panic, by Sharon M. Draper (p. 2013)
This gripping and chillingly realistic novel from New York Times bestselling author Sharon Draper shows that all it takes is one bad decision for everything to change.
Diamond knows not to get into a car with a stranger.
But what if the stranger is well-dressed and handsome? On his way to meet his wife and daughter? And casting a movie that very night—a movie in need of a star dancer? What then?
Then Diamond might make the wrong decision.
It’s a nightmare come true: Diamond Landers has been kidnapped. She was at the mall with a friend, alone for only a few brief minutes—and now she’s being held captive, forced to endure horrors beyond what she ever could have dreamed, while her family and friends experience their own torments and wait desperately for any bit of news.
From New York Times bestselling author Sharon Draper, this is a riveting exploration of power: how quickly we can lose it—and how we can take it back.
3. The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson (p. 2013)
A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil.
The lush city of Palmares Três shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that’s sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June’s best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a fellow artist.
Together, June and Enki will stage explosive, dramatic projects that Palmares Três will never forget. They will add fuel to a growing rebellion against the government’s strict limits on new tech. And June will fall deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.
4. Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith (p. 2013)
First came the storms.Then came the Fever. And the Wall.
After a string of devastating hurricanes and a severe outbreak of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast has been quarantined. Years later, residents of the Outer States are under the assumption that life in the Delta is all but extinct… but in reality, a new primitive society has been born.
Fen de la Guerre is living with the O-Positive blood tribe in the Delta when they are ambushed. Left with her tribe leader’s newborn, Fen is determined to get the baby to a better life over the wall before her blood becomes tainted. Fen meets Daniel, a scientist from the Outer States who has slipped into the Delta illegally. Brought together by chance, kept together by danger, Fen and Daniel navigate the wasteland of Orleans. In the end, they are each other’s last hope for survival.
5. Charm & Strange, by Stephanie Kuehn (p. 2013)
When you’ve been kept caged in the dark, it’s impossible to see the forest for the trees. It’s impossible to see anything, really. Not without bars . . .
Andrew Winston Winters is at war with himself.
He’s part Win, the lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy. The guy who shuts all his classmates out, no matter the cost.
He’s part Drew, the angry young boy with violent impulses that control him. The boy who spent a fateful, long-ago summer with his brother and teenage cousins, only to endure a secret so monstrous it led three children to do the unthinkable.
Over the course of one night, while stuck at a party deep in the New England woods, Andrew battles both the pain of his past and the isolation of his present.
Before the sun rises, he’ll either surrender his sanity to the wild darkness inside his mind or make peace with the most elemental of truths—that choosing to live can mean so much more than not dying.
6. Noble Conflict, by Malorie Blackman (p. 2013)
Years after a violent war destroyed much of the world, Kaspar has grown up in a society based on peace and harmony. But beyond the city walls, a vicious band of rebels are plotting to tear this peace apart. It is up to the Guardians - an elite peacekeeping force - to protect the city, without ever resorting to the brutal methods of their enemy.
When Kaspar joins the Guardians, he has a chance encounter with a rebel - a beautiful girl named Rhea. Haunted from that moment on by strange visions and memories - memories that could only belong to Rhea - he realizes he hasn’t been told the truth about what the rebels really want, and what he’s really fighting for.
7. The Last Station Master A Boy A Terrorist A Secret, by S.A.M Posey (p. 2013)
On his grandparents’ remote North Carolina farm for the summer, Nate discovers there’s more happening on the rambling property than anyone realizes. To stop a terrorist’s plot and prevent a military disaster, he must unravel the clues around him and use what he learns about the farm, the Underground Railroad, and the lost secrets of an old ghost to become the Last Station Master.
8. Darius & Twig, by Walter Dean Myers (p. 2013)
New York Times bestselling author and Printz Award winner Walter Dean Myers once again connects with teenagers everywhere in Darius & Twig, a novel about friendship and needing to live your own dream.
Darius and Twig are an unlikely pair: Darius is a writer whose only escape is his alter ego, a peregrine falcon named Fury, and Twig is a middle-distance runner striving for athletic success. But they are drawn together in the struggle to overcome the obstacles that Harlem life throws at them.
The two friends must face down bullies, an abusive uncle, and the idea that they’ll be stuck in the same place forever in this touching and raw new teen novel from Walter Dean Myers, award-winning author of Monster, Kick, We Are America, Bad Boy, and many other celebrated literary works for children and teens.
9. Cy in Chains, by David L. Dudley (p. 2013)
Cy Williams, thirteen, has always known that he and the other black folks on Strong’s plantation have to obey white men, no question. Sure, he’s free, as black people have been since his grandfather’s day, but in rural Georgia, that means they’re free to be whipped, abused, even killed. Almost four years later, Cy yearns for that freedom, such as it was. Now he’s a chain gang laborer, forced to do backbreaking work, penned in and shackled like an animal, brutalized, beaten, and humiliated by the boss of the camp and his hired overseers. For Cy and the boys he’s chained to, there’s no way out, no way back.
And then hope begins to grow in him, along with strength and courage he didn’t know he had. Cy is sure that a chance at freedom is worth any risk, any sacrifice. This powerful, moving story opens a window on a painful chapter in the history of race relations.
10. Perfect Peace: A Novel, by Daniel Black A Novel (p. 2010)
The heartbreaking portrait of a large, rural southern family’s attempt to grapple with their mother’s desperate decision to make her newborn son into the daughter she will never have.
When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, “You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain’t what you was supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon’ be a boy. It’ll be a little strange at first, but you’ll get used to it, and this’ll be over after while.”
From this point forward, his life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.
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