Age and interest level of fiction titles are indicated by (MS) for Middle School and (HS) for High School.
- The Astonishing life of Octavian Nothing, traitor to the nation ; v. 1; The Pox Party (2006)
- Upstate (2005)
- Who Will Tell My Brother?
- Whale Talk
- Behind the Mountains
- Born Confused
- Life Is Funny
by Anderson, M.T.
Historical fiction at its best. Diaries, letters, and more tell the story of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen. Octavian is brought up as part of a “science experiment” in the years leading up to American Revolutionary War.
by Buckhanon, Kalisha.
Told through letters between seventeen-year-old Antonio and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Natasha, set in the 1990′s in New York. Antonio and Natasha’s world is turned upside down, and their young love is put to the test, when Antonio finds himself in jail, accused of a shocking crime. Antonio fights to stay alive on the inside, while on the outside, Natasha faces choices that will change her life.. (HS)
by Carvell, Marlene.
Senior Evan Hill, part Mohawk, fights to abolish his high school’s Indian mascot, and ends up the target of hate crimes. (HS)
by Crutcher, Chris.
T. J. Jones is multiracial, and an adopted teen in a mostly white town. He battles ignorance and prejudice as he organizes a swim team made up of his school’s misfits.
(HS)
by Danticat, Edwidge.
When Celiane must leave her warm Haitian home in the mountains, she is faced with a new life in cold Brooklyn, New York.
(MS)
Desai Hadier, Tanuja.
At 17, Dimple Lala―what a cousin calls “an ABCD, American Born Confused Desi”― discovers her family’s Indian traditions as she struggles with questions of identity, friendship and romance.
(HS)
by Frank, E. R.
Eleven teens of different races tell their stories of love, loyalty and abuse. (HS)
by Fukuda, Andrew Xia
Xing Xu, generally ignored by his classmates at the all-white Slackenkill High School in upstate New York, takes advantage of his “invisibility” to investigate when a series of mysterious disappearances rock the community, not realizing that his otherness has made him a suspect.
by Grimes, Nikki.
Poetry slams bring African American, white and Latino students in a high school English class closer together. (HS)
by Jen, Gish.
Ralph Chang, his sister Theresa and future wife Helen, immigrants from China, find they have become much of what they had criticized about Americans. (HS)
by Jiménez, Francisco.
A 14-year-old Mexican boy, living in California, faces universal teenage struggles in addition to racism and poverty. (MS, HS)
Johnson, Angela.
How does a 16-year-old African American boy take care of his brand new baby daughter, keep up his studies and friends at school all on his own?
(HS)
by Magoon, Kekla.
In 1968 Chicago, fourteen-year-old Sam Childs is caught in a conflict between his father’s nonviolent approach to seeking civil rights for African Americans and his older brother, who has joined the Black Panther Party.
by Martinez, Manuel Luis.
Sixteen-year-old Mexican American, Robert, is forced to learn more than he wants about adult responsibilities after his father leaves and his mother has a nervous breakdown. (HS)
by Mikaelsen, Ben.
When a violent teen chooses the Native American judicial alternative instead of a prison sentence, he is sent to live along in the Alaskan wilderness to learn more about himself. (MS)
