Racial and Social Justice Reading List

These books are available at Jaquith Public Library (if they are not already checked out!) This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a starting point.

Adult-focused Titles

Adult Nonfiction

• How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• I am Malala: the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai 
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  
• Locking Up Our Own: crime and punishment in Black America by James Foreman
  
• My Grandmother's Hands : racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies by Resmaa Menakem
  
• Never Caught: the Washingtons’ relentless pursuit of their runaway slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
  
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  
• Stamped from the beginning : the definitive history of racist ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
  
• Waking Up White : and finding myself in the story of race by Debby Irving 
  
• White Fragility: why it is so hard for white people to talk about racism by Robin DiAngelo
  

Adult Fiction

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
  
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
  
• God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
  
• A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin
  
• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  
• Song Yet Sung by James McBride
  
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
  

Youth-focused Titles

YA / Middle-grade Nonfiction

• A hope more powerful than the sea : one refugee's incredible story of love, loss, and survival by Melissa Fleming
• The 57 Bus: a true story of two teenagers and the crime that changed their lives by Dashka Slater 
• Becoming Kareem by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson 
• Buried lives : the enslaved people of George Washington's Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty
• Girl Rising: changing the world one girl at a time by Tanya Lee Stone
• Just Mercy: adapted for young adults by Bryan Stevenson
• Looks Like Daylight: Voices of Indigenous Kids by Deborah Ellis
  
• March Forward, Girl by Melba Beals 
• March Graphic Novels (Books 1-3) by John Lewis 
• Mississippi Bridge by Mildred Taylor
• #NotYourPrincess: voices of Native American women edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale 
• Stamped: racism, antiracism, and you by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
  
• This Book is Antiracist by Tiffany Jewel
  
• This Promise of Change by Jo Ann Allen Boyce 
• When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

Picture Books

• A is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara
  
• All The Colors We Are by Katie Kissenger
  
• All the Way to the Top: how one girl’s fight for Americans with disabilities changed everything  by Annette Bay Pimentel
  
• Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes;
  
• The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodsong
  
• Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Brian 
  
• A Girl Like Me by Angela Johnson
  
• Going Down Home with Daddy by Kelly Starling Lyons
  
• Hammering for Freedom by Rita L. Hubbard
  
• Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine
  
• It Began with a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way by Kyo Maclear
  
• It Feels Good To Be Yourself: A book about gender identity by Theresa Thorn
  
• Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love
  
• Just Ask! Be different, be brave, be you by Sonia Sotomayor
  
• The Oldest Student: how Mary Walker Learned to Read by Rita L. Hubbard
  
• Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai 
  
• Mommy, Mama, and Me by Leslea Newman
  
• Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o
  
• Something Happened in our Town: a child’s story about racial injustice by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard
  
• The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander
  

To place your request, simply contact the library at [email protected] or call 802-426-3581