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🧲 Books like this

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Ilyasah Shabazz, Kekla Magoon · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Saenz · 368 pages

Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

Identity FormationCultural IdentityComing of AgeYoung Adult
❤️

Black Boy White School

Brian F. Walker · 256 pages

When fourteen-year-old Anthony "Ant" Jones from the ghetto of East Cleveland, Ohio, gets a scholarship to a prep school in Maine, he finds that he must change his image and adapt to a world that never fully accepts him, but when he goes home he discovers that he no longer truly belongs there either.

Identity FormationRacismComing of AgeCultural Identity
❤️

From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun

Jacqueline Woodson · 141 pages

Melanin Sun has a lot to say. But sometimes it's hard to speak his mind, so he fills up notebooks with his thoughts instead. He writes about his mom a lotu they're about as close as they can be, because they have no other family. So when she suddenly tells him she's gay, his world is turned upside down. And if that weren't hard enough for him to accept, her girlfriend is white. Melanin Sun is angr

Identity FormationComing of AgeRacismCharacter-Driven
❤️

Sag Harbor

Colson Whitehead · 288 pages

The warm, funny, and supremely original new novel from one of the most acclaimed writers in AmericaThe year is 1985. Benji Cooper is one of the only black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs, playing too much Dungeons and Dragons, and trying to catch glimpses of nudity on late-night cable TV. After a tragic mishap on his

Identity FormationComing of AgeCultural IdentityRacism
❤️

This Side of Home

Renee Watson · 339 pages

Twins Nikki and Maya Younger always agreed on most things, but as they head into their senior year they react differently to the gentrification of their Portland, Oregon, neighborhood and the new--white--family that moves in after their best friend and her mother are evicted.

Identity FormationCultural IdentityRacismComing of Age
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Seraphina

Rachel Hartman · 465 pages

In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents.

Identity FormationComing of AgeCultural IdentityRacism
❤️

The Chosen

Chaim Potok · 284 pages

It's about two jewish boys from different jewish sects with very differing doctrine. The kids meet in the unlikely circumstance of a baseball game, and a terrible accident, that leads them to be lifelong friends

Identity FormationCultural IdentityComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
❤️

Dear Martin

Nic Stone · 224 pages

"Powerful, wrenching.” –JOHN GREEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down "Raw and gripping." –JASON REYNOLDS, New York Times bestselling coauthor of All American Boys "A must-read!” –ANGIE THOMAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone joins industry giants Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers as

Identity FormationRacismCultural IdentityTeen Protagonist
❤️

Esperanza Rising

Pam Munoz Ryan · 262 pages

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

RacismComing of AgeCultural IdentityYoung Adult
❤️

Fire from the Rock

Sharon M. Draper · 240 pages

RacismIdentity FormationComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
❤️

American Born Chinese

Gene Luen Yang · 240 pages

Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.

Identity FormationRacismCultural IdentityComing of Age
❤️

The Round House

Louise Erdrich · 352 pages

A young man is upended after a violent attack on his mother, which leaves his family in turmoil. Well-written page turner that is hard to put down!

RacismCultural IdentityComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
❤️

The Land

Mildred D. Taylor · 375 pages

The son of a prosperous landowner and a former slave, Paul-Edward Logan is unlike any other boy he knows. His white father has acknowledged him and raised him openly-something unusual in post-Civil War Georgia. But as he grows into a man he learns that life for someone like him is not easy. Black people distrust him because he looks white. White people discriminate against him when they learn of h

RacismComing of AgeCultural IdentityYoung Adult
❤️

The House Girl

Tara Conklin · 372 pages

A novel of love, family, and justice follows Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in a Manhattan law firm, as she searches for the "perfect plaintiff" to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

RacismIdentity FormationCultural IdentityHistorical Fiction
❤️

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers · 334 pages

Set in 1930s Georgia, the novel centers around a deaf and mute man, John Singer. Singer has been devastated by the loss of his dear friend, Antonapoulos, who was committed to an asylum for bad behavior

RacismComing of AgeCultural IdentityTeen Protagonist
❤️

Black Album (Faber Classics)

Hanif Kureishi · 276 pages

Identity FormationCultural IdentityComing of AgeRacism
❤️

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Heidi W. Durrow · 264 pages

After a family tragedy orphans her, Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., moves into her grandmother's mostly black community in the 1980s, where she must swallow her grief and confront her identity as a biracial woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

Identity FormationRacismComing of AgeCultural Identity
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I am J

Cris Beam · 326 pages

J, who feels like a boy mistakenly born as a girl, runs away from his best friend who has rejected him and the parents he thinks do not understand him when he finally decides that it is time to be who he really is.

Identity FormationComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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Bad Boy: A Memoir

Walter Dean Myers · 224 pages

In his own words...As a boy, Walter Dean Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously-he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer. But growing up in a poor family in Harlem, his hope for a successful future diminished as he came to rea

Identity FormationComing of AgeCultural IdentityRacism
🙂

Born Confused

Tanuja Desai Hidier · 500 pages

Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the Americans, as she sees her hypnotically beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of both her heritage and the boy she likes.

Identity FormationComing of AgeCultural IdentityTeen Protagonist
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To Shape a Dragon's Breath

Moniquill Blackgoose · 511 pages

Coming of AgeRacismCultural IdentityTeen Protagonist
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The Hate U Give

Angie Thomas · 458 pages

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter navigates between the poverty-stricken neighborhood she has grown up in and the upper-crust suburban prep school she attends. Her life is up-ended when she is the sole witness to a police officer shooting her best friend, Khalil, who turns out to have been unarmed during the confrontation – but may or may not have been a drug dealer. As Starr finds herself even more t

Coming of AgeRacismCultural IdentityYoung Adult
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Nothing But the Truth

Justina Chen

Identity FormationCultural IdentityComing of AgeRacism
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Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides · 544 pages

A unique coming of age story. While the main character in this novel is dealing with gender identity issues the main focus of this brilliantly written story is the confusion we all face as we grow into the person we were meant to be. The reader finds himself identifying with the main character's experiences. This is a brilliantly written story. The prose is honest in a way that few authors dare t

Identity FormationComing of AgeCultural IdentityCharacter-Driven

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