60 Titles From #BooksFightHate
It’s been over a week since the election, and I’m still trying to process my emotions that range from anger to fear to determination to apathy to nausea. But one of the things I have been struck by, both on Book Riot, and on social media, is how librarians and authors and bloggers are drawing on their love of books to get themselves and their fellow book lovers through these emotionally exhausting days. Books have been one of the few constants in my life, and when I started writing for Book Riot, I was really interested in writing and learning about how my favorite books helped me understand myself better. It’s a feeling that many of us share. But over the last several months, I’ve seen how books give us hope and strength and courage. They tell us to empathize and keep fighting. They give us comfort. They’re an experience we can share with strangers.
In the wake of fear and violence left by the election, Justina Ireland put out this call on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/justinaireland/status/797790996339851264
It’s a call to share books and it’s a call to action that we can all easily get behind, especially for those of us who already work in a library, school, or bookstore. We can push back against ignorance and fear, and we can start with this list. Here are 60 titles pulled from the Twitter suggestions that you can use to jumpstart your own revolution.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list of all the Twitter recommendations. If you have any other #ownvoice titles to suggest, let us know!
1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
2. All American Boys – Jason Reynolds
3. American Born Chinese – Gene Luen Yang
4. Ariah – B. R. Sanders
5. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe – Benjamin Alire Saenz
6. A Beautiful Lie – Irfan Master
7. The Book of Unknown Americans – Cristina Enriquez
8. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
9. Brown Girl Dreaming – Jacqueline Woodson
10. Certain Dark Things – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
11. Chameleon Moon – RoAna Sylver
12. Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court – Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve
13. Daughters of a Nation: A Black Suffragette Historical Romance Anthology by Kianna Alexander et al.
14. Does My Head Look Big in This? – Randa Abel-Fattah
15. The Education of Margot Sanchez – Lilliam Rivera
16. An Ember in the Ashes – Sabaa Tahir
17. Even This Book is White – Vivek Shraya
18. Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
19. Everything Leads to You – Nina LaCoeur
20. George – Alex Gino
21. Golden Domes & Silver Lanterns – Hena Khan
22. The Hate U Give – AC Thomas
23. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race – Margot Lee Shetterly
24. Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
25. The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
26. How It Went Down – Kekla Magoon
27. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms – NK Jemisin
28. If I Was Your Girl – Meredith Russo
29. If You Could Be Mine – Sara Farizan
30. I’m Judging You: The Do Better Manual – Luvvie Ajayi
31. Infomocracy – Malka Older
32. Juliet Takes a Breath – Gabby Rivera
33. Labyrinth Lost – Zoraida Cordova
34. Laughing All the Way to the Mosque – Zarqa Nawaz
35. Lez Talk: A Collection of Black Lesbian Short Fiction – S. Andrea Allen (ed.)
36. A Long Walk to Water – Linda Sue Park
37. Looking for Bapu – Anjali Banerjee
38. Lumberjanes – Noelle Stevenson
39. March, Book 1 – John Lewis
40. The Midnight Star – Marie Lu
41. The Miseducation of Cameron Post – Emily M. Danforth
42. More Happy Than Not – Adam Silvera
43. Negroland – Margo Jefferson
44. One Crazy Summer – Rita Williams-Garcia
45. Out of Darkness – Ashley Hope Perez
46. Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
47. Shadowshaper – Daniel Jose Older
48. Sister Mine – Nalo Hopkinson
49. Something in Between – Melissa de la Cruz
50. Sorcerer to the Crown – Zen Cho
51. The Sun is Also a Star – Nicola Yoon
52. A Taste of Honey – Kai Ashante Wilson
53. Timekeeper – Tara Sim
54. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
55. Under the Udala Trees – Chinelo Okparanta
56. The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead
57. The Unintentional Time Traveler – Everett Maroon
58. We Should All Be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
59. When the Moon Was Ours – Anna-Marie McLemore
60. A Wish After Midnight – Zetta Elliott