High School Books & Media
​FICTION

We have curated titles from a collection of reliable review sources. We know our list can never be complete. If you have additional suggestions, please email studentsneedlibraries@gmail.com.

This page is only FICTION titles. Nonfiction and media resources can be found on the linked pages. There is an additional page for Upper High School books, mostly nonfiction and intended for advanced students. 

​Formats noted: IN VERSE; SHORT STORIES; GRAPHIC; DOCUMENTARY NOVEL; FANTASY; SPECULATIVE FICTION; DYSTOPIAN FICTION; MYSTERY; SUPERNATURAL; POETRY; MEMOIR; BIOG​; ESSAYS; SATIRE

​2019 and 2020 titles are noted in PURPLE. They are not yet as widely reviewed.

Acevedo, Elizabeth. The Poet X. HarperCollins, 2018. “Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.” National Book Award for Young People's Literature; Michael L. Printz Award; Pura Belpré Award.  IN VERSE; REALISTIC; URBAN; WOMEN & GIRLS 

Adeyemi, Tomi. Legacy of Orisha series: Children of Blood and Bones (2018); Children of Virtue and Vengeance (2019).  Holt. Science fiction is a powerful tool for exploring problems from the distance we normally aren’t afforded with day-to-day life. This first part of the electric new trilogy explores issues of fear, revenge, and what it takes to build a new future. FANTASY

Allen, Jeffrey Renard. Song of the Shank. Graywolf, 2014. “Now a fairly obscure historical figure, Tom Wiggins, born a slave, became an international sensation as a pianist. In the extraordinarily talented hands of Allen, Tom is a mysterious and compelling figure, a blind black boy at a time when his perceived infirmities, including his race, should make him insignificant.” HISTORICAL FICTION; SLAVERY; MUSIC (PIANO); BLINDNESS

Atta, Dean. The Black Flamingo. Balzer & Bray, 2020. “A fierce coming-of-age verse novel about identity and the power of drag, from [an] acclaimed poet and performer.” A Stonewall Award Winner. IN VERSE; REALISTIC; IDENTITY 

Booth, Coe. Tyrell. Push, 2007. “Tyrell is a young African-American teen who can't get a break. He's living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter. His father's in jail. His girlfriend supports him, but he doesn't feel good enough for her -- and seems to be always on the verge of doing the wrong thing around her. There's another girl at the homeless shelter who is also after him, although the desires there are complicated. Tyrell feels he needs to score some money to make things better. Will he end up following in his father's footsteps?” REALISTIC, URBAN, HOMELESSNESS 

Buckhanon, Kalisha. Speaking of Summer. Counterpoint, 2019. “What do you do when your twin, your other half, disappears, and no one seems to notice? Autumn Spencer remembers the bewildering night when her sister, Summer, vanished off a snowy Harlem apartment rooftop, leaving only one set of footprints.” MYSTERY; DISAPPEARANCE; HARLEM; WOMEN

Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Beacon, 2004. “Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance.” TIME TRAVEL; SLAVERY 

Butler, Octavia E., Damien Duffy & John Jenning. Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams, 2017. “More than 35 years after its release, Kindred continues to draw in new readers with its deep exploration of the violence and loss of humanity caused by slavery in the United States, and its complex and lasting impact on the present day. Adapted by celebrated academics and comics artists Damian Duffy and John Jennings, this graphic novel powerfully renders Butler’s mysterious and moving story, which spans racial and gender divides in the antebellum South through the 20th century. …     Frightening, compelling, and richly imagined, Kindred offers an unflinching look at our complicated social history, transformed by the graphic novel format into a visually stunning work for a new generation of readers.” GRAPHIC; TIME TRAVEL; SLAVERY

Caldwell, Patrice, ed. A Phoenix First Must Burn: Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope. Viking, 2020. “... 16 stories that embrace and reimagine the histories of Black women and their resistance, hope, and liberation.” SHORT STORIES; WOMEN

Calendar, Kacen. Felix Ever After. Balzer & Bray, 2020. “Seventeen-year-old Felix is Black, queer, and trans. … Callender … populates Felix’s world with a cast of queer, trans, and racially diverse individuals, genuinely reflecting the lives of many who work hard to build a supportive chosen family.” REALISTIC; IDENTITY 

Carter, Stephen L. The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln. Knopf, 2012. “What if Abraham Lincoln had not been killed by John Wilkes Booth? What if he survived the assassination attempt and lived on to face the vociferous criticism of Republican Radicals and others in the aftermath of the Civil War? What if the criticism reached the level of a call for impeachment, charging Lincoln with planning to impose martial law on the nation’s capital?” SPECULATIVE FICTION; CIVIL WAR 

Coates, Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Water Dancer. Ballantine/One World, 2019. “This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved.” HISTORICAL FICTION; FANTASY; SLAVERY; UNDERGROUND RR

Cole, Alyssa. An Unconditional Freedom. Kensington, 2019. “After being kidnapped, sold into slavery, beaten, and broken, Daniel Cumberland is now free and wants his revenge [on the Confederacy].” HISTORICAL FICTION; SLAVERY; POST-CIVIL WAR
Coles, Jay. Tyler Johnson was Here. Little Brown, 2018. “A young man searches for answers after the death of his brother at the hands of police in this striking debut novel, for readers of The Hate U Give.” REALISTIC; URBAN; URBAN VIOLENCE 

Daniels, Ezra Claytan & Ben Passmore. BTTM FDRS. Fantagraphics, 2019. Once a thriving working-class neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, the “Bottomyards” is now the definition of urban blight. When an aspiring fashion designer and her image-obsessed BFF descend upon the hood in search of cheap rent, they discover something far more seductive… and deadly. Gentrification and body horror collide in this brutal satire. GRAPHIC; URBAN; SATIRE

Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. Macmillan, 2008. “Marcus, a.k.a "w1n5t0n," is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school's intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they're mercilessly interrogated for days.” DYSTOPIAN FICTION

Elliott, Zetta. A Wish After Midnight. Skyscape, 2010. “Genna is a fifteen-year-old girl who wants out of her tough Brooklyn neighborhood. But she gets more than she bargained for when a wish gone awry transports her back in time. Facing the perilous realities of Civil War-era Brooklyn, Genna must use all her wits to survive. In the tradition of Octavia Butler's Kindred and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.” TIME TRAVEL; URBAN; CIVIL WAR 

Emezi, Akwaeke. Pet. Random, 2019. “The highly-anticipated, genre-defying new novel by award-winning author Akwaeke Emezi that explores themes of identity and justice. Pet is here to hunt a monster. Are you brave enough to look?” National Book Award Finalist; Stonewall Book Award. FANTASY; SELF-IMAGE

Ewing, Eve. Electric Arches. Haymarket, 2017. “[A]n imaginative exploration of Black girlhood and womanhood through poetry, visual art, and narrative prose. … [that] [b]lend[s] stark realism with the surreal and fantastic.” POETRY; SHORT STORIES; WOMEN & GIRLS 

Hurston, Zora Neale. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance. Amistad, 2019. “...21 of Hurston’s short stories  are gathered together for the first time, including nine recovered works, most focused on life in Harlem during its renaissance period, beginning in 1921…” SHORT STORIES; HARLEM (NY)

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Lippincott, 1937. Classic. “[T]he story of Janie Crawford, whose life is a quest to find true love. CLASSIC; HISTORICAL; FAMILY; ROMANCE

Jackson, Tiffany D. Monday’s Not Coming. HarperCollins, 2018. “Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried.”

Jemisin, N.K. How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? Orbit, 2018. “[This] first short story collection … showcases a wide range of fantasy and sf…” SHORT STORIES; FANTASY; SCIFI 

Johnson, Matt & Warren Pleece. Incognegro. Vertigo, 2008. This tenth anniversary edition of the acclaimed and fearless graphic novel features enhanced toned art, an afterword by Mat Johnson, character sketches, and other additional material. In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could “pass” among the white folks. They called this dangerous assignment going “incognegro.” GRAPHIC; HISTORICAL FICTION; LYNCHING

Magoon, Kekla. How It Went Down. Holt, 2014. “When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson dies from two gunshot wounds, his community is thrown into an uproar. Tariq was black. The shooter, Jack Franklin, is white. In the aftermath of Tariq's death, everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events line up. Day by day, new twists further obscure the truth.” Coretta Scott King Author Honor. REALISTIC; URBAN; GUN VIOLENCE

Magoon, Kekla. Light It Up. Holt, 2019. “Told in a series of vignettes from multiple viewpoints, Kekla Magoon's Light It Up is a powerful, layered story about injustice and strength―as well as an incredible follow-up to How It Went Down. REALISTIC; URBAN; POLICE VIOLENCE  

Medina, Tony. I Am Alphonso Jones. Tu Books, 2017. Alfonso Jones can’t wait to play the role of Hamlet in his school’s hip-hop rendition of the classic Shakespearean play. He also wants to let his best friend, Danetta, know how he really feels about her. But as he is buying his first suit, an off-duty police officer mistakes a clothes hanger for a gun, and he shoots Alfonso. When Alfonso wakes up in the afterlife, he’s on a ghost train guided by well-known victims of police shootings, who teach him what he needs to know about this subterranean spiritual world. GRAPHIC; HIPHOP; POLICE VIOLENCE; SUPERNATURAL

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. 1970. “Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife.“ CLASSIC; SELF-IMAGE 

Morrison, Toni. Home. Knopf, 2012. “Morrison’s taut, lacerating novel observes, through the struggles of Frank to move heaven and earth to reach and save his little sister, how a damaged man can gather the fortitude to clear his mind of war’s horror and face his own part in that horror, leave the long-term anger he feels toward his hometown aside, and take responsibility for his own life as well as hers.” FAMILY; 1950s

Mosely, Walter. 47. Little Brown, 2006. “deftly weaves historical and speculative fiction into a powerful narrative about the nature of freedom. 47 is a young slave boy living under the watchful eye of a brutal slave master. His life seems doomed until he meets a mysterious run-away slave, Tall John. Then 47 finds himself swept up in a struggle for his own liberation.” HISTORICAL FICTION; SPECULATIVE FICTION; 1860s 

Murray, Albert. The Seven League Boots. Pantheon, 1996. “Told from the point of view of a young Alabama college graduate in the 1920s, this brilliant novel recounts the exploits of a legendary jazz composer and his band on a tour that becomes a heroic journey ‘equivalent to the seven league strides of heroes in rocking chair story times.’” HISTORICAL FICTION; 1920S; JAZZ

AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Canfield, David. “A Frank Conversation About YA literature, Police Brutality, and the Nuances of Black Storytelling.” Explore Entertainment blog, 9 June 2020. “Acclaimed writer Nic Stone (Dear Martin) and debut author Kim Johnson (This Is My America), joined EW for a frank, illuminating conversation.”

Myers, Walter  Dean. Fallen Angels. Scholastic, 1988. “Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteered for the service when his dream of attending college falls through [is s]ent to the front lines [where] Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the U.S. is even there at all.” HISTORICAL, VIETNAM WAR

Myers, Walter Dean. The Glory Field. Scholastic, 2008. “This is the story of one family. A family whose history saw its first ancestor captured, shackled, and brought to this country from Africa. A family who can still see remnants of the shackles that held some of its members captive -- even today. It is a story of pride, determination, struggle, and love. And of the piece of the land that holds them together throughout it all.” HISTORICAL FICTION; FAMILY

Myers, Walter Dean. Invasion. Scholastic, 2013. “Josiah Wedgewood and Marcus Perry are on their way to an uncertain future. Their whole lives are ahead of them, yet at the same time, death's whisper is everywhere. One white, one black, these young men have nothing in common and everything in common as they approach an experience that will change them forever…. When Josiah and Marcus come together in what will be the greatest test of their lives, they learn hard lessons about race, friendship, and what it really means to fight. Set on the front lines of the Normandy Invasion in 1944.” HISTORICAL, WWII 

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. HarperCollins, 2009. “[T]he story of Steve Harmon, a teenage boy in juvenile detention and on trial.”Michael L. Printz Award recipient, an ALA Best Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor selection, and a National Book Award finalist. Now a motion picture. REALISTIC; PRISON

Myers, Walter Dean, Guy A. Sims & Dawud Anyabwile. Monster: A Graphic Novel. HarperAlley, 2015. Monster is a multi-award-winning, provocative coming-of-age story about Steve Harmon, a teenager awaiting trial for a murder and robbery. As Steve acclimates to juvenile detention and goes to trial, he envisions how his ordeal would play out on the big screen. GRAPHIC; REALISTIC; PRISON

Myers, Walter Dean. Sunrise Over Fallujah. Scholastic, 2009. “Robin "Birdy" Perry, a new army recruit from Harlem, isn't quite sure why he joined the army, but he's sure where he's headed: Iraq. Birdy and the others in the Civilian Affairs Battalion are supposed to help secure and stabilize the country and successfully interact with the Iraqi people. Officially, the code name for their maneuvers is Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the young men and women in the CA unit have a simpler name for it: WAR.” HISTORICAL, GULF WAR

Older, Daniel Jose. Cypher series: Shadowshaper; Shadowhouse Fall; Shadowshaper Legacy. Scholastic, 2016.  “Sierra Santiago planned an easy summer of making art and hanging out with her friends. But then a corpse crashes their first party. Her stroke-ridden grandfather starts apologizing over and over. And when the murals in her neighborhood begin to weep tears... Well, something more sinister than the usual Brooklyn ruckus is going on.” “[D]iversity and themes of social justice and identity [are] skilfully woven into a narrative -- not so that they disappear, but so that the story pivots on them in a way that is authentic, exciting, and ultimately satisfying.” “[M]eticulous attention to the details of the life of a brown-skinned, natural-haired Puerto Rican teenage girl.” FANTASY; URBAN  

Osajyefo, Kwanza, Tim Smith 3, and Jamal Igle. Black. Black Mask Comics, 2017. In a world that already hates and fears them – what if only Black people had superpowers. After miraculously surviving being gunned down by police, a young man learns that he is part of the biggest lie in history. Now he must decide whether it’s safer to keep it a secret or if the truth will set him free. GRAPHIC; POLICE VIOLENCE

Porter, Connie. Imani All Mine. Houghton, 2000. “Written in dialect from Tashas first-person point of view, Porters novel flows lyrically. In spite of the hardships in her life, Tasha maintains a sense of humor and balance. Porter goes beyond the teenage mother stereotype to present a heroine full of courage and love for her child and ready to face the difficulties and responsibilities of her life.” REALISTIC; TEEN MOTHERHOOD

Reed, Christina Hammonds. The Black Kids. Simon &  Schuster, August 2020. “[T]his unforgettable coming-of-age debut novel explores issues of race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy black teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots.” REALISTIC; 1990s; LA RIOTS 

Reynolds, Jason and Brendan Kiely. All American Boys. Atheneum, 2016. “A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?” Coretta Scott King Author Honor; Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature. REALISTIC; URBAN 

Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Ghost Boys. Little Brown, 2018. “Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.” SUPERNATURAL; URBAN VIOLENCE; FAMILY 

Ruffin, Maurice Carlos. We Cast a Shadow. Random/One World, 2018. ““I liked my java so black, the police planted evidence on it,” says the wry, self-aware, yet ultimately self-defeating narrator of this trenchant satire. Hired (after a humiliating competition) as the Black face of a racist corporation, he embarks on a relentless, single-minded quest to medically “demelanize” his biracial son, Nigel.” SATIRE
Segal, Gilly & Kimberly Jones. I’m Not Dying With You Tonight. Sourcebooks, 2019. “[F]ollows two teen girls―one black, one white―who have to confront their own assumptions about racial inequality as they rely on each other to get through  the violent race riot that has set their city on fire with civil unrest.” REALISTIC; RACE RIOT 

Shange, Ntozake and Ifa Bayeza. Some Sing, Some Cry. St. Martins, 2010. “[T]his bittersweet tale of seven generations in a family of mixed blood and musical genius weaves together essential historical facts and profound emotional truths.” HISTORICAL FICTION; FAMILY SAGA; MUSIC

Solomon, Rivers. The Deep. Saga, 2019. “...inspired by a song, also called “The Deep,” by the hip-hop group Clipping (featuring Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs), Solomon’s beautiful novella weaves together a moving and evocative narrative that imagines a future created from the scars of the past. Highly recommended for those interested in sf or fantasy that draws upon the legacies of colonialism and racism to imagine different, exciting types of futures.” NOVELLA; SPECULATIVE FICTION

Stone, Nic. Dear Martin series: Dear Martin (2017); Dear Justyce. Random. Dear Martin: “Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.” Dear Justyce: “Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University . . . and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center.” REALISTIC, URBAN 

Taylor, Mildred D. All the Days Past, All the Days to Come. Viking, 2020. “In her tenth book, Mildred Taylor completes her sweeping saga about the Logan family of Mississippi, which is also the story of the civil rights movement in America of the 20th century. Cassie Logan, first met in Song of the Trees and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, is a young woman now, searching for her place in the world, a journey that takes her from Toledo to California, to law school in Boston, and, ultimately, in the 60s, home to Mississippi to participate in voter registration.” HISTORICAL FICTION; FAMILY

Thomas, Angie. The Hate U Give. Balzer & Bray, 2017. Also a movie. “Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.”   William C. Morris Award Winner; National Book Award Longlist; Printz Honor Book ; Coretta Scott King Honor. REALISTIC; URBAN VIOLENCE 

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Houghton, 1982. “[D]epicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence.“ CLASSIC; HISTORICAL FICTION; FAMILY 

Walker, David F.; Chuck Brown & Sanford Greene. Bitter Root series: v1 Family Business (2019); v2 Rage & Redemption (2020). In the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance is in full swing, and only the Sangerye Family can save New York — and the world — from the supernatural forces threatening to destroy humanity. But the once-great family of monster hunters has been torn apart by tragedies and conflicting moral codes. The Sangerye Family must heal the wounds of the past and move beyond their differences… or sit back and watch a force of unimaginable evil ravage the human race. GRAPHIC; HARLEM RENAISSANCE; SUPERNATURAL

Walker, Brian F. Black Boy, White School. Harper Collins, 2012. “In a hard-hitting novel about fitting in—or not—Anthony “Ant” Jones gets transported from his East Cleveland hood to an almost all-white prep school and has to figure out where he belongs...before he loses himself entirely.” REALISTIC; SCHOOL 

Ward, Jesmyn. Sing, Unburied, Sing. Scribner, 2017. “Ward alternates perspectives to tell the story of a family in rural Mississippi struggling mightily to hold themselves together as they are assailed by ghosts reflecting all the ways humans create cruelty and suffering.” National Book Award. HISTORICAL; FAMILY SAGA; FANTASY ELEMENTS

Watson, Renee. Piecing Me Together. Bloomsbury, 2017. “[A] powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her.” Newbery Honor; Coretta Scott King Author Award. REALISTIC; SCHOOL; WOMEN & GIRLS

Watson, Renee. This Side of Home. Bloomsbury, 2015. “Identical twins Nikki and Maya have been on the same page for everything-friends, school, boys and starting off their adult lives at a historically African-American college. But as their neighborhood goes from rough-and-tumble to up-and-coming, suddenly filled with pretty coffee shops and boutiques, Nikki is thrilled while Maya feels like their home is slipping away. Suddenly, the sisters who had always shared everything must confront their dissenting feelings on the importance of their ethnic and cultural identities and, in the process, learn to separate themselves from the long shadow of their identity as twins.” REALISTIC; URBAN GENTRIFICATION 

Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys. Doubleday, 2019. “a tautly focused and gripping portrait of two African American teens during the last vicious years of Jim Crow. There is no way Elwood Curtis would ever have become a Nickel Boy if he was white.“ HISTORICAL FICTION; JIM CROW 

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 2016.   “[C]hronicl[es] a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.” HISTORICAL FICTION; UNDERGROUND RR

Zoboi, Ibi, ed. Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America. Balzer & Bray, 2019. “What is it like to be young and Black, and yet not Black enough at the same time? That’s the question explored in this poignant collection of stunning short stories by Black rock-star authors, including Justina Ireland, Jason Reynolds, Nic Stone, and Brandy Colbert.” SHORT STORIES​