The first tweet with the #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag came out of a 2014 online conversation between authors of children’s and teen literature frustrated with the lack of diversity in kidlit. The non-profit organization that grew out of that conversation has the purpose of helping to produce and promote literature that reflects the lives of all young people. For this list, we are using their definition of diversity as “all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, Native, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities*, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities.”
(“*[WeNeedDiverseBooks subscribes] to a broad definition of disability, which includes but is not limited to physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities, chronic conditions, and mental illnesses (this may also include addiction). Furthermore, we subscribe to a social model of disability, which presents disability as created by barriers in the social environment, due to lack of equal access, stereotyping, and other forms of marginalization.”)
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi – Coming of age in a land where her magi mother was killed by the zealous king’s guards along with other former wielders of magic, Zélie embarks on a journey alongside her brother and a fugitive princess to restore her people’s magical abilities. (Book #2 comes out in March!)
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah – A raw debut story collection from a young writer is a treacherously surreal, and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it’s like to be young and black in America.
Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen by Sarah Bird – In 1864 Missouri, newly freed slave Cathy Williams makes the difficult decision to fight in the Army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers.
What We Owe by Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde – Standing on the precipice of her own death, 50-year-old Nahid, who has never had the ability or opportunity to live life to the fullest, is filled with both new fury and long dormant rage when she learns that her daughter Aram is pregnant with her first child.
I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan by Khalida Brohi – The founder of the Sughar nonprofit presents a memoir about tribal life in Pakistan that describes how her father’s nontraditional beliefs about education saved her from an arranged marriage and helped her become her village’s first woman doctor.
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh – Collects autobiographical, illustrated essays and cartoons from the author’s popular blog and related new material that humorously and candidly deals with her own idiosyncrasies and battles with depression.
The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco – Dismissed from the Pinkerton Detective Agency for her penchant for going undercover as a man, 19th-century espionage agent Alma Rosales navigates multiple complex identities while tracking stolen opium in Port Townsend for an alluring mastermind smuggler.
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung – A Korean adoptee who grew up with a white family in Oregon discusses her journey to find her identity as an Asian American woman and a writer after becoming curious about her true origins.
Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline – Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden—but what they don’t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.
North of Dawn by Nuruddin Farah – A Somalian couple’s tranquil life abroad in Oslo is irrevocably transformed by the arrival of their jihadist son’s widow and children, who respectively retreat into strict religion and hunger for freedoms in a new homeland.
American Road Trip by Patrick Flores-Scott – Brothers Teodoro and Manny Avila are hoodwinked into a road trip by their sister Xochitl to address Manny’s PTSD following his tour in Iraq, and to help T. change his life and win the heart of Wendy Martinez. (Also qualifies as PNW setting: The family lives in Tacoma and at one point visit their grandmother in Yakima!)
Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford – Confined to Seattle’s Sacred Heart Orphanage during the Great Depression, Chinese-American boy William Eng becomes convinced that a certain movie actress is actually the mother he has not seen since he was seven years old.
Bingo Love written & illustrated by Tee Franklin – When Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray met at church bingo in 1963, it was love at first sight. Forced apart by their families and society, Hazel and Mari both married young men and had families. Decades later, now in their mid-’60s, Hazel and Mari reunite again at a church bingo hall. Realizing their love for each other is still alive, what these grandmothers do next takes absolute strength and courage.
How We Roll by Natasha Friend – After developing alopecia, Quinn lost her friends along with her hair. Former football player Jake lost his legs and confidence after an accident. The two help each other believe in themselves and the possibility of love.
Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin – A gender-fluid teenager who struggles with identity creates a blog on the topic that goes viral, and faces ridicule at the hands of fellow students.
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang – A 30-year-old math whiz with Asperger’s tries to make her love life as rich as her career by hiring an escort to help her with her lack of knowledge and experience in the dating department.
A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua – Betrayed by the boss who is also the father of her unborn child, an undocumented Chinese factory worker is forced to flee and reinvent herself in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the desperate hopes of securing American citizenship for her baby.
How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? Stories by N.K. Jemisin – Three-time Hugo Award winner Jemisin’s first collection of short fiction challenges and enchants with breathtaking stories of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.
(Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation About Mental Health edited by Kelly Jensen – Thirty-three actors, athletes, writers, and artists offer essays, lists, comics, and illustrations that explore a wide range of topics: their personal experiences with mental illness; how we do and don’t talk about mental health; help for better understanding how every person’s brain is wired differently; and what, exactly, might make someone crazy.
Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones – Walking through his own house at night, a fifteen-year-old thinks he sees another person stepping through a doorway. Instead of the people who could be there, his mother or his brother, the figure reminds him of his long-gone father, who died mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows it he discovers his house is bigger and deeper than he knew.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones – Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated by forces beyond their control.
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish – An ailing historian with a fondness for Jewish history reviews 17th century documents discovered during a renovation in Amsterdam, and learns the story of an emigrant who worked as a scribe for a blind rabbi just before the onslaught of the plague.
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas – Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family.
All the Stars Denied by Guadalupe Garcia McCall – McCall tackles the hidden history of the United States and its first mass deportation event that swept up hundreds of thousands of Mexican American citizens during the Great Depression.
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza – As an Indian wedding gathers a family back together, parents Rafiq and Layla must reckon with the choices their children have made. There is Hadia: their headstrong, eldest daughter, whose marriage is a match of love and not tradition. Huda, the middle child, determined to follow in her sister’s footsteps. And their estranged son, Amar, returns to the family for the first time in three years to take his place as brother of the bride. What secrets and betrayals have caused this close-knit family to fracture?
Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair that Shaped a First Lady by Susan Quinn – An intimate account of the close relationship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok shares compassionate insights into how their more than three-decade friendship transformed their lives and empowered them to play significant roles in one of the most tumultuous periods in American history.
Wrong to Need You by Alisha Rai – Returning home 10 years after being accused of a crime he did not commit, Jackson Kane helps his brother’s widow, the only woman he has ever loved, with the café she’s inherited, and must decide if he is strong enough to face the past in order to have a future with this woman he cannot live without.
Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith – Breaking up with her first real boyfriend when he makes racist remarks about her Native American heritage, high school senior Louise Wolfe teams up with a fellow school newspaper editor to cover a multicultural casting of the school play and the racial hostilities it has exposed.
The Summer of Jordi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding – Seventeen, fashion-obsessed, and gay, Abby Ives has always been content playing the sidekick in other people’s lives. While her friends and sister have plunged headfirst into the world of dating and romances, Abby’s been happy to focus on her plus-size style blog and her dreams of taking the fashion industry by storm. When she lands a great internship at her favorite boutique, she’s thrilled to take the first step toward her dream career. Then she falls for her fellow intern, Jordi Perez. Hard. And now she’s competing against the girl she’s kissing to win the coveted paid job at the end of the internship.
Everyone Knows You Go Home by Natalia Sylvester – Isabel’s dead father-in-law, Omar, visits her every year on the Day of the Dead and she gradually learns about Omar’s abandonment of his family and the importance of forgiveness, as her family shelters a nephew who has crossed the Mexican border.
House of Stone by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma (releases in January) – After their son, Bukhosi, disappears in the chronic turmoil of modern Zimbabwe, Abednego and Agnes Mlambo receive help from their enigmatic lodger, Zamani. Also a debut novel.
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas – The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker and immigration-rights activist presents a debut memoir about how he unknowingly entered the United States with false documents as a child.
Family Trust by Kathy Wang – Struggling to fulfill a terminally ill father’s final bequest, a privileged Chinese-American family in Silicon Valley is forced to contend with the realities of their ambitions and actual desires.