I’m not as great at keeping up with the world as I want to be but reading coming-of-age fiction novels is easier to me than scrolling through Yahoo! News.

I challenged myself this month to read more books from black authors and to diversify my literature pallette. I grew up reading about powerful protagonists such as Katniss from Hunger Games or Harry Potter from Harry Potter, but just recently have I learned about POC characters like Starr from The Hate You Give or Bud from Bud, Not Buddy. I wish that I recognized these books centering around POC more. It seems that almost my entire collection of favorite movies and books feature a white protagonist with a very limited POC cast. I partly blame the current school curriculum that hasn’t given me the opportunity to discover these authors of different backgrounds and races. POC authors should be as prevalent to us in English class as our other beloved authors like Harper Lee and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Invite Toni Morrison or Ta-Nehisi Coates into our curriculum sooner and maybe I would have paid more attention in freshman year.

1. Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles

Lamar Giles is a contemporary author of young adult novels who resides in Chesapeake, Virginia. Not So Pure and Simple is the perfect young adult novel that gives me new hope in this “sometimes butchered” genre and is one of the few books that have made me laugh out loud. Before this book, it’s been a while since I found a young adult novel that didn’t make me feel disconnected due to the abnormal teenage dialogue or unrealistic catchphrases. The writing in this book makes me feel like a childhood friend who I’ve lost touch with suddenly sprung back into my life with a great story to tell.

SUMMARY: Since elementary school, Del has been infatuated with Kiera. She’s been the girl that he’s been pining for ever since the kindergarten play they starred in together: well she starred in it, he was tree number 3. But Kiera has never been single for long enough for Del to swoop in, this is what ultimately leads him to accidentally swearing himself into the same purity pledge as her in his local church. This could classify as his worst attempt yet. Now that Del has promised a life of celibacy, we follow his coming of age story as he confronts uncomfortable topics such as toxic masculinity, societal norms of the youth, and religious devotion with the people that he loves and hates.

2. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I’m going to be honest: After watching the mess of a movie Everything, Everything was, I didn’t want to trust Amandla Stenberg in what she starred in next. However, I caved once I saw the movie was going free on Amazon Prime. The movie was amazing and made me intrigued to borrow a copy of the novel to see how much better the book could be.

Angie Thomas, a former teenage rapper, was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and most known in the novelist world for her award-winning debut novel The Hate U Give that had me crying towards the end harder than any other book I can remember.

SUMMARY: Starr Carter is conflicted in how to label her identity when belonging in two different worlds: the part of her that resides in the lower class neighborhood of Garden Heights or the part that attends Williamson Prep, the predominately white school that leaves her neighbors looking at her like she betrayed them. It’s not until the death of her friend Khalil by a police officer is when she realizes these two worlds will come crashing down on her if she doesn’t stand up for what she believes: not what Garden Heights believes she should do or what Williamson Prep believes she should do. Khalil’s death forces Starr to pave her own path to do what is right regardless of the consequences that are threatening her to stay silent.

3. Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? By Beverly Daniel Tatum

Beverly Daniel Tatum was born in Tallahassee, Florida during the time that the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education determined it unconstitutional to have race-based segregation in schools. She considers herself an “integration baby” as stories such as Little Rock Nine were approaching mainstream media, and POC were finally receiving equal justice.

SUMMARY: This 700+ page nonfiction book analyzes how institutional racism has been imprinted into the modern world and deals with the psychology of why we can’t recognize racism as easily as pointing a finger. Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria may not be a novice or juvenile book to read because it’s so dense, but upperclassmen can certainly start with this book when taking the first step into unlearning and relearning how they define inequality and social injustice for POC. Something to know is that there is a lot of information to absorb from the get-go. In the first 30 pages, I already felt overwhelmed with the onslaught of new information about the background of redlining and how these poverty-stricken areas remained poor.

4. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry was born and lived on the south side of Chicago which angered her white neighbors with her four siblings and parents. She later attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and became the first black female to have her play A Raisin in the Sun performed on Broadway.

I’ll admit: I read this book in school, so it wasn’t this month. But upon receiving this book, it only took me a day to finish the entire screenplay. It was a short read but still sticks with me to this day.

SUMMARY: A Raisin in the Sun is a screenplay that centers on the Youngers family, an African American family living in Chicago, who suddenly realizes they have inherited a large sum of money from their deceased grandfather’s life insurance policy. 

The question of what they are going to do with the money opens up a conversation about how they will now be viewed, a poor black family in Southside Chicago now becoming a much wealthier black family who plans to move into an entirely white neighborhood, by the world and themselves.

A Raisin in the Sun is a beautiful metaphor to how the “American Dream” in the 1950s was a privilege that POC families couldn’t imagine as attainable. Redlining and other discriminatory societal norms in the past prevented black families from breaking away from their poverty-stricken neighborhoods. The Youngers family dynamic is hard to understand at first, sometimes even frustrating to read, but they evolve into these complex and layered characters that you root for in the end. 

There’s a Youtube video of this screenplay acted on the Harvard Black CAST channel where the scenes are quoted from the book in verbatim. I personally read the book faster without the youtube video, but towards the second half, I started watching the screenplay which really elevated the reading experience. It’s only 2 and a half hours long so a little longer than a movie. I haven’t gotten the chance to watch the movie yet, but I always preferred live theatre over film production.

5. The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis

Christopher Paul Curtis is a Newbery Medal-winning children’s book author who was born in Flint, Michigan. His most notable works are Bud, Not Buddy and The Watsons Go to Birmingham which mostly centers in Flint, Michigan in times of hardship.

This juvenile fiction novel was a random pick from my elementary school scholastic book fair around 5 years ago. For some reason, it had been sitting in my bookshelf and collecting dust for a long time before I got up to read it.

SUMMARY: The narrative follows the Malone family during the Great Depression and depicts the harsh reality on how being poor and black in Gary, Indiana makes the world seem like it’s fighting against you with every step you take. Miss Malone believes she has a great future ahead of her despite all the hardships her family and friends face around her. The Mighty Miss Malone is another charming yet bitter coming of age story that I wish I read sooner specifically five years ago when I bought it.

Educate yourselves in whatever way works best for you, I know there’s some people out there that can’t force themselves to read every new article that VICE comes out with. However, I encourage you to continue to reteach yourself the same issues that are surrounding us today. There isn’t a better time than now to start.