I Need Diverse Books

I have decided that I’m reading only books by non-white authors this summer; and only books I haven’t read before.  I realized that, although I don’t try to be exclusive, most of the authors I frequent – my favorites – are white women.  Nothing wrong with being a white woman who writes books (after all, I am one).  But summer is for stepping out of the usual, am I right? (I’m right)

I’ve been following the We Need Diverse Books movement online.  I know the reality is that diverse books only get made if diverse books get bought.  Therefore I will buy some (hence the “haven’t read before” rule). I’m also hoping that by reading only non-white authors I’ll learn something new.  Yay for learning new things.

I usually get through somewhere between 20-35 books over a season.  I have a lovely little list going on at Goodreads, but I’m posting my thirteen Must Reads below (I started with ten, and then had to keep going).  It’s been sort of a challenge to find things because I’m not thrilled with literary fiction; I like genre much better and YA or Fantasy in particular.  Recommended reading lists for those genres are few and far between.  But I digress.

Below is my list.  If you have any others you think I should definitely put on there, please, PLEASE let me know.  I have read the Great Greene Heist, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, How The Garcia Girls Got Their Accent, The God of Small Things, some Virginia Hamilton, some Laura Esquivel, and much Sherman Alexie, but anything else is (probably) fair game.

1. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
2. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jaqueline Woodson
3. Kindred by Octavia Butler
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renaee Ahdieh
6. A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison by Paul Jennings
7. My Life as a Rhombus by Varian Johnson
8. Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston
9. Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
10. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
11. Written In The Stars by Aisha Saeed
12. For The Record by Charlotte Huang
13. An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes by Randy Ribay

See, I read all of these titles and I get REALLY excited for those students to graduate and for the summer to officially start.  Commencement is this weekend, so SOON. (!!!)