As a trusted community partner, The Library’s primary aim is to help those seeking knowledge and understanding, while serving the needs of all members of the community.
In that spirit, and with your help, we’re developing this list of resources for everyone seeking a better understanding of race relations. We hope to create a pipeline for dialogue and increased awareness that will allow us to move forward as a united society.
> > Looking for a more complete list of titles in our collection?
> > Help us by suggesting other titles to add to our collection on this topic.
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How can we do better? Let us know at dcls.org/strategicplan.
Adult Book Titles
All you can ever know: a memoir, by Nicole Chung
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma
Don’t label me: an incredible conversation for divided times, by Irshad Manji
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
How to be an antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
It’s time to talk (and listen): how to have constructive conversations about race, class, sexuality, ability, & gender in a polarized world,
by Anatasia S. Kim, Ph. D. and Alicia Del Prado, Ph. D.
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
The persistence of the color line: racial politics and the Obama presidency, by Randall Kennedy
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
When They Call You a Terrorist: a Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
What it is: race family and one thinking Black man’s blues, by Clifford Thompson
What truth sounds like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and our unfinished conversation about race in America, by Michael Eric Dkyson
“Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” and other conversations about race, by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Antiracist Books for Tweens and Teens
Middle Grade
A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée
From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes
My life as an ice cream sandwich, by Ibi Zobo
New Kid by Jerry Craft
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Resist: 35 profiles of ordinary people who rose up against tyranny and injustice, by Veronica Chambers
So Done by Paula Chase
The Long Ride by Marina Budhos
The Usual Suspects by Maurice Broaddus
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
Young Adult
All American boys, by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson
Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard by Echo Brown
Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with Tonya Bolden
I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal
Just Mercy: Adapted for Young Adults: a True Story of the Fight for Justice by Bryan Stevenson
March (Books 1-3) by John Lewis and illustrated by Nate Powell
On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
Piecing me together, by Renée Watson
Say Her Name by Zetta Elliott
Slay by Brittney Morris
Stamped: racism, antiracism and you, by Jason Reynolds
Stolen Justice by Lawrence Goldstone
Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance by Bethany C. Morrow
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Only Black Girls in Town by Brandy Colbert
The Stonewall Riots by Gayle E. Pitman
This book is anti-racist, by Tiffany Jewell
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
Picture Books for Kids
Babies Through Preschool
A is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara
Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi and illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky
Be boy buzz, by bell hooks
Black is a Rainbow Color by Angela Joy and illustrated by Ekua Holmes
Don’t Touch My Hair by Sharee Miller
Hair love, by Matthew Cherry
I Am Enough by Grace Byers and illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo
Last stop on Market Street, by Matt de la Peña
M Is for Melanin: A Celebration of the Black Child by Tiffany Rose
Saturday by Oge Mora
Skin Again, by bell hooks
Whose Knees Are These? by Jabari Asim and illustrated by LeUyen Pham
Elementary School
A Girl Like Me by Angela Johnson and illustrated by Nina Crews
Crown: an ode to the fresh cut, by Derrick Barnes
Jabari jumps, by Gaia Cornwal
Let it shine: stories of Black women freedom fighters, by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History by Vashti Harrison
Malcolm Little: the boy who grew up to become Malcolm X, by Ilyasah Shabazz
Not my idea: a book about whiteness, by Anastasia Higginbotham
Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Brian Pinkney
Something Happened in Our Town: a Child’s Story about Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, PhD, ABPP, Marietta Collins, PhD, and Ann Hazzard, PhD, ABPP, and illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin
Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o and illustrated by Vashti Harrison
The day you begin, by Jacqueline Woodson
The undefeated, by Kwame Alexander
The youngest marcher, by Cynthia Levinson
Under my hijab, by Hena Khan
What Do You Do with a Voice Like That?: The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan by Chris Barton and illustrated by Ekua Holmes
> > Looking for a more complete list of titles in our collection?
> > Help us by suggesting other titles to add to our collection on this topic.
> > Need help with your research? Ask a Librarian.