41 Diverse Must Have YA Titles for Every Library

This list of 41 (actually, although the list was named for 42) books (which seems to have disappeared off the SLJ website just now) was chosen by the editors of School Library Journal as an adjunct to their Top 100 Must-Have YA Books which wasn't quite diverse enough on it's own. And there are always more great books out there to consider, and to read. 


Does My Head Look Big in This? - Randa Abdel-Fatah

Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights - Ann Bausum
Tyrell - Coe Booth
Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices -  Lisa Charleyboy & Mary Beth Leatherdalde (editors)
The Reader - Traci Chee
Ball Don’t Lie - Matt de la Peña
Forged by Fire - Sharon M. Draper
If You Could Be Mine - Sara Farizan
The Great American Whatever - Tim Federle
The Skin I’m In - Sharon G. Flake
Conviction - Kelly Loy Gilbert
Bronx Masquerade - Nikki Grimes
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice - Phillip Hoose
Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World - Kelly Jensen (editor)
Like No Other - Una LaMarche
Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan
March Trilogy - John Lewis & Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (illustrator)
Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx - Sonia Manzano
Burn, Baby, Burn - Meg Medina

When Dimple Met Rishi - Sandhya Menon
A Step from Heaven - An Na
Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection - Hope Nicholson (editor)
Prophecy series - Ellen Oh
Akata Witch - Nnedi Okorafor
Shadow shaper - Daniel José Older
Out of Darkness - Ashley Hope Pérez
Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip Through the Motown Sound - Andrea Davis Pinkney
If I Was Your Girl - Meredith Russo
X: A Novel - Ilyasah Shabazz & Kekla Magoon
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights - Steve Sheinkin
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team - Steve Sheinkin
Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story - Caren Stelson
Nimona - Noelle Stevenson
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared To Dream - Tanya Lee Stone
Marcelo in the Real World - Francisco X. Stork

This One Summer - Mariko and Jillian Tamaki
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (see my review)
Samurai Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune  - Pamela S. Turner, Gareth Hinds (illustrator)
Piecing Me Together - Renée Watson
Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon
The Sun Is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon

1/41

Well that's embarrassing. And I'm actively interested in this area. Thank goodness I read The Hate U Give in the last few weeks...

I have meant to read quite a number of these books. The Hate U Give of course which is possibly the YA book of 2017. Certainly Does My Head Look Big in This? It's Australian. I've seen Randa Abdel-Fatah speak, she's impressive. I recently acquired a copy and have it in the house. I also have Boy Meets Boy in the house, as well as several other David Levithan titles, I've also seen him speak, he's impressive, and funny and I want to read him. I've seen This One Summer on so many lists now, I'm intrigued. 

But there are even more books, and authors that I've never even heard of in this list. I've got more than just one lifetimes reading ahead of me...