Literature for Adolescents
Black is Beautiful and Powerful, Deal with it.
Centering Black Stories
This section highlights stories where the main characters are Black, African American, or Black American and that Black identity is celebrated. It also, however, has two classical texts that are arguably anti-Black and/or racist in nature. The reason for this is because looking at those texts through critical race theory and/or postcolonial lens allows for both a deeper analysis and the possibility of learning how these past instances of racism influence our current socio-historical and cultural moment. Fighting oppression and celebrating Black identities are two important first steps in rectifying inequity. For the edition and year section, if there is only a year present that means the edition was not applicable and/or significant.
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Edition and Year: Beacon Press, 1979
General Writing Style or Structure (GWSS): Prose
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Themes: Race and Racism, Violence, History v. Present, Life, Death and Loss, Family, Identity
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Summary: The idea of time traveling is awesome right? And time traveling to the past, where you can experience something other people can only read about? Extra cool, right? Well sure, unless you’re Dana, who is somehow transported from her home in 1970s California to the pre-Civil War South where she’s enslaved. What makes it worse is that she continually goes back and forth in time, torn between living her life as a free Black woman and living as a slave to people she discovers are her ancestors.
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Assessments: Students can discuss how, if at all, they think history impacts the present. They can also delve into the idea of reparations for slavery and whether they think that is justified or not. Students can also talk about how the nature of time travel, as conceived in Kindred, impacts their view of the past. Relatedly, they can also discuss what it is like reading the book from a perspective where, to the readers, both time periods written about are part of the past.
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Edition and Year: 1977
GWSS: Prose
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Themes: Identity, Belonging, Gender, Family, Class, Violence, Race and Racism, History v. Present
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Summary (quoted from back cover): “Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life, he, too, will be trying to fly.”
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Assessment: Students can discuss how, if at all, our family history (and history in general) impact our lives today. Students can discuss the symbolism of flying for Milkman and for Black Americans. Students can discuss the morality of Guitar and Milkman (separately and in comparison). Relatedly, they can discuss the merits (if there are any) behind a violent act caused by a violent act. Is that a form of justice? Is there ever any justification for it? Students can also discuss the importance of women throughout the story and how traditional gender roles and expectations are both challenged and reaffirmed; and how said “traditional” gender roles/expectations are often originally White.
For Colored Girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntosake Shange
Edition and Year: 1974
GWSS: Play written like poetry
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Themes: Gender, Sexuality, Identity, Family, Violence, Love, Race and Racism, Belonging, Mental Health Issues
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Summary: As Shange says in the introduction to the second publication: “The poems introduce the girls to other kinds of people of color, other worlds. To adventure, and kindness, and cruelty. Cruelty that we usually think we face alone, but we don’t. We discover that by sharing with each other we find strength to go on. The poems are the play’s first hint of the global misogyny that we women face. . . .for colored girls was meant for women of color. . .the connection we can make through it, with each other and for each other, is to empower us all.”
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Assessment: Students can discuss Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality and how that ties into Shange’s idea that for colored girls is made specifically for women of color and how those identities work together for better or worse. Students can discuss how the colors and structure of the language and the stage directions impact our reading and interpretation of the text. Students can also see how the connections between the women uplift and empower each other. Students can also discuss how the title relates to the overarching narrative and why Shange might have chosen this title.
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
Edition and Year: 1982
GWSS: A biomythography, the combination of history, biography, and myth
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Themes: Gender, Race and Racism, Sexuality, Class, Identity, Belonging
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Summary: There is no real summary for Zami just think of it like a really well-written and engaging rumination by Lorder about her life.
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Assessment: Students can talk about the power of naming. Students can discuss the ways Lorde conflates gender with sexuality and if they think that accurately represents us or if it was more a product of her time. Students can discuss what Lorde meant by calling this a "biomythingography" and what point she was trying to make. Students can discuss how race, gender, and sexuality all intersect in meaningful ways for Lorde.
Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance edited by Bethany Morrow
Edition and Year: 2019
GWSS: A series of short stories by various authors
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Themes: Race and Racism, Activism, Identity
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Summary: A collection of short stories that chronicle the activism that’s easiest to ignore and sometimes the most powerful: the acts of resistance that we enact every day.
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Assessment: Students can discuss the power of shorter stories and/or poetry in conveying emotions and narrative punch. Students can discuss how their voices are important and necessary when combating systematic oppression. Students could, conversely, debate the previous point.
Pride by Ibi Zoboi
Edition and Year: 2018
GWSS: Remake of a classic, Fiction, Prose
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Themes: Identity, Race and Racism, Class, Gender, Love, Family, Change, Growing up, Pride v Prejudice, Gentrification
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Summary (quoted from back cover): In this remake of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, "Zuri Benitez has pride. . .but pride might not be enough to save her neighborhood from changing into something unrecognizable. When the wealthy Darcy family moves in next door, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons. . .[especially] the judgemental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding."
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Assessment: Students can discuss the impacts of gentrification. Students can discuss the difficulty of leaving a place with emotional connections--and they can connect this to the indigenous and living in between units emphasis on place and space playing a role in identity. Students can discuss why someone would want to revamp a classic and what the purpose of doing so would be. Students can discuss the ways race and class intersect in the novel and how that deeply affects the characters and plot.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Edition and Year: 2017
GWSS: Prose
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Themes: Race and Racism, Police, Gentrification, Activism, Identity, Class, Death and Loss, Family, Gender
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Summary: The difference between who 16-year-old Starr Carter has to be when she’s in the poor, mostly Black, neighborhood where she lives and who she has to be when she goes to school in the wealthy, mostly White, suburbs, is as vast as a canyon. But when you’re pulled over by the cops on your way home from a party none of that matters—all they see is that you’re Black. For Khalil, her friend who was driving, that means getting shot and dying in Starr’s arms. Khalil’s murder soon becomes national news and Starr has to decide if she’s going to come forward as the witness to the murder. As the cover flap says: “[w]hat Starr does—or does not—say could destroy her community. It could also endanger her life.”
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Assessment: Students can discuss the similarities and differences between the gentrification that Starr deals with and the one that Zuri from Pride deals with. Students can write about their own instances where they saw something unjust but speaking about it meant going against an authority figure (whether or not said authority is good or bad). Students can discuss how Khalil was probably seen as an active threat due to the combination of him being Black and a man. Students can discuss the power of speaking up and having your voice/narrative heard.
Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
Edition and Year: 2014
GWSS: Historical Fiction, Prose switching between POV of two main protagonists
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Themes: Race and Racism, Sexuality, Family, Identity, Bravery, Community v. Individual
Summary (quoted from back cover): “In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on the opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. . .Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. . .Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power, and the fact that they may be falling for one another.”
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Assessment: Students can discuss whether or not they think Talley did an ok job not only at accurately portraying the racial situation but also the growing romance between people where one person thinks of the other as lesser. Did the changing POV help with that? Students can also discuss if they think sacrifices like Sarah’s are worth the eventual desegregation--and connecting it to the de facto segregation of today. Were the sacrifices pointless or did they still matter? Students can discuss the ways in which we are taught our values by our family and society. Students can question whether humans are capable of change and if so, how drastic can the change be?
I Am Not Your Negro directed by Raoul Peck
from texts by James Baldwin
Edition and Year: 2016
GWSS: Film, Book-version of film, Prose by James Baldwin, Compiled and edited by Raoul Peck
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Themes: Race and Racism, Belonging, Identity
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Summary: There’s no easy way to summarize this hodge-podge book, just know it is by James Baldwin and thus amazing. The trailer for the movie is on the right. I would recommend watching it full screen.
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Assessment: Students can talk about the connections between what Baldwin talks about and our issues today. Students can discuss how their interpretation and/or reactions changed based on reading the book versus watching the film.
Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
Edition and Year: 20th Anniversary, 1995
GWSS: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Series of short stories
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Themes: Belonging, Identity, Race/Ethnicity, Family, Death and Loss, Gender, Nationality, Class, Colonization, Motherhood, Community v. Individual
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Summary: “Krik? Krak!” is the Haitian call and response for storytelling, and as the back cover explains this anthology examines “the lives, loves, and pains of ordinary Haitians, both in Haiti and the United States. . .explor[ing] the distance between people’s intense desires and the stifling reality of their lives.”
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Assessment: Students can discuss the ways in which European colonization impacts countries that were formerly colonized and the ways that it can (re)produce inequity and/or change culture. Relatedly, students can discuss the power of narration and how your perspective changes who the heroes and villains are in the story. Students can discuss how motherhood is portrayed throughout the stories and if they think that mothers come out of the stories as positive or negative forces in the characters’ lives--and they can compare and contrast the way the various books in this section deal with motherhood. Students can also discuss how death, loss, and ancestry is viewed differently in various cultures; this could also connect to the ways that people in oppressed groups are often forced to uplift and/or represent their entire community (e.g. I’m doing this because of all the people before me who fought for my right to do so).