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Home • Entertainment

Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens

As our children and teens return to school, here are six must-reads to help them navigate the racial pandemic and empower them to love their full selves.
Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens
By Joi-Marie McKenzie · Updated December 6, 2020
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Now that the kiddos have gone back to school, or back to Zoom, they might not like the idea of additional reading.

Still, with so much going on in the world, we know that books often make sense of what’s nonsensical and the reads we’ve selected below tackle tough topics such as race and anti-racism.

Other book selections for your little ones embolden children to show off their confidence or teach strategies on maintaining self-worth in a world desperate to strip it from them.

Scroll below to uncover children’s picture books, young adult novels aimed at teenagers and everything else in between.

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01
I Am Every Good Thing
Award-winning duo Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James remind Black boys that they are divinely created in I Am Every Good Thing (Nancy Paulsen, $17.99).
Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens
02
For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World
Meet Jeremiah, who’s dealing with the haunting effects of gun violence, in For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World (Flyaway, $18), by Michael W. Waters and Keisha Morris.
Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens
03
The Black Kids
The Black Kids (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $18.99), a privileged Black teen’s world gets rocked after the 1992 Rodney King riots.
Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens
04
Punching the Air – September 1
Best-selling author Ibi Zoboi and one of The Exonerated Five, Yusef Salaam, have produced this illustrated young adult novel about a teen who’s wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Pulling from Dr. Salaam’s own experience, this novel speaks on the dangers of mass incarceration and institutional racism.
Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens
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05
The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth
Have an open discussion after reading The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth (Crown Books for Young Readers, $16.99), edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson.
Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens
06
Dear Justyce
Nic Stone introduces us to an incarcerated teen in the YA sequel Dear Justyce (Crown Books for Young Readers, $18.99) and sheds light on the workings of the criminal justice system.
Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens
TOPICS:  black books Books childrens book childrens novels race books