Diverse Books to Read This Black History Month

Diverse+Books+to+Read+This+Black+History+Month

Haven Hawley, Reporter

With February being Black History Month, it’s time to celebrate diverse writers and characters. The following are a multitude of different books that get passed by but deserve a spotlight. These are the books that bring awareness to problems you personally haven’t experienced through underrepresented perspectives.

The Turner House- by Angela Flournoy

A story written about families and familial bonds seems to be everywhere, but to some people, this type of real feeling doesn’t come easily from those. The Turner House is about a family struggling to keep their old family house after a loss of a father and their mother falling ill. A strong first novel by Flournoy that shows parts of Detroit’s East Side that most people would never see. A great look into the everyday happenstance and struggle of the Turner family and how they survive through a tough time in their life.

 

Americanah- By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Coming from an expertized author of another novel, Purple Hibiscus, and a few short stories; Americanah is a story about a woman and her struggles are she immigrated to America than England with her lover. Both of them from Nigeria and seeking a better life. It follows how Ifemelu sees the world around her and the struggles that she’s put through trying to learn and thrive inside such a different environment than what she grew up inside of.

 

Beloved- By Toni Morrison

A dark story of a mother and her child trying to escape from slavery. This award-winning story is a quick read with deep history rooted in post-civil war America that is gridlocked in states wanting to keep their slaves and accepting the truth that they lost. A heartbreaking tale of loss and survival with a movie in 1988 by the same name.

 

Freshwater- By Akwaeke Emezi

Born with a disability that they refer to being born “with one foot on the other side”; Ada is forced to survive through having a supernatural being in her. This debut fantasy story deals with heavy themes of abuse and religious abandonment.

 

Speak No Evil- by Uzodinma Iweala

He was supposed to be the perfect son, as his father thought. Yet, he had an attraction to people he shouldn’t, men. Dealing between his father’s out lashing and trying to balance being who he was supposed to be and who he truly is. This story focuses heavily on how far can you deny your true self before you start cracking beneath the pressure. 

 

The Lunar Chronicles- by Marissa Meyer

A series of thirteen books with only four main stories; this series follows different old fairy tale story characters in a new environment and how this has formed them into the people they become. The setting is changed from the fantastic typical fairy tale forest, castles and princesses to a darker steampunk one with towering buildings and sterile halls. Interesting takes on the typical story book ideals that have been deep-set into these tales.

 

Mexican Whiteboy- by Matt de la Peña

Baseball is what he’s good at. Danny never got the chance to show that off. Just like he never got the chance to be seen but as anything but brown-skinned. Half Mexican and judged before he even opened his mouth. An eye-opening story about discrimination and opportunity. 

 

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe- by Fannie Flagg

Two women owning a cafe in Alabama. With good food and laugher offered. This is the story that Mrs. Threadgoode tells Evelyn in the 1980s. A story of love, friendship and a sprinkling of possible murder. With blurred lines of what everything is. Trying to move on from the past. This old tale of the South has a movie of the same name. 

 

The Color Purple- Alice Walker

A story in 1930s rural Georgia, Main character is fourteen-year-old Celia is an African- American woman faced with the dangers of the time period and family around her. This book is incredibly powerful and one of the most challenged books to let on school shelves due to the extreme portrayals of child abuse, sexual assault, and murder. It is a highly recommended story for people that can handle that. There is also a movie and a musical under the same name.