All One World: Multicultural Fiction for Teens

Some great fiction has been written about teens from a different culture who have to deal with problems because of their ethnic background.

This booklist was contributed by Appleton Public Library Reference and Information Services Staff, 7/07 

African-American Teens

• Come Juneteenth by Ann Rinaldi (2007)
Fourteen-year-old Luli and her family face tragedy after failing to tell their slaves that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made them free.
• Copper sun by Sharon M. Draper (2006)
Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant--escape their Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves.
• The first part last by Angela Johnson (2003)
Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter.
• Harlem hustle by Janet McDonald (2006)
Eric "Hustle" Samson, a smart and street-wise seventeen-year-old dropout from Harlem, aspires to rap stardom, a dream he naively believes is about to come true.
• Harlem summer by Walter Dean Myers (2007)
In 1920s Harlem, sixteen-year-old Mark Purvis, an aspiring jazz saxophonist, gets a summer job as an errand boy for the publishers of the groundbreaking African American magazine, "The Crisis," but soon finds himself on the enemy list of mobster Dutch Shultz.
• If you come softly by Jacqueline Woodson (1998)
After meeting at their private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people's reactions.
• The legend of Buddy Bush by Shelia P. Moses (2004)
In 1947, twelve-year-old Pattie Mae is sustained by her dreams of escaping Rich Square, North Carolina, and moving to Harlem when her Uncle Buddy is arrested for attempted rape of a white woman and her grandfather is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.
• New boy by Julian Houston (2005)
As a new sophomore at an exclusive boarding school, a young black man is witness to the persecution of another student with bad acne.
• Standing against the wind by Traci L. Jones (2006)
As she tries to escape her poor Chicago neighborhood by winning a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, shy and studious eighth-grader Patrice discovers that she has more options in life than she previously realized.
• Tyrell by Coe Booth (2006)
Fifteen-year-old Tyrell, who is living in a Bronx homeless shelter with his spaced-out mother and his younger brother, tries to avoid temptation so he does not end up in jail like his father.
• Who am I without him? : short stories about girls and the boys in their by Sharon Flake (2004)
Teens laugh, cry, scheme, and dream about the opposite sex in this fascinating short-story collection spanning the scope of adolescent love. A girl seeks advice on how to steal her best friend's thug. A boy discovers what it means to be a man through his treatment of a woman. A teen's severe skin disorder makes her retreat inside her own room, inside her own head. These stories are often humorous, always on-point expositions of youth determined to find self-worth, any way they know how. Confronted daily with tough issues that seem only to increase as the school day wears on, adolescents of all complexions struggle to make a place for themselves in society while defining their significance in terms of their allure to the other gender.