WThe Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future is a graphic novel by Dav Pilkey, the second spin-off of the Captain Underpants series. The book is credited to Captain Underpants characters "George Beard" as the author and "Harold Hutchins" as the illustrator.
WAll American Boys, published in 2015 by Atheneum, is a young adult novel written by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The book tells the story of two teenage boys, Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins, as they handle racism and police brutality in their community. The novel has gained attention in recent years, becoming the third most banned book of 2020, due to its inclusion of anti-police messages, alcohol, drug usage, and profanity.
WAnother Country is a 1962 novel by James Baldwin. The novel is primarily set in Greenwich Village and Harlem, New York City, in the late 1950s. It portrayed many themes that were taboo at the time of its release, including bisexuality, interracial couples and extramarital affairs.
WLa Bastarda is a novel by Trifonia Melibea Obono originally published in Spanish in 2016. The book is banned in Equatorial Guinea. The book tells the story of Okomo, an orphan who was born a bastard whose mother died during childbirth, and lives in a traditional village in Equatorial Guinea that is about a day's walk from Gabon. She is forced to confront her cultures attitudes about gender roles, requirements for women to have sex for the purpose of reproduction at the direction of men, and sexuality. After being outed, she eventually retreats to the sanctuary of the freedom of the forest.
WThe Changelings is a novel by Jo Sinclair first published in 1955 by McGraw Hill. Features tomboy protagonist Judith "Vincent" Vincent, a 12-year-old who is the newly deposed leader of a gang of pre-teen and teenage children in her Jewish/Sicilian neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio.
WThe Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a 1972 Booker Prize-nominated Australian novel by Thomas Keneally, and a 1978 Australian film of the same name directed by Fred Schepisi. The novel is based on the life of bushranger Jimmy Governor, the subject of an earlier book by Frank Clune.
WChinatown Family is a 1948 novel by Lin Yutang set in New York City's Chinatown of the 1920s and 1930s, concerning the experiences of the Fongs, a Chinese-American family in becoming successful by hard work and endurance in a sometimes less than welcoming America.
WThe Comeback is a 1985 novel by Edgardo Vega Yunqué, published under his pen name "Ed Vega". The novel is a satirical look at Puerto Rican identity.
WBlackout is a young adult novel written by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon. The book follows six interlinked stories about Black teen love during a power outage in New York City. The book was released on June 22, 2021.
WDear Martin, published in 2017 by Crown Publishing Group, is a young adult novel by Nic Stone. It is Stone's debut novel, written as a reaction to the murder of Jordan Davis. The book appeared as #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
WFocus is a 1945 novel by Arthur Miller which deals with issues of racism, particularly antisemitism. In 2001, a film version, starring William H. Macy, was released.
WThe Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old black girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.
WIf He Hollers Let Him Go is the first novel by American writer Chester Himes, published in 1945, about an African-American shipyard worker in Los Angeles during World War II. It earned him critical acclaim and was considered a "protest novel", in the tradition of Richard Wright.
WThe Jacket is a 2001 children's book by author Andrew Clements. It was first published in 2001 as a serialized story that ran in the Boston Globe and was later published in book format on August 1, 2003 through Atheneum Books. The work centers upon a young boy that discovers that although he doesn't identify as racist or discriminatory, he does have deep-seated and unconscious prejudices that prompt him to immediately suspect the worst about a black student at his school.
WKings Will Be Tyrants by Ward Hawkins is a 1959 novel about fighting in Cuba. Bernardo Manuel Patrick O'Brien is a former U.S. Marine who winds up fighting for Castro. Though a Marine, he has to deal with the conflict of his heritage, both Cuban and American.
WKingsblood Royal is a 1947 novel by American writer Sinclair Lewis.
WThe Man is a 1964 novel by Irving Wallace that speculatively explores the socio-political consequences in U.S. society when a black man becomes President of the United States. The novel's title derives from the contemporary—fifties, sixties, seventies—American slang English, "The Man".
WNervous Conditions is a novel by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga, first published in the United Kingdom in 1988. It was the first book published by a black woman from Zimbabwe in English. Nervous Conditions won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989, and in 2018 was listed as one of the BBC's top 100 books that changed the world.
WNo Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again is a 2003 novel by Edgardo Vega Yunqué. The author has called it a "jazz novel."
WOn the Come Up, published on February 5, 2019 by Balzer + Bray, is a young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It tells the story of Bri, a sixteen-year old rapper hoping to fill the shoes of her father and 'make it' as an underground hip-hop legend. Overnight, Bri becomes an internet sensation after posting a rap hit which sparks controversy. As Bri defeats the odds to 'make it' she battles controversy to achieve her dreams. It is set in the same universe as Thomas' first book The Hate U Give.
WOut of Shadows is a 2010 children's historical novel by Jason Wallace, published by Andersen Press on 28 January 2010. Set in 1980s Zimbabwe, the story follows white teenager Robert Jacklin at a prestigious boarding school as he confronts bullying, anti-black racism, his own morality and the political instability of the time. His debut novel, it is partly inspired by Wallace's own experiences attending a boarding school in Zimbabwe after the civil war. The novel was rejected by publishers one hundred times before being published by Andersen Press. The novel received favourable reviews and won the 2010 Costa Book Award for Children's Book, the 2011 Branford Boase Award and the 2011 UKLA Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the 2010 Booktrust Teenage Prize and the 2011 Carnegie Medal.
WPlan B is an unfinished novel published posthumously in America in 1993 by Chester Himes, which is the final volume in the Harlem Cycle. The story is even darker and more nihilistic than the preceding volumes, culminating in a violent revolutionary movement in the streets of America.
WThe Sellout is a 2015 novel by Paul Beatty published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in the UK by Oneworld Publications in 2016. The novel takes place in and around Los Angeles, California, and muses about the state of racial relations in the U.S. today. In October 2016, it won the Man Booker Prize, making Beatty the first US writer to win that award.
WThe Vanishing Half is a historical fiction novel by American author Brit Bennett. It is her second novel and was published by Riverhead Books in 2020. The novel debuted at number one on The New York Times fiction best-seller list. HBO acquired the rights to develop a limited series with Bennett as executive producer. The Vanishing Half garnered acclaim from book critics, and Emily Temple of Literary Hub noted that in 2020 the book most frequently listed among the year's best, making 25 lists.
WWitness is a free poetry book of historical fiction written by Karen Hesse in 2001, concentrating on racism in a rural Vermont town in 1924. Voices include those of Leanora Sutter, a 12-year-old African American girl; Esther Hirsh, a 6-year-old girl from New York; Sara Chickering, a quiet spinster farmer; Iris Weaver, a young restaurant owner, bootlegger and illegal booze runner; Reynard Alexander, the town newspaper editor; Merlin van Tornhout, an arrogant teen 18-year-old; Johnny Reeves, the town preacher, Percelle Johnson, the town constable, Viola Pettibone, a store owner, along with her husband, Harvey Pettibone —some of whom joined the newly arrived Ku Klux Klan including: Johnny Reeves, Merlin Van Tornhout, and shopkeeper Harvey Pettibone.
WZom-B is a young adult zombie apocalyptic-thriller novel series by written by Irish author Darren O'Shaughnessy under the pen name Darren Shan. The series is told by first-person perspective of B Smith, a teenager turned into a zombie. Like Shan's previous series, Zom-B is notable for exploring themes of racism, xenophobia, and the sociological concept of "us and them".