Let's Learn Together: Racial Literacy for Tweens and Teens

Start Date

Racial literacy is a set of skills needed to talk thoughtfully about race and to identify and respond to racism. These books provide background and guidance for meaningful conversations and positive action. 

Junior High

The Talk: conversations about race, love & truth edited by Wade Hudson & Cheryl Willis Hudson

Thirty diverse and award-winning authors and illustrators capture frank discussions about racism, identity, and self-esteem.

 

cartoon people interact around the title of book

This Book is Antiracist by Tiffany Jewell

This book will give kids the language and ability to understand racism and a drive to undo it.

 

sihlouette of person in profile against a white background with title imposed

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds

Racist ideas are woven into the fabric of this country, and the first step to building an antiracist America is acknowledging America's racist past and present. The young adult adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning, his book takes you on that journey, showing how racist ideas started and were spread, and how they can be discredited.

 

Highschool

sihloettes of two faces facing one another with title inbetween

We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden  

When America makes progress toward racial equality, the systemic response is a backlash that rolls back those wins. In this edition especially for teens, Anderson and Tonya Bolden illuminate these dark moments of history.

 

collage of photos of people and plants against an orange background

Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre by Brandy Colbert 

The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of the most devastating acts of racial violence in US history. But how did it come to pass and why are the events unknown to so many of us today?

 

vibrantly colored text boxes held by two hands with part of a face above

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Story of Black Lives Matter and the Power to Change the World by Patrisse Cullors

This is the story of how the movement that started with a hashtag--#BlackLivesMatter--spread across the nation and then across the world and the journey that led one of its co-founders, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, to this moment.

 

collage of people against a yellow starburst with butterflies

Rise Up! How You Can Join the Fight Against White Supremacy by Crystal Marie Fleming

An overview of the roots and legacies of racial bias and white supremacy in the United States.

 

gray print of a face against a white background with yellow title

The Other Talk: Reckoning with Our White Privilege by Brendan Kiely 

In an instantly readable account of his own life, Brendan Kiely offers young readers a way to understand one's own white privilege and why allyship is so vital, so that we can all start doing our part-today.


Post Author
Sarah Zaharako