Homegoing Read-a-likes For Teens

Homegoing is the selected title for the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read in Charlotte. Here are some recommended read-a-likes!

Updated January 26, 2024
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African Town
Latham, Irene
Paper Book
Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse. In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria...
All the days past, all the days to come
Taylor, Mildred D.
Paper Book
The saga of the Logan family--made famous in the Newbery Medal-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry--concludes in a long-awaited and deeply fulfilling story. In her tenth book, Mildred Taylor completes her sweeping saga about the Logan family of Mississippi, which is also...
The bitter side of sweet
Sullivan, Tara
Paper Book
For fans of Linda Sue Park and A Long Way Gone, two young boys must escape a life of slavery in modern-day Ivory Coast Fifteen-year-old Amadou counts the things that matter. For two years what has mattered are the number of cacao pods he and his younger brother, Seydou,...
Black was the ink
Coles, Michelle
Paper Book
Through the help of a ghostly ancestor, sixteen-year-old Malcolm is sent on a journey through Reconstruction-era America to find his place in modern-day Black progress. Malcolm Williams hasn't been okay for a while. He's angry and despondent and feels like nothing good ever happens...
Chains
Anderson, Laurie Halse.
Paper Book
From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling first novel in the historical middle grade The Seeds of America trilogy that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual. As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old...
Copper sun
Draper, Sharon M.
Paper Book
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) In this "searing work of historical fiction" (Booklist), Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Sharon M. Draper tells the epic story of a young girl torn from her African village, sold into slavery, and stripped of...
Crossing Ebenezer Creek
Bolden, Tonya
Paper Book
When Mariah and her young brother Zeke are suddenly freed from slavery, they join Sherman's march through Georgia. Mariah wants to believe that the brutalities of slavery are behind them, but even as hope glimmers, there are many hardships yet to come. When she meets a free black named Caleb,...
Dreamland burning
Latham, Jennifer
Paper Book
A compelling dual-narrated tale from Jennifer Latham that questions how far we've come with race relations. Some bodies won't stay buried. Some stories need to be told. When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family's property, she...
For Lamb
Cline-Ransome, Lesa
Paper Book
An interracial friendship between two teenaged girls goes tragically wrong in this powerful historical novel set in the Jim Crow South. For Lamb follows a family striving to better their lives in the late 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. Lamb's mother is a hard-working,...
Kin : rooted in hope
Weatherford, Carole Boston
Paper Book
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Boston Globe-Horn Book Poetry Award Winner An "imaginative and moving" (The Horn Book, starred review) portrait of a Black family tree shaped by enslavement and freedom, rendered in searing poems by acclaimed author Carole...
Man made monsters
Rogers, Andrea L.
Paper Book
Uncover the Terrifying Intersection of History and Horror Imagine a chilling horror collection that weaves classic monsters like werewolves and vampires with the true horrors of colonialism, domestic violence, and displacement. Man Made Monsters, by...
My name is not Friday
Walter, Jon
Paper Book
A gorgeously written account of a freeborn black boy sold into slavery during the Civil War; think 12 Years a Slave for young adults.Well-mannered Samuel and his mischievous younger brother Joshua are free black boys living in an orphanage during the end of the Civil War. Samuel takes the...
Nigeria Jones
Zoboi, Ibi Aanu
Paper Book
Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner! "An unwavering proclamation of Black girlhood." --Candice Iloh, author of National Book Award finalist Every Body Looking From Ibi Zoboi, bestselling, award-winning author of American Street and coauthor of Punching the Air, comes a bold...
A sitting in St. James
Williams-Garcia, Rita
Paper Book
Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award! 7 starred reviews! "Monumental." --Booklist (starred review) * "A marathon masterpiece."--Kirkus (starred review) * "Necessary."--SLJ (starred review) * "Shocking and dramatic."--Shelf Awareness (starred review) * "Mesmerizing, confounding and...

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