Category Archives: BIPOC Lit

Figure It Out, Henri Weldon by Tanita S. Davis

Seventh grader Henrietta Weldon gets to switch schools—finally! She’ll be “mainstreaming” into public school, leaving her special education school behind. She can’t wait for her new schedule, new friends, and new classes. Henri’s dyscalculia, a learning disability that makes math challenging to process and understand, is what she expects to give her problems. What she doesn’t expect is a family feud with her sister over her new friends, joining the girls’ soccer team, and discovering poetry. Henri’s tutor and new friend, Vinnie, reminds her to take it slow. One problem at a time… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety
  • Bullying

Crow Country by Kate Constable

Sadie isn’t thrilled when her mother drags her from the city to live in the country town of Boort. But soon she starts making connections—with the country, with the past, with two boys, Lachie and Walter, and, most surprisingly, with the ever-present crows. When Sadie is tumbled back in time to view a terrible crime, she is pulled into a strange mystery. Can Sadie, Walter, and Lachie figure out a way to right old wrongs, or will they be condemned to repeat them? A fantasy ground in mythology, this novel has the backing of a full consultative process on the use of indigenous lore.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Murder (hate crime)
  • Destruction & theft of sacred Indigenous sites and objects

Drawing Deena by Hena Khan

Deena’s never given a name to the familiar knot in her stomach that appears when her parents argue about money, when it’s time to go to school, or when she struggles to find the right words. She manages to make it through each day with the help of her friends and the art she loves to make. While her parents’ money troubles cause more and more stress, Deena wonders if she can use her artistic talents to ease their burden. She creates a logo and social media account to promote her mom’s home-based business selling clothes from Pakistan to the local community. With her cousin and friends modeling the outfits and lending… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety & panic attacks

A Place at the Table by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan

Sixth-graders Sara, a Pakistani American, and Elizabeth, a white, Jewish girl meet when they take a South Asian cooking class taught by Sara’s mom. Sixth-graders Sara and Elizabeth could not be more different. Sara is at a new school that is huge and completely unlike the small Islamic school she used to attend. Elizabeth has her own problems: her British mum has been struggling with depression. The girls meet in an after-school South Asian cooking class, which Elizabeth takes because her mom has stopped cooking, and which Sara, who hates to cook, is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Parent with depression

A Marriage of Lies by Amanda McKinney

Beneath the surface of every marriage there are secrets. This one is deadly. My husband is lying. The minute he came home with alcohol on his breath and unable to look me in the eyes I knew it. We used to be in love – the intense ‘I can’t be without you for a second’ kind. Where it hurts deep to be apart. But now, we’re the couple that keep secrets from each other. We hide the truth. He thought I wouldn’t find out. I’m a detective – it’s literally my job to uncover clues and solve mysteries. I know what he did. And now I’m sitting here, in a police interview, being asked the question ‘did you kill her?’ to which I utter one life-shattering ‘yes.’

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Infidelity
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Murder

Triple Threat by K. Webster

I’m a prisoner in a prestigious world. A perfect princess locked in a tower. My father will never let me go. Not that I could leave. I would never abandon my little sister. Hope comes in the form of a devilishly handsome man with dark eyes and darker secrets. With each encounter, I’m lured deeper into the labyrinth. The danger lurking beneath his surface calls to me, even as it warns me away. Except there’s a new side of him every time we meet. A different danger each time we touch. It’s as if three different men want to devour me. He’s not just one villain. He’s three.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Psychological & physical child abuse with implications of incestuous child sexual abuse (father-daughter)

The Endless War by Danielle L. Jensen

Newly crowned as king, Keris has watched powerless as his forbidden relationship with Zarrah is revealed. But when Zarrah is imprisoned by the Empress, Keris knows there is only one way to save to ally with the kingdom he nearly destroyed. Imprisoned on the dreaded Devil’s Island, Zarrah faces two prove her loyalty to the Empress who condemned her or die a traitor. Yet as she struggles to survive among violent prisoners, Zarrah uncovers a third a rebellion to overthrow tyranny entwined with a destiny she must fight to claim. While the Empress plots war with devastating… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood & gore depiction including cannibalism
  • Battle scenes

This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan

Soledad Barnes has her life all planned out. Because, of course, she does. She plans everything. She designs everything. She fixes everything. She’s a domestic goddess who’s never met a party she couldn’t host or a charge she couldn’t lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes poof in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion. But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abeism
  • Racism & colourism
  • Infidelity mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Secondary character with cancer
  • Hospitalisation of a son for a seizure & concussion
  • Death of a parent from cervical cancer recounted (off-page)
  • Incarceration of a spouse for embezzlement

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania. But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Antisemitism
  • Hate crime
  • Rape & paedophilia recounted
  • Sexual assault
  • Nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction and body horror
  • Hospitalisation & emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Drowning & consensual near-drowning
  • Fire & immolation

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang

In the year 4 BCE, an ambitious courtier is called upon to seduce the young emperor—but quickly discovers they are both ruled by blood, sex and intrigue. In 1740, a lonely innkeeper agrees to help a mysterious visitor procure a rare medicine, only to unleash an otherworldly terror instead. And in present-day Los Angeles, a college student meets a beautiful stranger and cannot shake the feeling they’ve met before. Across these seemingly unrelated timelines woven together only by the twists and turns of fate, two men are reborn, lifetime after lifetime. Within the treacherous walls of an ancient palace and the boundless forests of the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging & drug use
  • Organised crime
  • Death of a father from cancer recounted
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Animal death