2013 African American Fiction for Teens

January 7, 2014 by elliottzetta

It’s that time of year again! Edi Campbell kindly gave me her list of 2013 books by PoC (people of color) and I pulled out the fiction books by Black authors (middle grade and young adult). As always, if you see that we’ve missed a title, please let us know. I have not added titles from Saddleback Educational Publishing, a press devoted to hi-lo fiction for teens. You can find Saddelback’s Black authors on our 2011 and 2012 lists. Two of the titles are reprints. Walter Dean Myers, outgoing National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, had a good year with 3 titles; Amar’e Stoudemire and Kelli London had 2 titles each, as did Ni-Ni Simone and Amir Abrams. How many of the remaining authors made their debut in 2013? Less than ten, by my count. According to a recent article in New York Magazine, there were over 10,000 young adult novels available in 2012. A YALSA source suggests 3,000 YA novels are published annually in the US. You can find our 2014 list here.

MG=middle grade (8-12) YA=young adult (12-18)

Bereft by Craig Laurance Gidney (Tiny Satchell Press; January) YA
STAT #3: Slam Dunk by Amar’e Stoudemire (Scholastic Paperbacks; January) MG
Sweet 16 to Life: A Langdon Prep Novel by Kimberly Reid (KTeen; January) YA
Reality Check: Charly’s Epic Fiasco by Kelli London (KTeen; February) YA
Drifting by Lisa R. Nelson (Tiny Satchel Press; February) YA
Flowers in the Sky by Lynn Joseph (Harper Teen; March) YA
Orleans by Sherri L. Smith (Putnam Juvenile; March) YA
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Arthur A. Levine Books; March) YA
Twelve Days of New York by Tonya Bolden and Gilbert Ford (Abrams; March) MG
Hollywood High: Get Ready for War by Ni-Ni Simone and Amir Abrams (Kensington; March) YA
Panic by Sharon Draper (Atheneum; March) YA
Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl by Carolita Blythe (Delacorte; April) YA
The Laura Line by Crystal Allen (Balzer + Bray; April) MG
Darius and Twig by Walter Dean Myers (Harper; April) YA
P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams Garcia (Amistad; May) MG
Sugar by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; May) MG
Get Over It by Nikki Carter (Dafina Press; May) YA
The Girl of His Dreams by Amir Abrams (K-Teen/Dafina; June) YA
Paparazzi Princesses by Bria Williams, Reginae Carter, and Karyn Folan (Cash Money Content; June) YA
Dork Diaries 6: Tales from a Not-So-Happy-Heartbreaker by Rachel Renee Russell (Aladdin; June) MG
Charm and Strangeby Stephanie Kuehn (St. Martin Press; June) YA
Star Power (Charly’s Epic Fiasco)by Kelli London (Kensington; July) YA
Way Too Much Drama by Earl Sewell (Kimani Tru; July) YA
Sunday You Learn How to Box by Bil Wright (Scribner; August—reprint) YA
The Cruisers: Oh, Snap! by Walter Dean Myers (Scholastic; August) MG
STAT #4: Schooled by Amar’e Stoudemire (Scholastic Paperbacks; August) MG
Goal Line by Tiki & Ronde Barber, with Paul Mantell (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books; August—reprint) MG
Zero Fadeby Chris Terry (Curbside Splendor; September) YA
You Don’t Know Me Like That by Reshonda Tate Billingsly (K-Teen/Dafina; September) YA
Streetball Crew Book One: Sasquatch in the Paint by Kareem Abdul Jabar (Disney-Hyperion; September) MG
Invasion by Walter Dean Myers (Scholastic; October) YA
The Case of the Time Capsule Bandit by Octavia Spencer (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; October) MG
True Story by Ni-Ni Simone (KTeen/Dafina; November) YA
Jump Shot by Tiki & Ronde Barber, with Paul Mantell (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books; November) MG
He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander (Amistad; November) YA
Cy in Chains by David L. Dudley (Clarion Books; December) YA

24 Responses

on January 8, 2014 at 11:43 pm | Reply Alicia Hodge

Incredible resource. I found your site a couple weeks ago from your interview about the Hunger Games, and I really enjoy your posts and your story on self-publishing.
- on January 9, 2014 at 3:18 pm | Reply elliottzetta
  
  Thanks, Alicia. Initially we started compiling these lists to show just how marginalized Black authors are within the children’s publishing industry but the lists do bring attention to books that might otherwise remain invisible to readers.
  - on January 13, 2014 at 5:39 pm Alicia Hodge
    
    Yes. I greatly appreciate that you’ve complied this list to show how little is produced by Black authors for young POC readers. It’s very disheartening. I don’t have a child, but I have a pre-K nephew who I worry over all the time. I want him to read about creative smart kids that look like him.
  - on January 13, 2014 at 5:40 pm Alicia Hodge
    
    I meant to say published, not produced.
on January 8, 2014 at 11:56 pm | Reply Craig Gidney

Thanks for including BEREFT on this list!
- on January 9, 2014 at 3:20 pm | Reply elliottzetta
  
  Hi, Craig! Thank YOU for ensuring that young readers have content by and about LGBT PoC. Overall, the numbers are incredibly depressing–30 books out of 3,000. We need more stories that reflect the diversity of Black people.
on January 9, 2014 at 2:35 am | Reply krlemmons

Reblogged this on The Eclectic Kitabu Project.
- on January 9, 2014 at 3:22 pm | Reply elliottzetta
  
  Thanks, Karen.
on January 9, 2014 at 3:15 am | Reply hodgepodge4thesoul

Wonderful…
- on January 9, 2014 at 3:21 pm | Reply elliottzetta
  
  I wish I shared your sentiment! But if I had a child who was an avid reader, I couldn’t provide her with one Black-authored book per week for one year based on this list. I find that disheartening.
  - on January 9, 2014 at 3:24 pm hodgepodge4thesoul
    
    I think i understand your point…
on January 9, 2014 at 5:07 pm | Reply Liviania

For MG, there’s also Sasquatch in the Paint by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
- on January 9, 2014 at 5:09 pm | Reply elliottzetta
  
  Thanks, Liviania!
on January 9, 2014 at 6:49 pm | Reply L

My friend Nicole Walters published a mg novel (her first) via Booktrope in May: Charis: Journey to Pandora’s Jar
on January 9, 2014 at 9:10 pm | Reply elliottzetta

Thanks, L. I don’t include self-pubbed titles on these annual lists since we’re trying to demonstrate how few books are published by the industry. I can add Charis to my AfAm Spec Fic list, though.
- on January 9, 2014 at 9:18 pm | Reply L
  
  guessed, but wasn’t sure. thanks for adding her to your AfAm Spec Fic list
  - on January 12, 2014 at 1:46 am charlotte
    
    Hi Zetta! Thanks for the list. In my own list making last week (the multicultural middle grade sci fi/fantasy of 2013), I struggled with self-pubbed vs industry. It seems like it is getting harder and harder to draw the line, what with so many small and independent presses springing up. I went and checked on the YALSA link, to see how they got their 3000 number, and (vexingly) I didn’t see them explaining what books it includes…which isn’t really all that germaine, except that I’d like to know.
- on January 12, 2014 at 8:13 pm | Reply elliottzetta
  
  Hi, Charlotte! It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to figure out, right? The CCBC reviews 3500 books annually, so that’s the figure I use in most presentations. It makes sense to me that most of those books would be novels, leaving a few hundred picture books and some nonfiction titles.
on January 10, 2014 at 9:38 pm | Reply Evelyn N. Alfred

36 books out of 3000. *bangs head on desk*
- on January 10, 2014 at 10:39 pm | Reply elliottzetta
  
  right there with you, Evelyn. It’s grim.
on January 13, 2014 at 4:47 pm | Reply Links Galore | Annie Cardi

[…] Roundup of 2013 YA and MG books by African American authors. […]
on January 16, 2014 at 3:43 pm | Reply Kelly Starling Lyons

Another YA is Long Division by Kiese Laymon. Thank you for creating this important list.
on May 5, 2014 at 2:13 pm | Reply Final Project: Children’s Services in Public Libraries | Librarian Dreams

[…] hashtag it made me want to create a better list…and then I remembered that Zetta and Edi already do a good job of this. Wish I would have remembered that before I finished my […]
on August 25, 2014 at 3:30 pm | Reply Ferguson: Response & Resources

[…] Elliott, “African American Fiction for Teens.” Fledgling. 7 Jan. 2014. A list of middle-grade and YA books. Thanks to Kelly […]