50 Books Every Black Teen Should Read was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
1. “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur
2. “Moonwalk” by Michael Jackson
3. “Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison
4. “Visions for Black Men” by Na’im Akbar
5. “The Coldest Winter Ever” by Sister Souljah
6. “Dreams from My Father” by Barack Obama
7. “Sag Harbor” by Colson Whitehead
8. “Monster” by Walter Dean Myers
9. “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe
10. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston
11. “When Chickenheads Come Home To Roost” by Joan Morgan
12. “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” as told to Alex Haley
13. “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison
14. “Interiors: A Black Woman’s Healing…in Progress” by Iyanla Vanzant
15. “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
16. “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker
17. “Blues People” by Amiri Baraka
18. “Our Kind of People” by Lawrence Otis Graham
19. “Picking Cotton” by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
20. “What is the What” by Dave Eggers
21. “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” by bell hooks
22. “Soledad Brother” by George Jackson
23. “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz
24. “Good To Great” by Jim Collins
25. “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin
26. “Down These Mean Streets” by Piri Thomas
27. “Flyy Girl” by Omar Tyree
28. “Summer Of My German Soldier” by Bette Greene
29. “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry
30. “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn
31. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou
32. “Miles: The Autobiography” by Miles Davis
33. “Invisible Life” by E. Lynn Harris
34. “Kaffir Boy” by Mark Mathabane
35. “Kindred” by Octavia Butler
36. “Letter to My Daughter” by Maya Angelou
37. “Manchild in the Promised Land” by Claude Brown
38. “Mis-Education of the Negro” by Carter G. Woodsen
39. “If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin
40. “Nile Valley Contributions To Civilization” by Tony Browder
41. “I Am Not Sidney Poitier” by Percival Everett
42. “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell
43. “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki
44. “Roots” by Alex Haley
45. “Sula” by Toni Morrison
46. “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho
47. “Who Am I Without Him?” by Sharon Flake
48. “Twelve Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup
49. “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine” by Bebe Moore Campbell
