Five antiracist must-reads for high schoolers

By Malavika Kannan, The Emancipator

No one should ban books. That said, English teachers should consider updating their anachronistic curriculums with new classics.

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Literature for K-12 students has become a target in culture wars about race and American identity, whether it’s an uptick in book bans that disproportionately impact novels by LGBTQ+ writers and writers of color, attacks against antiracist pedagogy, or calls for the death of DEI. Often the backlash comes from conservatives, who claim baselessly that antiracist literature makes White children uncomfortable or promotes unnecessary division. 

No book should ever be banned, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t shake up stale curriculums. In a recent viral video, BookToker and educator Cody West offered his perspective on high school classics he considered “overdone or outdated,” with suggestions of what to teach instead. It’s also true that so many high school English classics are musty at best, demoralizing and actively harmful at worst, doing a disservice to young people’s education and limiting their imaginations of what literature can be. I also blame high school curriculums for dampening people’s interest in reading and creating an epidemic of bad taste. (If a guy lists “The Great Gatsby” as a favorite book on his dating profile, that’s how you know he hasn’t read a full book since senior year.)

Read the list here.

Like to read? Check out ABHM’s book club to join next month’s reading of Club Presents: Half American by Matthew F. Delmont.

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