A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib

2 stars Okay collection filled with passion and perspective. I think this is best experienced when performed by the poet himself. Reading it, it was often difficult for me to get the right rhythm and flow of each piece. For me personally, I didn’t really connect with the poems. There were wonderful descriptions and images…

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We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation by Eric Garcia

4 stars This book does an excellent job changing up the conversation around autism. This up-to-date look at ASDs gives a person-first exploration of the climate around autism, focusing of self-advocates and actual autistic people rather than solely on medical professionals and parents/families of autistic individuals. It also includes currents events such as the way…

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Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

5 stars I don’t think anything I can write will do this book justice so I’ll keep this short. I loved this story. Yu perfectly balances self-aware humor with heartbreaking reality. Centered around identity, the story explores the way American society pigeonholes people of Asian decent, lumping them all into one group and a set…

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Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, Illustrated by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko

4 stars A wonderful conversation starter for topics of race and understanding other’s perspectives. Latham and Waters use poetry to tell the story of Irene and Charles, fifth-graders based on their own childhood selves, who have to work on a poetry assignment together. Along the way, they learn about each other, how they are the…

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A Book About Systemic Racism by Jordan Thierry

4 stars A well-written book that takes some big topics and simplifies them for a young audience. Systemic racism can be a big idea that’s hard to wrap your head around, especially when you aren’t used to trying to see it or when it’s easier to ignore. This book helps kids and adults alike understand…

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All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

3 stars An open and compelling memoir as well as a call to action for representation into the intersection between Blackness and queerness, especially within the YA genre. Johnson does a wonderful job crafting a memoir that acts as a place of relatability for those who share his identities as well as a place for…

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