Open Water

Two young people meet at a pub in Southeast London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.

Blessings

When Obiefuna's father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and the family's apprentice, newly arrived from the nearby village, he banishes Obiefuna to a Christian boarding school marked by strict hierarchy and routine, devastating violence. Utterly alienated from the people he loves, Obiefuna begins a journey of self-discovery and blossoming desire, while his mother Uzoamaka grapples to hold onto her favourite son, her truest friend.

Best of Friends

Sometimes it was as though the forty years of friendship between them was just a lesson in the unknowability of other people… In 1988, as Pakistan is on the brink of political overhaul, two fourteen-year-old girls are on the brink of womanhood. Their Arcadian days of secrets, laughter and a shared love for George Michael are brought crashing down when a snap decision at a party changes their lives forever.

American Street

In this stunning debut novel, Pushcart-nominated author Ibi Zoboi draws on her own experience as a young Haitian immigrant, infusing this lyrical exploration of America with magical realism and vodou culture. On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie—a good life.

If Beale Street could talk

We are in Harlem, the black soul of New York City, in the era of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. The narrator of Baldwin's novel is Tish nineteen, and pregnant. Her lover Fonny, father of her child, is in jail accused of rape. Flashbacks from their love affair are woven into the compelling struggle of two families to win justice for Fonny. To this love story James Baldwin brings a spare and impassioned intensity, charging it with universal resonance and power.

Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom

As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed eleven times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African Americans. In this memoir, she shows today’s young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police use violence, as during the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American…

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls

This book includes a collection of short one-page biographies about a wide range of people, who match the respective title, along with a drawing of the person and a quote by the person. The portrayed people include well known people, as well as people probably unheard of by most readers. The stories are all chosen to encourage young readers to stand up for what they believe in and to dare to be different.

Zenzele

Written as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard, J. Nozipo Maraire evokes the moving story of a mother reaching out to her daughter to share the lessons life has taught her and bring the two closer than ever before. Interweaving history and memories, disappointments and dreams, Zenzele tells the tales of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence and the men and women who shaped it: Zenzele’s father, an outspoken activist lawyer; her aunt, a schoolteacher by day and…

Unbroken

This anthology explores disability in fictional tales told from the viewpoint of disabled characters, written by disabled creators. With stories in various genres about first loves, friendship, war, travel, and more, Unbroken will offer today's teen readers a glimpse into the lives of disabled people in the past, present, and future.

The Bluest Eye

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.

Stories for Boys who Dare to be Different

This book includes a collection of short one-page biographies about a wide range of people, who match the respective title, along with a drawing of the person and a quote by the person.

Stories for Kids who Dare to be Different

This book includes a collection of short one-page biographies about a wide range of people, who match the respective title, along with a drawing of the person and a quote by the person.

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won’t acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.

Small Island

An international bestseller. Andrea Levy's Small Island won the Orange Prize for Fiction, The Orange Prize for Fiction: Best of the Best, The Whitbread Novel Award, The Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Salvage the Bones

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers…

Poetry Unbound

In the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged as an inviting, consoling outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise. This generous anthology pairs fifty illuminating poems with poet and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama's appealing, unhurried reflections. With keen insight and warm personal anecdotes, Ó Tuama considers each poem's artistry and explores how its meaning can reach into our own lives.

As Long as the Rivers Flow

From the mid-1800s to the late 1990s, the education of Indigenous children [in Canada] was taken on by various churches in government-sponsored residential schools. More than 150,000 children were forcibly taken from their families in order to erase their traditional languages and cultures.

New Daughters of Africa

Twenty-five years ago, Margaret Busby’s Daughters of Africa was published to international acclaim and hailed as “an extraordinary body of achievement . . . a vital document of lost history” (Sunday Times) and “the ultimate reference guide” (Washington Post). New Daughters of Africa continues that tradition for a new generation.

Nervous Conditions

The groundbreaking first novel in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s award-winning trilogy, Nervous Conditions won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and has been “hailed as one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature” (The New York Times).

Letter to my Daughter

Maya Angelou shares her path to living well and with meaning in this absorbing book of personal essays.

Let us Descend

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother.

JOURNEY TO JO’BURG

“Has no equal. Evocative and haunting.” (School Library Journal starred review) The bestselling classic set in South Africa during the apartheid era, in which two siblings must face the dangers of their divided country.

Interpreter of Maladies

With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide.

IMBOKODO: Women who Shape Us

Imbokodo: Women Who Shape Us is a groundbreaking series of books which introduces you to the powerful stories of South African women who have all made their mark and cleared a path for women and girls. These books recognise, acknowledge and honour our heroines and elders from the past and the present.

Homegoing

The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indelibly drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.

Our Readers

These books have been read and reviewed by 

Neele Hüneberg

has been teaching English, German, and Drama for seven years.

Alexandra Mantovani

studied Languages and Literature. She taught English, German, and Italian at language schools in various European cities. Since 2015, she has been working as an English teacher at Waldorf schools in Italy and Germany.

Mirjam Nuenning

studied Human Development, Early Childhood Education and Social Work in Washington DC, where she lived and worked for many years.

Miriam Obleitner

After spending her 20s and 30s studying and working in the United States, Miriam Obleitner, returned to Germany to work as a class teacher and English as a Foreign Language teacher, at Freie Waldorfschule Chiemgau.

Ulrike Sievers

has been teaching English as a foreign language at Waldorf schools for 25 years.