100 books like This Promise of Change

By JoAnn Allen Boyce, Debbie Levy,

Here are 100 books that This Promise of Change fans have personally recommended if you like This Promise of Change. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Punching the Air

Padma Venkatraman Author Of Born Behind Bars

From my list on families with incarcerated members.

Why am I passionate about this?

Over 5 million children in the United States have had at least one parent in a correctional facility at one time or another. These children, and their parents, are our neighbors, our family, our friends. We might see them at a soccer match, or sit beside them at public libraries, or gather together with them regularly in prayer. They need to see themselves portrayed in a meaningful manner in the books they read. This shortlist includes two picture books, a middle-grade novel, and two young adult titles. I'm passionate about books on this topic because equity and inclusiveness and vital to me; and because I think excellent books such as these may enable us to start nuanced discussions and enhance our compassion. 

Padma's book list on families with incarcerated members

Padma Venkatraman Why did Padma love this book?

If you’ve ever wondered about the difference between writing that is spare and writing that is sparse, read this phenomenal verse novel for young adults. Punching The Air is a stunning example of eloquence and a testament to the power of poetry, created by award author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist, motivational speaker and member of the exonerated five, Yusef Salaam. As lyrical as it is profound, this is the story of one young man’s incredible strength and resilience; a young man able to preserve his humanity and compassion as he battles against oppression and systemic racism.

By Ibi Zoboi, Yusef Salaam,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Punching the Air as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.

The story that I thought

was my life

didn't start on the day

I was born

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. "Boys just…


Book cover of Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story)

Alexandra A. Chan Author Of In the Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Memory

From my list on the beauty and terror of being alive.

Why am I passionate about this?

I come from a family of born storytellers but grew up to become an archaeologist, sensible and serious. Then, my parents’ deaths brought me to my knees. I knew I would not survive their loss in any form recognizable to me. My grief set me on a journey to understand and rekindle the special magic that they and my ancestors had brought to my life. Eventually, through reading books like these and learning to tell my own stories, I, the archaeologist and life-long rationalist, made my greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment.

Alexandra's book list on the beauty and terror of being alive

Alexandra A. Chan Why did Alexandra love this book?

Billed as YA lit, don’t let that stop you. It is an auto-fictional account of a young boy refugee from Iran who suddenly finds himself in the middle of Oklahoma: malls and milkshakes. I was in fits of laughter throughout because the narrator's voice is so unique and charming, a much more optimistic Holden Caulfield. But the themes can also be hard, and therein lies the magic.

I loved the unique story structure of telling his stories in the format of 1001 Nights. This validated my own choice to structure my book in the format of The Little Match Girl, striking matches in a snowstorm. I loved this book for its swirl of myth, magical realism, and family stories that weave seamlessly through a modern-day exploration of refugee identity and belonging.

By Daniel Nayeri,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much.

But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee…


Book cover of King and the Dragonflies

Kimberly Behre Kenna Author Of Artemis Sparke and the Sound Seekers Brigade

From my list on middle grade kids and nature mingle.

Why am I passionate about this?

From early childhood, I escaped into nature when times got tough—climbing trees, exploring the woods, and chatting with beach creatures. When I had to be indoors, books were my escape, and most of my favorites had rich nature settings that were so well-drawn that I could see them and feel like I was actually there. Following strong protagonists as they deal with life challenges by interacting with nature was an affirmation for me and still is. As a parent and former fifth-grade teacher, I’ve witnessed the power that books have to lessen loneliness and inspire hope and activism. 

Kimberly's book list on middle grade kids and nature mingle

Kimberly Behre Kenna Why did Kimberly love this book?

King thinks his deceased brother has returned as a dragonfly and visits him in the bayou area where he hangs out. I love books with hints of magic in them, especially when they show up in nature, and I couldn’t help but root for King. Even as he struggles, he is sweet and empathetic and worries about others as much as he worries about himself.

Friends and family are fully developed; nobody is all good or all bad. The teacher in me appreciates King’s story as a great discussion starter and empathy-builder, as well as an engaging plot. Witnessing the triumph of an underdog never gets old for me.

By Kacen Callender,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked King and the Dragonflies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

A 2021 Coretta Scott King Honor Book!

Winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Young People's Literature!

Winner of the 2020 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry!

In a small but turbulent Louisiana town, one boy's grief takes him beyond the bayous of his backyard, to learn that there is no right way to be yourself.

FOUR STARRED REVIEWS!

Booklist

School Library Journal

Publishers Weekly

The Horn Book

Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure his brother Khalid has turned into a dragonfly. When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what was his first skin for another to live…


Book cover of Furia

Emma Kress Author Of Dangerous Play

From my list on YA featuring badass sporty girls.

Why am I passionate about this?

I adore books about sporty badass girls. Yet, when I first began to write Dangerous Play, there were few young-adult novels featuring fierce sporty girls. Of those, there were fewer which portrayed the powerful friendships that can emerge on girls’ sports teams. I want to read and write about girls who are defined by more than their love interests, who are dogged in the pursuit of their goals. In a world that so often judges girls by how their bodies look, sports offers an arena in which girls can view and value their bodies in an alternative way. And who doesn’t love to cheer for someone who beats the odds? 

Emma's book list on YA featuring badass sporty girls

Emma Kress Why did Emma love this book?

I adored this book. After I turned the final page, I sat in silence, sinking into all the feels. Set in Argentina, Furia is the story of Camila, a fierce soccer—or fútbol—player who is one of the best in her sport. However, she’s forced to keep her love of fútbol a secret because she’s living under the strict supervision of her father, who doesn’t believe girls should play sports. That story alone would be enough to make Furia one of my all-time favorite books, but it’s also got an incredible swoony love story. You don’t want to miss this one. 

By Yamile Saied Méndez,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Furia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life.

At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother's narrow expectations, in her rising-soccer-star brother's shadow, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father.

On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila gets the chance to see just how far those talents can take her. In her wildest dreams, she'd get an athletic scholarship to a North American university.

But the path ahead isn't easy. Her parents don't know about her passion. They…


Book cover of The Foreign Student

Don Lee Author Of The Partition

From my list on by now-established Korean American authors.

Why am I passionate about this?

A Korean American author myself, I published my first book in 2001, and in the ensuing years I’ve been heartened by the number of Korean Americans who have made a splash with their debut novels, as these five writers did. All five have ventured outside of what I’ve called the ethnic literature box, going far beyond the traditional stories expected from Asian Americans. They established a trend that is happily growing. 

Don's book list on by now-established Korean American authors

Don Lee Why did Don love this book?

In 1950s Sewanee, Chang and Katherine slowly fall in love and find that the Souths of Korea and Tennessee are not that different after all, both subject to lingering issues of class, family, race, and civil war. I love the poetic language in this novel, as well as its ambitious story and the complexity invested in every relation.

By Susan Choi,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Foreign Student as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"This wonderful hybrid of a novel--a love story, a war story, a novel of manners--introduces a writer of enchanting gifts, a beautiful heart wedded to a beautiful imagination. How else does Susan Choi so fully inhabit characters from disparate backgrounds, with such brilliant wit and insight? The Foreign Student stirs up great and lovely emotions."  — Francisco Goldman, author of The Ordinary Seaman

The Foreign Student is the story of a young Korean man, scarred by war, and the deeply troubled daughter of a wealthy Southern American family. In 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the…


Book cover of The Quickest Kid in Clarksville

Marsha Diane Arnold Author Of The Pumpkin Runner

From my list on children's stories about running.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a multi-award-winning picture book author of many types of books, from The Pumpkin Runner to Badger’s Perfect Garden. I’ve always been a reader more than an athlete, but throughout my life, I’ve enjoyed running - running down a dusty Kansas backroad, running to the pasture to call in the cows, running to the stream to climb a cottonwood. When I reached my sixties, I finally decided it was time to run a half-marathon. Partway through the race, I broke my foot! But I persevered. When I crossed the finish line, I felt a little like Joshua Summerhayes in The Pumpkin Runner.

Marsha's book list on children's stories about running

Marsha Diane Arnold Why did Marsha love this book?

This is another book about Wilma Rudolph, but this one focuses on how Wilma inspired two young girls in Clarksville, Tennessee, Wilma’s birthplace. Alta is The Quickest Kid in Clarksville, but worries about Charmaine, the new girl with brand-new, “stripes down the sides” shoes. The author’s writing is fast-paced with a rhythm to it, perfect for a running book about winning, losing, and friendship. Yes, friendship, as when Wilma Rudolph arrives for a parade to celebrate her Olympic wins, the girls finally agree to carry Alta's big banner to the parade in a relay race like Wilma won at the Olympics.

By Pat Zietlow Miller, Frank Morrison (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Quickest Kid in Clarksville as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It's the day before the big parade. Alta can only think about one thing: Wilma Rudolph, three-time Olympic gold medalist. She'll be riding on a float tomorrow. See, Alta is the quickest kid in Clarksville, Tennessee, just like Wilma once was. It doesn't matter that Alta's shoes have holes because Wilma came from hard times, too. But what happens when a new girl with shiny new shoes comes along and challenges Alta to a race? Will she still be the quickest kid?
The Quickest Kid in Clarksville is a timeless story of dreams, determination, and the power of friendship.


Book cover of The Kneeling Man: My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther  King Jr.

Sylvia Brownrigg Author Of The Whole Staggering Mystery: A Story of Fathers Lost and Found

From my list on maddening dads.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been writing books for a while (don’t make me tell you how long), but mostly novels, and mostly not with dads in them. This finally changed around the time my own lovable, unusual dad died in 2018. I knew I had to write about him and figured I would do this in fiction. But when I really dug into the family secrets my dad kept—and discovered details he didn’t know himself until his last years—I knew I’d need to turn to writing a memoir instead. That got me reading and rereading about all the other vivid, maddening dads who were waiting there on my shelves.

Sylvia's book list on maddening dads

Sylvia Brownrigg Why did Sylvia love this book?

I read two great memoirs for a panel I moderated about daughters and fathers. At the event, I enjoyed watching Leslie Absher and Leta McCollough Seletzky meet and realize how much they had in common.

Both authors had dads who kept secrets— big, political secrets. Leta Seletzky’s dad worked as an undercover officer for the Memphis Police Department in the 1960s: he was “The Kneeling Man” in the famous photograph taken after King’s death. 

This may sound odd, but I related to Leta Seletzky’s emotional tale of how she gradually got to know her father, as an adult, by uncovering the many layers of his life story. 

By Leta McCollough Seletzky,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Kneeling Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

BCALA Literary Award Winner

The intimate and heartbreaking story of a Black undercover police officer who famously kneeled by the assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr--and a daughter's quest for the truth about her father

In the famous photograph of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of Memphis's Lorraine Motel, one man kneeled down beside King, trying to staunch the blood from his fatal head wound with a borrowed towel.

This kneeling man was a member of the Invaders, an activist group that was in talks with King in the days leading up to the…


Book cover of Warriors Don't Cry: The Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High

Clara Silverstein Author Of White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation

From my list on memoirs from the front lines of standing up to racism.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a white child bused to African American schools in Richmond, Virginia in the 1970s, I unwittingly stepped into a Civil Rights experiment that would shatter social norms and put me on a path to learning history not taught in textbooks. At first, I never expected to look back at this fraught time. Then I had children. The more I tried to tell them about my past, the more I wanted to understand the context. Why did we fall so short of America’s founding ideals? I have been reading and writing about American history ever since, completing a master’s degree and publishing books, essays, and poems.

Clara's book list on memoirs from the front lines of standing up to racism

Clara Silverstein Why did Clara love this book?

One of nine Black students to integrate the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, Beals faces threats to her life as well as constant cruelty not only from white people but also from members of her own community, who disapprove of her decision. Her book gives us an unflinching account of what it feels like to be inside the maelstrom. Education seems almost beside the point when she needs protection from the National Guard. Most resonant to me, Beals admits that being a warrior for social change is exhausting. “Sometimes,” she writes in her diary, “I just need to be a girl.”

By Melba Pattillo Beals,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Warriors Don't Cry as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

In this essential autobiographical account by one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most powerful figures, Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine explores not only the oppressive force of racism, but the ability of young people to change ideas of race and identity.

In 1957, well before Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Melba Pattillo Beals and eight other teenagers became iconic symbols for the Civil Rights Movement and the dismantling of Jim Crow in the American South as they integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in the wake of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown…


Book cover of Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition

Lori Benton Author Of The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn

From my list on the Lost State of Franklin.

Why am I passionate about this?

Lori Benton is an award-winning, multi-published author of historical novels set during 18th century North America. Her literary passion is bringing little-known historical events to life through the eyes of those who lived it, particularly those set along the Appalachian frontier, where European and Native American cultural and world views collided. Her second published historical novel, The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn, is set against the backdrop of the State of Franklin conflict, in which a young woman and a frontiersman flee across the mountains of North Carolina to keep her free of an unwanted marriage, just as tensions over who is destined to govern the Overmountain settlers erupts into violence.

Lori's book list on the Lost State of Franklin

Lori Benton Why did Lori love this book?

This book not only provides a chapter on the State of Franklin era (1780s) but several leading up to it, beginning with a survey of eastern Tennessee topography, its native peoples, and the earliest encroaching exploration and settlement of Europeans. Several more chapters of the region’s history follow the information on the failed statehood attempt. Along the way the author captures the spirit of the various people groups who called this region home, detailing many individuals such as Attakullakulla, Nancy Ward, Daniel Boone, John Sevier, Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, and John Ross, among others.

By John R. Finger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tennessee Frontiers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This chronicle of the formation of Tennessee from indigenous settlements to the closing of the frontier in 1840 begins with an account of the prehistoric frontiers and a millennia-long habitation by Native Americans. The rest of the book deals with Tennessee's historic period beginning with the incursion of Hernando de Soto's Spanish army in 1540. John R. Finger follows two narratives of the creation and closing of the frontier. The first starts with the early interaction of Native Americans and Euro-Americans and ends when the latter effectively gained the upper hand. The last land cession by the Cherokees and the…


Book cover of Flight Behavior

Jake Bittle Author Of The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration

From my list on modern society’s relationship with nature.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Jake Bittle, and I’m a staff writer at the environmental magazine Grist, where I cover climate change and energy. I’m also the author of The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration, published by Simon & Schuster. In that book I try to explore how human beings interact with nature, and how we try to control nature by building a systematic and inflexible society. This is a theme that has always captivated me, ever since I moved as a teenager to a Florida subdivision built on the edge of a swamp, and it’s something I’m always on the lookout for in fiction as well as nonfiction.

Jake's book list on modern society’s relationship with nature

Jake Bittle Why did Jake love this book?

One of the first contemporary novels to take climate change seriously, and still one of the best.

The plot concerns a woman who finds millions of Monarch butterflies living in the valley near her Tennessee home, only to discover once scientists arrive that they have been driven from their native home farther south by the accelerating pace of global warming.

The novel takes a strong political stance but still manages to avoid becoming didactic, a real achievement when you consider how polarizing a subject climate change has become.

By Barbara Kingsolver,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Flight Behavior as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The flames now appeared to lift from individual treetops in showers of orange sparks, exploding the way a pine log does in a campfire when it is poked. The sparks spiralled upward in swirls like funnel clouds. Twisters of brightness against grey sky."

On the Appalachian Mountains above her home, a young mother discovers a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature: the monarch butterflies have not migrated south for the winter this year. Is this a miraculous message from God, or a spectacular sign of climate change. Entomology expert, Ovid Byron, certainly believes it is the latter. He ropes in…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Tennessee, African Americans, and race relations?

Tennessee 66 books
African Americans 804 books
Race Relations 264 books