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Readalikes for The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah
Return to Fiction_L Booklists Menu
December 2001
Compiled by Jennifer Lottes,
of Euclid Public Library, from contributions by the members of Fiction_L.
(To use this list in your library, book club, etc., please include the following credit line: "Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." This list may not be used for commercial purposes.)
- Mawi Asgedom - Of Beetles and Angels: A True Story of the American Dream
- James Baldwin - Sonny's Blues (short story)
- Claude Brown - Manchild in the Promised Land
- Brown tells the story of his childhood in 1950's Harlem through the voice of Sonny, a hardened, streetwise boy who escapes the ghetto life while many of his friends and family succumb to drug addiction and crime.
- Sharon Draper - Forged by Fire
- Teenage Gerald must protect his younger half-sister Angel from his stepfather's abuse.
- Ralph Ellison - The Invisible Man
- In this classic novel from 1952, an African American man eventually retreats into isolation and invisibility, as others see only their own prejudices when they look at him.
- Sharon G. Flake - The Skin I'm In
- Thirteen-year-old African American Maleeka is unhappy with her dark complexion until she meets a teacher with a rare and disfiguring skin condition.
- Ernest J. Gaines - A Lesson Before Dying
- In a small Cajun community in the 1940s, a young African American man is awaiting execution for a murder he didn't commit when he's visited by Grant Wiggins, a teacher who has bitterly come back to his hometown. Together the two men resist the inevitable.
- Chester Himes - Yesterday Will Make You Cry
- This stunningly frank depiction of the brutality of life in America's prison system was written after the author's own release from the Ohio State Penitentiary in 1937.
- Langston Hughes - The Ways of White Folks
- These classic stories from the Harlem Renaissance depict interactions between blacks and whites in the 1920s and 30s.
- Langston Hughes - the "Simple" stories, I Wonder as I Wander
- Kenji Jasper - Dark
- 19-year-old Thai Williams' life is turned upside down after he's driven to revenge and murder over a cheating girlfriend.
- Jess Mowry - Babylon Boyz
- Three inner-city boys face a moral dilemma when the find a suitcase full of cocaine: should they sell it and use the money, or destroy it to keep it out of their community
- Walter Dean Myers - Monster
- The prosecutor called him a monster for his role in the murder of a convenience store owner. But was Steve Harmon really involved, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
- Walter Dean Myers - Slam!
- Walter Mosley - Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
- After 27 years in prison, Socrates Fortlow tries to rebuild a life in South Central L.A.
- Walter Mosley - Walkin' the Dog
- Jess Mowry (any)
- Connie Porter - Imani All Mine
- In this lyrical, street-smart story, young Tasha describes a tragic cycle of love and violence that leads to the birth of her beloved infant daughter, Imani.
- Ann Rinaldi - The Education of Mary: A Little Miss of Color, 1832
- Sapphire - Push
- A teacher's challenge pushes an abused teenaged girl to improve her life by learning to read and write.
- D.R. Schanker - A Criminal Appeal
- Fresh out of law school, law clerk Nora Lumsey puts her job at risk when she agrees to help a deaf ten-year-old boy convicted of a drive-by shooting.
- Sanyika Shakur - Monster
- Former L.A. gang member "Monster" Kody Scott describes his initiation into the Crips at age 11, and his evolution into a militant black nationalist.
- Iceberg Slim - Doom Fox
- The author draws on his own life experience to tell the story of life in the slums of L.A. from World War II through the 1960's.
- Iceberg Slim - Mama Black Widow (fiction); Pimp,
- Iceberg Slim - The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim (biography)
- Kody Scott - Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member
- Jacqueline Woodson - Miracle's Boys
- Virginia Euwer Wolff - Make Lemonade
- LaVaughn takes a job babysitting the children of a seventeen-year-old single mom, and becomes a part of their family.
- Richard Wright - Native Son
- Richard Wright was one of the first novelists to depict the harsh reality of life in the inner city through his portrait of a doomed young African American man. First published in 1940, Native Son remains a powerful and meaningful book today.
- Richard Wright - Black Boy
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