Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Audience: Teenagers
Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe’s critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa’s cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man’s futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political and religious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy – Emmanuel Acho
Audience: Staff, KS3 students
Young people have the power to affect sweeping change, and the key to mending the racial divide in America lies in giving them the tools to ask honest questions and take in the difficult answers. Approaching every awkward, taboo, and uncomfortable question with openness and patience, Emmanuel Acho connects his own experience with race and racism–from attending majority-white prep schools to his time in the NFL playing on majority-black football teams–to insightful lessons in black history and black culture. Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy is just one way young readers can begin to short circuit racism within their own lives and communities.

Black British Members of Parliament in the House of Commons: Stories of Passion and Success – Shirley Anstis
Audience: KS2/KS3 students
Unique collection of personal stories you can find out more about their fascinating journeys. If you connect to even just one of these parliamentarians, some of whom are ground-breakers, then you would feel empowered to continue on your own journey and stand up for what matters to you.

A School for Everyone: Stories and Lesson Plans to Teach Inclusivity and Social issues – Helen Cowie, Harriet Tenenbaum, Ffion Jones
Audience: Staff
Discussion tool designed to address pressing social issues for children helps teachers, parents and professionals caring for children to alleviate young people’s worries and opens up conversations on tricky topics. Providing 16 stories told from different perspectives, the book covers social and emotional concerns around far-ranging issues, including refugees, disability, gender diversity and climate change. For each issue raised, the story is followed by a fact file, a set of interactive activities, lesson plans and a bank of resources to further enhance understanding and promote empathy.

King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa – Adam Hochschild
Audience: Staff, KS4 students
A riveting and highly readable account of the Congo massacre, peopled by callous monarchs, corrupt adventurers and a handful of genuine heroes.

Why We Kneel, How We Rise – Michael Holding
Audience: Staff, KS4 students
Cricketer, Holding, shares his story together with those of some of the most iconic athletes in the world. He delivers a powerful and inspiring message of hope for the future and a vision for change, and takes you through history to understand the racism of today.

Silence Is Not An Option You Can Impact the World Ford Change – Stuart Lawrence
Audience: Staff, KS4 students
In this book, Stuart Lawrence talks about what he has learned from life – the tools that have helped him live positively and kept him moving forwards when times have been tough. “We all want to be successful in life and to be remembered for our achievements – but how can we do that, when the world can seem so big and sometimes scary?” From role models to self-control, failure to imagination, Stuart’s aim with this book is to use his own experience to help young people – to help all people – harness the good in themselves and in the world around them, using that fire of positivity to create change in their lives. About the author: Stuart Lawrence is the younger brother of Stephen Lawrence, the young man who, on 22 April 1993, at the age of just 18, was murdered in an unprovoked racist attack. Stuart is an educator and motivational speaker, dedicated to helping to transform the life chances of young people.

This is the Fire: What I Say to my Friends about Racism – Don Lemon
Audience: Staff
As America’s only Black prime-time anchor, Lemon and his daily monologues on racism and antiracism, on the failures of the Trump administration and of so many of our leaders, and on America’s systemic flaws speak for his millions of fans. Now, in an urgent, deeply personal, riveting plea, he shows us all how deep our problems lie, and what we can do to begin to fix them.

Still Breathing: 100 Black Voices on Racism 100 Ways to Change the Narrative – Suzette Llewellyn & Suzanne Packer
Audience: Staff, KS4 students
STILL BREATHING assembles a cast of 100 black voices to talk about their experiences of racism in Britain. Actresses Suzette Llewellyn (Eastenders) and Suzanne Packer (Holby City) are joined by musicians, Members of Parliament, poets, artists, athletes, civil servants, doctors, lawyers, and more. Touching on Windrush and the workplace, race riots and reforms, these essays seek to educate, to bear witness – and to offer hope for a better future, in Britain and around the world.

Framework for developing an anti-racism approach – NEU
Audience: Staff

You Are A Champion: Unlock Your Potential, Find Your Voice and Be The BEST You Can Be – Marcus Rashford
Audience: KS2/KS3 students
Marcus Rashford MBE draws on stories from his own life to show that success is all about the mindset. Find out how positive thinking can change your life, build mental resilience, learn how to navigate adversity and discover the unstoppable power of your own voice. Practical tips, infographics.

The Good Immigrant – Nikesh Shukla
Audience: Staff
How does it feel to be constantly regarded as a potential threat, strip-searched at every airport? Or be told that, as an actress, the part you’re most fitted to play is ‘wife of a terrorist’? How does it feel to have words from your native language misused, misappropriated and used aggressively towards you? How does it feel to hear a child of colour say in a classroom that stories can only be about white people? How does it feel to go ‘home’ to India when your home is really London? What is it like to feel you always have to be an ambassador for your race? How does it feel to always tick ‘Other’? Bringing together 21 exciting black, Asian and minority ethnic voices emerging in Britain today, The Good Immigrant explores why immigrants come to the UK, why they stay and what it means to be ‘other’ in a country that doesn’t seem to want you, doesn’t truly accept you – however many generations you’ve been here – but still needs you for its diversity monitoring forms. Inspired by discussion around why society appears to deem people of colour as bad immigrants – job stealers, benefit scroungers, undeserving refugees – until, by winning Olympic races or baking good cakes, or being conscientious doctors, they cross over and become good immigrants, editor Nikesh Shukla has compiled a collection of essays that are poignant, challenging, angry, humorous, heart-breaking, polemic, weary and – most importantly – real.

Dear Martin – Nic Stone
Audience: Teenagers
Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone boldly tackles American race relations. Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League – but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighbourhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up – way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty police officer beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it’s Justyce who is under attack.

Dear Justyce – Nic Stone
Audience: Teenagers
Sequel to the critically acclaimed, Dear Martin. An incarcerated teen writes letters to his best friend about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system. An unflinching look into the tragically flawed practices and silenced voices in the American juvenile justice system. Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University . . . and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center. Through a series of flashbacks, vignettes, and letters to Justyce–the protagonist of Dear Martin–Quan’s story takes form. Troubles at home and misunderstandings at school give rise to police encounters and tough decisions. But then there’s a dead cop and a weapon with Quan’s prints on it. What leads a bright kid down a road to a murder charge? Not even Quan is sure.

The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Audience: Teenagers
Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice.

In Black and White – Alexandra Wilson
Audience: Staff
Alexandra Wilson was a teenager when her dear family friend Ayo was stabbed on his way home from football. Ayo’s death changed Alexandra. She felt compelled to enter the legal profession in search of answers. As a junior criminal and family law barrister, Alexandra finds herself navigating a world and a set of rules designed by a privileged few. A world in which fellow barristers sigh with relief when a racist judge retires: ‘I’ve got a black kid today and he would have had no hope’. In Black and White, Alexandra re-creates the tense courtroom scenes, the heart-breaking meetings with teenage clients, and the moments of frustration and triumph that make up a young barrister’s life. Alexandra shows us how it feels to defend someone who hates the colour of your skin, or someone you suspect is guilty. We see what it is like for children coerced into county line drug deals and the damage that can be caused when we criminalise teenagers. Alexandra’s account of what she has witnessed as a young mixed-race barrister is in equal parts shocking, compelling, confounding and powerful.

The ‘R’ Word – what schools must learn about race – Elizabeth Denev
Audience: Staff
This short, thought provoking, article explores issues for white educators and asks us to consider “What if being called “racist” was the beginning, not the end, of the conversation?”

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack – Peggy McIntosh
Audience: Staff (particularly those delivering training)
Establishing a basic understanding of what white privilege looks like in daily life. Many of us believe that we’re living in a meritocracy, deserving of what we have and compassionate toward those with less. But that’s not true: white people have been given a headstart and ongoing advantages due to the color of their skin, while people of color suffer from equally arbitrary disadvantages, says scholar and activist Peggy McIntosh. She explains what led her to recognize her privilege — and how it can be used by those with power to ensure a fairer life for others.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism – Robin DiAngelo
Audience: Staff/student teachers
‘With clarity and compassion, DiAngelo allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to “bad people.” In doing so, she moves our national discussions forward. This is a necessary book for all people invested in societal change’

Me and White Supremacy: How to Recognise Your Privilege, Combat Racism and Change the World – Layla Saad
Audience: Staff/student teachers
Packed with practical exercises and enlightening socio-political context, the book of Saad’s pioneering blog offers numerous ways of transforming the discourse surrounding systemic racism. Me and White Supremacy shows readers how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of colour, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

How To Be an Antiracist – Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Antiracism Research and Policy Center, shows that when it comes to racism, neutrality is not an option: until we become part of the solution, we can only be part of the problem. Using his extraordinary gifts as a teacher and story-teller, Kendi helps us recognise that everyone is, at times, complicit in racism whether they realise it or not. Kendi punctures all the myths and taboos that so often cloud our understanding, from arguments about what race is and whether racial differences exist to the complications that arise when race intersects with ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality. In the process he demolishes the myth of the post-racial society and builds from the ground up a vital new understanding of racism – what it is, where it is hidden, how to identify it and what to do about it.