By Team FI
This is a list we made based on suggestions sent by several members of the feministsindia e-group. This is not a comprehensive list but a good one to start by if you are looking to introduce young adults to characters, situations and issues they would not meet in popular culture fiction and non-fiction books. If you wish to add titles, provide corrections and comments, please use the comment space.
Contemporary Writing- Indian
Suniti Namjoshi – The Fabulous Feminist and Suki (a dialogue with her cat); Published by Zubaan
Anita Roy and Samina Mishra (editors)- 101 Indian Children’s Books We Love (Young Zubaan) Rs 195; Published by Zubaan
Vandana Singh – Younguncle Comes to Town and Younguncle in the Himalayas; Published by Zubaan
Payal Dhar: The Shadow of Eternity, The Key of Chaos, The Timeless Land, a trilogy – fantasy, science fiction ; Published by Zubaan
Aditi Rao and Chatura Rao: Growing Up in Pandupur (slightly younger girls); Published by Zubaan
Subhadra Sengupta: Star Struck and The Foxy Four; Published by Zubaan
Kate Darnton: The Misfits; Published by Zubaan
Sowmya Rajendran, Niveditha Subramaniam, pictures: Niveditha Subramaniam: Mayil Will Not Be Quiet and other Mayil books; Published by Tulika
Samhita Arni – graphic novel Sita’s Ramayana – illustrations by Moyna Chitrakar; Published by Tara Books
Salman Rushdie – Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Classics – Indian
RK Narayan’s Swami and Friends
Contemporary Writing – Non-India
Refaat Alareer (editor): Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine
Ira Ebbotsons – Land of the river sea, Star of Kazan etc
EL Konigsberg – From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and other books
Liv Ullman’s autobiography – Changing
Megan Stine – Who was Marie Curie?
Roberta Edwards – Who is Jane Goodall?
LGBTQ Books
Leslea Newman and Diana Souza – Heather Has Two Mommies: 20th Anniversary Edition- Alyson Books, 2009
Meredith Maran – How Would You Feel If Your Dad Was Gay?- Alyson Books, 2000
Peter Parnell – And Tango Makes Three- Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2005
Robert Skutch – Who’s in a Family?- Tricycle Press, 1997
Classics – Non-Indian
Katherine Paterson – Bridge to Terabithia
E Nesbit – The Railway Children, Five Children and It.
Anne Frank’s Diary
Louisa Alcott – all books
Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables Series
ABOVE 16
Contemporary Writing – Indian
Anita Roy (ed) 21 Under Forty (21 stories by women under 40); Published by Zubaan
Annie Zaidi and Smriti Ravindra: The Good Indian Girl; Published by Zubaan
Anita Roy (ed) Flying High: Amazing Women and their Success Stories; Published by Zubaan
Lakshmi Holmstrom – The Inner Courtyard – stories by Indian women; Published by South Asia Books
Arundhati Roy – God of Small Things; Published by Random House
Anita Desai – Village by the Sea; Published by Heinemann
Gogu Shyamala – Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But…; Published by Navayana
Anjali Deshpande – Impeachment; Published by Hachette India
Amrita Das (art); Gita Wolf & Susheela Varadarajan (text, from the Hindi original by Amrita Das): Hope is Girl Selling Fruit; Published by Tara Books
Ranjit Lal: Smitten (about incest); Published by Zubaan
The Blue Book; Published by Zubaan with TARSHI
The Yellow Book (both of these are about sexuality, knowing your bodies etc); Published by Zubaan with TARSHI
Begum Rokheya Sakhawat Hossain; Illustrated by Durga Bai – Sultana’s Dream; Published by Tara Books
Urmila Pawar – The Weave of my Life; Published by Columbia University Press; Motherwit Published by Zubaan
Sampat Pal – Warrior in a Pink Sari; Published by Zubaan
Sunanda Sikdar – A Life Long Ago, translated from Bengali by Anchita Ghatak; Published by Penguin Books
Classics – Indian
Ismat Chughtai – The Quilt: Stories; Published by Penguin
Malati Bedekar aka Vibhavari Shirurkar – Kharemaster; Published by Stree
Contemporary Writing – Non-India
Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis
Emma Donoghue – The Room
Tamora Pierce – Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small series – speculative fiction
Philip Pullman – Sarah Lockhart series, The Golden Compass series (speculative fiction)
Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan
Isaac Asimov – All books – Speculative Fiction
Madeleine L’Engle – A Wrinkle In Time – Speculative Fiction
LGBTQ Books
Eric Marcus – What If Someone I Know Is Gay?: Answers to Questions About What It Means to Be Gay and Lesbian- Simon Pulse, 2007
Ellen Bass and Kate Kaufman – Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth and Their Allies- Harper Perennial, 1996
Kelly Huegel – GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens- Free Spirit Publishing, 2003
Classics – Non-Indian
JD Salinger – Catcher in the Rye
Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird
Jane Austen – all books
Websites
www.everydayfeminism.com
Books reviews for kids, by kids: http://bookwormsbookshelf.com
A Mighty Girl’s book section features over 2,000 girl-empowering books starring stellar Mighty Girl characters: http://www.amightygirl.com/books
Zubaan books: http://zubaanbooks.com/product-category/books/
Tara Books: http://www.tarabooks.com/books/books/young-readers/teens/
Tulika Books: http://www.tulikabooks.com/
Navayana Publications: http://navayana.org/