We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg
In turbulent 1964 Tupelo, Mississippi, quadriplegic Page Dunn is raising her daughter with the help of her African-American caretaker.
Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin
In 1963, in the Southern town of Millwood, a young white girl from a dysfunctional home spends time with her grandparents’ African-American housekeeper.
The Air Between Us by Deborah Johnson
A prominent white doctor and a respected African-American physician are caught up in violence as the federal government plans to integrate the public schools.
Cook and housekeeper Tee Wee and Icey work side by side for the white Parsons family. They start as rivals but gradually become friends through tragedy.
Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslung
Stella Silver, a young white college student joins the integrated faculty of a night school in dangerous Birmingham, Alabama.
Readalikes: Other Eras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This classic novel featuring the honorable Atticus Finch is considered the most widely read book on race in America.
The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew
Jubie, a privileged white Southern teen, has her eyes opened to the realities of 1950s racism.
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
In the years after World War II, a college educated, refined schoolteacher ends up living, not in the beautiful plantation home her husband promised, but in a shack with no electricity or indoor plumbing that she calls Mudbound.
The Angels of Morgan Hill by Donna VanLiere
In 1947, nine year old Jane’s mother takes in Milo Turner when his home is set on fire in Morgan Hill, Tennessee in this Christian fiction novel.
The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell by Loraine Despres
Belle is quite a scandal when she bobs her hair, demands women get the vote and wants the Ku Klux Klan tarred and feathered in 1920s Louisiana.
Readalikes: Slavery
Wench by Dolan Perkins-Valdez
Lizzie’s master takes her to an Ohio resort for Southern men and their black mistresses where she meets free blacks for the first time.
Original Sins by Peg Kingman (August)
A runaway Virginia slave—having built a rewarding life in the East Indies—risks everything by returning to America in 1840, eighteen years after taking her freedom.
Readalikes: Lighter Tone
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
When twelve-year-old CeeCee’s mentally ill mother dies, her father sends her to live with her Great Aunt Tootie in Savannah where she meets some eccentric Southern women.
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
In Cold Sassy, Georgia, 14 year old Will Tweedy’s beloved grandmother just died and his grandfather, three weeks later, marries a much younger woman who is (gasp) a Yankee!
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
14 year old Lily is on the lam and ends up in the home of three black sisters, August, June and May Boatright, where Lily learns about bees and mothers.
Readalikes: Farther Out, But Many of the Same Appeal Factors
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns recounts the experiences and emotions of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives become entangled with the history of recent wars in their country.
Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Born in a big, old Calcutta house on the same tragic night that both their fathers were mysteriously lost, Sudha and Anju are cousins who share everything.
Snow Flower & the Secret Fan by Lisa See
This historical novel takes a journey to nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion.
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Pearl and May are two beautiful sisters in dangerous 1937 Shanghai whose father sells them in marriage to Chinese men in faraway Los Angeles.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jamie Ford
Young Chinese-American Henry Lee meets Keiko Okabe, a Japanese-American girl, in the hostile city of Seattle just after Pearl Harbor.
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow
Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy and is sent to Portland to live with her grandmother.
May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women, under the auspices of the U.S. government, travel to the western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among the Cheyenne Indians.
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
Readalikes: Nonfiction
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
In this memoir, the Somalian-born author tells of her journey to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, undergoing genital mutilation, being schooled by strict Muslim teachers, and finally facing shame from her family and clan for turning against Islam.
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
Caucasian, privileged Griffin left behind his life, darkened his skin and headed to New Orleans, wondering what he would face in the Deep South.
In Search of the Promised Land by John Hope Franklin
Historians trace the Thomas-Rapier family through generations from 1808-1865.
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