bookgazing | Diversity Roll Call: A few good men

It’s time for a new Diversity Roll Call, hosted by Ali at worducopia and this time I have something to contribute. This week’s roll call is focused on collecting recommendations for YA with black, asian, hispanic main characters who are male and not from the US.

Books with characters like that can be tough to find, I can think of plenty of YA I want to read with characters like that who live in America and plenty of adult fiction set outside the US, but not so much YA set in countries outside America or Britain. However I do have a couple of books I want to talk about quickly:

‘Across the Nightingale Floor’ and the subsequent ‘Tales of the Otori’ series are set in a fantasy version of feudal Japan. While there’s a magical element the society Lian Hearn bears many similarities to historical Japan. There are really two main characters, who eventually come together as a couple but the books focus a lot on the main male character Takeo.

Here’s a little bit from Amazon:

‘In a remote mountain village high in the lands of the Three Countries lives Takeo, a boy with the exceptional skills of the deadly Tribe - preternatural hearing, the ability to be in two places at once and invisibility. But brought up among the peaceful Hidden, Takeo has yet to discover the dangerous potential of his own abilities. When his life is saved by the mysterious Lord Otori Shigeru, Takeo begins the journey that will lead him to his destiny. As Takeo grows from boy to man he must find a path through the complex loyalties that bind him to warring clans, the ruthless Tribe and the shadowy Hidden.’

This is a really wonderful series (the fourth book will just bring you to your knees). There’s all the elements that make up an epic tale: violence, intrigue and love, combined with a detailed society.

My second recommendation is ‘Nation’ by Terry Pratchett. Again this book is set in a fantasy world, but one that obviously has its roots in the history and anthrohology of our own. Again there is really a male and a female main character, but the character the reader first spends the most time with is Mau a child of the Nation who returns from a rite of passage mission to find his whole tribe has been wiped out by a gigantic wave.

This is taken from the jacket flap:

‘On the day the world ends . . .

. . . Mau is on his way home from the Boys’ Island. Soon he will be a man.

And then the wave comes – a huge wave, dragging black night behind it and bringing a schooner, the Sweet Judy, which sails over and through the island rainforest. As the ship comes to a crashing halt, only one soul is left alive (or two, if you count parrots).The village has gone. The Nation as it was has gone.

Now there’s just Mau, who wears barely anything, a trouserman girl who wears far too much, and an awful lot of big misunderstandings.

And a lot of not-knowing-what-to-do.

Or how to even say that.

Together they must forge a new Nation out of the broken pieces. Create a new history.’

You can also read my own review of ‘Nation’ (summary, I loved it, get it now!).

Right off to see what others have recommended.