YA chicklit with POC

[oyceter]

Does anyone have recommendations for happy YA chicklit starring POC and/or by POC?

Qualifications:

I have read half of Dana Davidson's Jason & Kyra and got bored by the prose and descriptions of what everyone was wearing, I know about Melissa de la Cruz, I've read Does My Head Look Big in This? and liked it, may check out First Daughter soon,

Comments

[fresne]

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, which as I recall had a number of POC characters and was about the power of imagination. As I recall it ended happily. Or at least with the characters picking a new thing to go research/become interested in.

[oyceter]

Oh huh. Is the main character POC? I've also been avoiding that for a while because everyone hates the sequel or something?

[fresne]

I don't remember if it's tight POV or general. It's been 20 years, but the three characters I remember are a white girl (who has all the theater stuff or theater background, or something), a POC girl (who pushes the research forward) and Marshall, the POC girl's insanely cool little brother (who is all of six and therefore is designated the boy king. Kid had gravitas.)

I remember loving it when I was in middle school. I only found out there was a sequel just now when I looked up the author's name. Since the reviews were uniformly miserable, I think I'll skip it. Mind you, since I'm not currently 12-13, I couldn't tell you whether I'd still think it was awesome. But it was very... it valued research and learning and imagining things and playing dress up.

[oyceter]

Huh, ok. Maybe I should finally read this!

[takumashii]

I'm going to suggest Haters by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. Despite the title, it doesn't deal with really heavy issues; it's more about popularity, trying to fit in at a new school, and class and race do come into it a little, but basically it's a happy book. The protagonist is latina, a mountain biker, and a little bit psychic. And there's romance.

I've been racking my brains for something good with a black protagonist, and sadly I think it's still the case that the mainstream publishes either what's Dark And Full Of Issues. There's Kimani Tru, though I'm concerned it might be too fluffy--I haven't read any of those yet. With trepidation, I will suggest Angela Johnson's Heaven. It's a melancholy book, like all of Johnson's books, but it's sweet and tender, and the issues in it are small family issues, not big gang-pregnancy-violence-oppression issues. It's about what happens when a girl with a loving family and a happy life in an idyllic small town learns that what she's thought all her life about her family isn't actually true. Also,

[oyceter]

Oh, I've got Johnson's The First Part Last out right now, but am waiting to read it so I can get some fun stuff in first. Small family issues sounds good though, even though not necessarily fluffy.

Oooo, psychic-ness, awesome.

[takumashii]

There are no words for how awesome The First Part Last is. And Heaven is the sort-of-sequel!

[pylduck]

Have you read Lisa Yee's Millicent Min, Girl Genius?

[oyceter]

No! How funny, I just picked up her Stanford Wong book yesterday to read the back cover, and didn't check it out because I already had a big stack. Will look for that.

[sarasusa]

I liked that too! :-)

[delux_vivens]

gang, abusive boyfriend, gang, historical oppression, gang." (if you can't tell, please no more gangs!)

omg ur oppressing teh gangs!

*ducks runs*

[oyceter]

I know! I am mean and evil and racist because I do not want to read about black people and Latin@ people in gangs!

[minnow1212]

Hrm. Michelle Serros's Honey Blonde Chica? It ended up being too much on the high school side for me, but I'd qualify it as chicklit. Here's the amazon description:

http://www.amazon.com/Honey-Blonde-Chica-Michele-Serros/dp/1416915915

[oyceter]

Ooh ok. Hee, I actually borrowed that once and had to return it before reading.