Slavery book series in reading order

by Loree Lough

by Douglas Reeman / Alexander Kent

Ann Rinaldi was an American journalist and young adult novelist, known above all for historical fiction, who lived from August 27, 1934 to July 1, 2021. Rinaldi worked as a newspaper columnist before writing novels, eight of which the ALA named notable. In 2000, Wolf by the Ears (1991) was listed among the best young adult novels of the preceding twenty-five years. Rinaldi also contributed to the Dear America series. The catalogue holds 48 books from Term Paper (1980) to Leigh Ann's Civil War (2011), including The Last Silk Dress (1988) and A Break with Charity (1992).

James E. Ransome is credited on children's books in the catalogue, with subjects including African Americans, slavery, the Underground Railroad, quilts, grandparents and friendship. Titles include Aunt Flossie's Hats (1991), Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt (1993), Uncle Jed's Barber Shop (1993) and The Creation (1993). The Bell Rang (2019) is the most recent entry.

Julius Lester

48 books• 2 series

To Be a Slave (1968) opens the catalogue of Julius Lester, an American writer for both children and adults who was also a civil rights activist, a photographer and a musician with two recorded albums of folk music and original songs. Lester taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for 32 years, from 1971 to 2003. The 48 listed titles run to The Girl Who Saved Yesterday (2016) and return to African American history, slavery, folktales and race relations. Lester lived from 1939 to 2018.

Laurie Halse Anderson is an American writer of children's and young adult novels. Speak (1999) brought the first wide recognition; the American Library Association gave Anderson its Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2010, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award followed in 2023. The catalogue holds 40 books published between 1996 and 2025, among them the Vet Volunteers series, the Seeds of America trilogy and Fever 1793 (2000). Veterinary medicine, animal rescue, schools and history recur as subjects.

Patricia C. McKissack (1944–2017) was an African American children's author credited with more than 100 books. McKissack wrote Dear America diaries, the Royal Diaries novel Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, and standalones such as Flossie & the Fox (1986). Her nonfiction covers Black history, from the Negro baseball leagues to Sojourner Truth. The catalogue holds 25 of her books, spanning Ask the Kids (1981) to 2015, and the Clone Codes and Scraps of Time series.

James Oakes is an American historian of slavery in the United States, and took the 2008 Lincoln Prize for The Radical and the Republican, a study of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and the politics of antislavery. The historical work in the catalogue begins with Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (1982) and continues through Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South (1990), Freedom National (2012), The Scorpion's Sting (2014) and The Crooked Path to Abolition (2021). Subject headings name slaveholders, antislavery movements, emancipation, capitalism and the social conditions of the Southern states. The books reach a median of 307 pages.

Brian Jacques

42 books• 7 series

Redwall made Brian Jacques (1939-2011) a fixture of children's fantasy. The English author's 42 catalogued books open with Redwall in 1986 and close with The Rogue Crew in 2011, most of them set in and around the imaginary Redwall Abbey and peopled by mice, badgers, otters and other animals. Jacques also wrote the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series and two short story collections, Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales and The Ribbajack & Other Curious Yarns. The books are pitched at grades 3-5.

Sara Raasch

17 books• 8 series

Sara Raasch, born August 26, 1989, is an American author of young adult fantasy. Snow Like Ashes, a New York Times bestselling trilogy from Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, is one Raasch series, and These Rebel Waves (2018) and the sequel These Divided Shores (2019) form another. The catalogue lists 17 books, beginning with Icicles Like Kindling and Snow Like Ashes (both 2014) and reaching The Blood Queen (2026). Night of the Witch (2023), A Sword In Slumber (2024) and The Fate of Magic (2024) are among the later titles. Magic, orphans, slavery and diplomats are recorded subjects.

Bryan Davis writes Christian fantasy. Dragons in Our Midst, Oracles of Fire and Children of the Bard are the best known of the twelve series, and dragons, prophecy, demonology and the supernatural are their recurring subjects. Born in 1958, Davis grew up in the eastern United States, graduated from the University of Florida in industrial engineering and worked as a computer professional for more than 20 years before writing full time; publishers rejected his work over 200 times first. The catalogue holds 52 books from 1997 to From the Ashes (2026).

Ron Goulart

135 books• 26 series

Ron Goulart (13 January 1933 to 14 January 2022) was an American historian of popular culture who also wrote mystery, fantasy and science fiction. Goulart published novels and novelizations under several pseudonyms, among them Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, Josephine Kains and Zeke Masters. The catalogue lists 135 books from The Sword Swallower (1968) to The Phantom (2018). Series under the name include Barnum System, John Easy, Odd Jobs, Inc, Jack Conger, TekWar, Vampirella and Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, and Groucho Marx and comic books appear among the subjects.

Loree Lough has 102 books catalogued from 1994 to 2022, covering both children's fiction and romance. Subjects include Christian life, American history, the Pilgrims of New Plymouth colony, the American Revolution, slavery, prejudice and the Depression. Pocketful Of Love (1994) is the first listed title, and The Christmas Letter (2022) the newest. Lough's series include American Adventure, Suddenly, Chesapeake, Accidental Blessings, Child to Love, Secrets on Sterling Street, By Way of the Lighthouse and Those Marshall Boys. The median book runs to 144 pages.

Carole Boston Weatherford

67 books• 1 series

Carole Boston Weatherford, born Carole Michele Boston on February 13, 1956, is an American author, poet and critic. More than 50 of Weatherford's children's books have been published, mostly non-fiction and poetry. Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre won the 2022 Coretta Scott King Author Award, and Weatherford received the Children's Literature Legacy Award in 2025. African American history, civil rights and slavery appear among the subjects. The catalogue lists 67 books from Juneteenth Jamboree (1995) to Kin: Rooted in Hope (2023).

Virginia Hamilton (March 12, 1936 to February 19, 2002) was an American children's author who wrote 41 books. M.C. Higgins, the Great (1974) won the U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1975 Newbery Medal. Hamilton's work explores the African-American experience, which Hamilton termed "Liberation Literature". Further honours were the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1992 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1995. The catalogue lists 44 entries from Zeely (1967) to Liberation Literature (2024), including The House of Dies Drear (1968), The Planet of Junior Brown (1971) and Justice and Her Brothers (1978).

Brandon Sanderson

109 books• 28 series

Brandon Sanderson, born December 19, 1975, is an American writer of high fantasy, science fiction and young adult fiction. Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive both belong to the Cosmere, a shared fictional universe. Outside the Cosmere, Sanderson wrote the Reckoners, Skyward and Alcatraz series, and completed Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. White Sand and Dark One are Sanderson's two graphic novels. Sanderson's Laws of Magic, a framework for hard and soft magic systems, carry the author's name. The catalogue lists 109 titles, from Centrifugal (1994) through Elantris (2005) to King Lopen the First of Alethkar (2026).

Wilbur Smith was a British-South African novelist born in Northern Rhodesia. Smith's historical fiction covers four centuries of international involvement in Southern Africa. The catalogue lists 66 books, from When the Lion Feeds (1964) to Flashpoint (2026). Series include Courtney, Jack Courtney, Ancient Egypt, Hector Cross and Prey Zone. Recurring character listings include the Courtney family, Ballantyne and Hector Cross. David Churchill and Tom Harper each share the credit on 1 book. Subjects include Africa, Egypt, revenge, espionage and terrorism.

Mark Twain

71 books• 5 series

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), an American writer, humorist and essayist whom William Faulkner called the father of American literature. Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), its sequel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894); The Gilded Age (1873) was a collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The catalogue begins with The Jumping Frog (1865) and The Innocents Abroad (1869), and humorous stories are among its subjects. Series on the listing include Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and Diaries Of Adam and Eve.

Beverly Jenkins

60 books• 11 series

Beverly Jenkins writes historical and contemporary romance with a focus on 19th-century African American life. Born in Detroit in 1951, Jenkins was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in 2013, and in 1999 the African American Literature Book Club named her among the top 50 favourite African American writers of the 20th century. The catalogue holds 60 books from Night Song (1994) to Calling All Blessings (2025), including the Blessings, Old West, Le Veq Family and Grayson Family series. Recorded subjects include mail order brides, Kansas, and city and town life.

Gary Paulsen

181 books• 17 series

Survival and outdoor adventure run through Gary Paulsen's writing for young readers. The catalogue holds 181 books, from Some Birds Don't Fly (1968) to Northwind (2022), at a median length of 105 pages. Brian Robeson, Francis Tucket, Duncan Culpepper, Murphy and the World of Adventure books head the series lines, with non-fiction and picture books alongside. No new Paulsen title has appeared since 2022.

Cinda Williams Chima

16 books• 4 series

Cinda Williams Chima, born in 1952, writes young adult fantasy and has reached the New York Times bestseller list. The Heir Chronicles, a contemporary fantasy sequence, ran from 2006 to 2008 and gained two further instalments in 2013 and 2014. Seven Realms, high fantasy, appeared between 2009 and 2012, and the Shattered Realms books, set a generation later in that same world, ran from 2016 to 2019. Chima's Runestone Saga opened with Children of Ragnarok in 2022. Sixteen books are catalogued, from The Warrior Heir (2006) to Bane of Asgard (2024).

Avi is the pen name of Edward Irving Wortis, an American author of children's and young adult books born December 23, 1937. Avi won the 2003 Newbery Medal for Crispin: The Cross of Lead and was a Newbery runner-up in 1991 and 1992. The catalogue records 87 books from Things That Sometimes Happen (1970) to The Road From Nowhere (2026), and Rat Race is set for 2027. Series include Crispin, Dimwood Forest and Beyond the Western Sea. Ghosts, animals, adventure and mysteries appear among the subjects.

Megan Whalen Turner

9 books• 1 series

Megan Whalen Turner writes fantasy for young adults. The Thief (1996) and its five sequels are her best-known work, and The Thief was named a Newbery Honor book in 1997. Her catalogue holds nine titles between 1995 and 2022: Instead of Three Wishes (1995), The Queen of Attolia (2000), The King of Attolia (2006), A Conspiracy of Kings (2010), Destruction (2011), Thick as Thieves (2017), Return of the Thief (2020) and Moira's Pen: A Queen's Thief Collection (2022). Kings and rulers, robbers and outlaws, and the supernatural recur as subjects. Turner was born in 1965.

Harriet Beecher-Stowe

70 books

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was an American author and abolitionist, and a member of the Beecher family. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) set out the harsh conditions of enslaved African Americans, reached millions as both novel and play, energised anti-slavery opinion in the American North and provoked anger in the South. Stowe wrote more than 30 books, among them novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. The catalogue lists 70 items from 1852 to 2019, including Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), Sunny Memories in Foreign Lands (1854), Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1855) and The Minister's Wooing (1859). Slavery, African Americans and American social life run through the subjects.

Douglas Reeman wrote naval fiction under his own name and as Alexander Kent. Richard Bolitho heads one series and the Blackwood Family books form a second. The catalogue lists 69 titles published between 1958 and 2011, from A Prayer for the Ship (1958) to In the King's Name (2011). Sea stories, the Royal Navy, the Second World War and the Napoleonic wars run through the subjects. The books are long, at a median 320 pages, and output peaked in the 1970s.

Martin Harry Greenberg (March 1, 1941 - June 25, 2011) was an American academic and anthologist who worked across mysteries and horror and, above all, speculative fiction. Greenberg compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned more than 8,200 original short stories, founded the book packager Tekno Books and co-founded the Sci-Fi Channel; terrorism and the Middle East were a second field of expertise, and Isaac Asimov was a long-standing friend and business partner. The 51 titles listed here are edited collections rather than single-author works, running from Fantastic Lives (1981) to Louisiana Vampires (2010) and taking in Civil War Women (1988), Murder Most Sacred (1989), Horse Fantastic (1991) and Dragon Fantastic (1995).