AP Literature Books about Coming of Age

One of my favorite units to do in AP Literature is a Hybrid Book Club Unit based around the theme of coming of age. Seniors love exploring this topic through songs, short stories, poetry and choice novels. Here is a list of AP Literature books about coming of age that my students enjoy.

For more about how I set up a unit like this, you can check out this post on short stories about coming of age. And you can grab a free unit plan too.

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Coming of Age AP Literature Books for high school English

9 Contemporary AP Literature Books about Coming of Age

1. Beartown by Fredrick Backman

Beartown is the ultimate hockey town in northern Sweden. And the youth team is favored to win the title. That is until the general manager’s daughter makes an accusation that takes their best player off the ice. The story follows a variety of characters throughout the town as they come to terms with all the conflicts in this small town.

2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Pecola is an 11-year-old brown skinned girl who desperately wants to have the blue eyes of her doll so that she will be beautiful.

3. Fire Keeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulle

Daunis is a member of the Ojibwe tribe and a high school senior when she witnesses a murder that will change her life. Before long, she is working undercover for the FBI, investigating a drug that is making the rounds in her tribe.

4. As Long as the Lemon Tree Grows by Zoulfa Katouh

Salama volunteers in a hospital in war torn Syria. She is alone save her sister-in-law, and she is haunted by an imaginary companion who is encouraging her to leave the country. She feels torn about staying and being loyal to the people of her homeland.

5. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez

Four immigrant sisters who are learning how to grow up in the United States after fleeing the Trujillo dictatorship of the Dominican Republic.

6. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

This is a series of vignettes about Esperanza, a young girl of Mexican descent, growing up in Chicago.

7. Montana 1948 by Larry Watson

It’s 1948, David is the only son and grandson of the most prominent family in his small Montana town. His dad is the sheriff (a role he inherited from his father) and his uncle is one of two doctors. And then, their housekeeper, a Sioux woman, makes an accusation the sheriff cannot ignore even if it will destroy their family.

8. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Saffran Foer

It’s been a year since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Oskar is 11-years-old, extremely bright and desperate to connect with his father who died on 9/11. When he finds a note in his father’s closet, he thinks it is a clue to a mystery that his father has left for him to solve. And so an adventure begins.

9. The Nickel Boys by Colsom Whitehead

Elwood is in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up with a sentence to a reformatory school–a gift from the judge who has chosen to send him to Nickel Academy rather than send him to jail. Unfortunately, for a brown skinned boy in Florida in 1966, this is not necessarily a better situation.

Encouraging Reading through AP Literature Books about Coming of Age

Students love being given the freedom to choose their own AP Literature books. And books around the theme of coming of age are of high interest to students who are coming of age themselves. For more ideas of coming of age books, check out the literary argumentation essay from the 2016 exam which was about the bildungsroman.