forum Books for younger readers with POC as main characters?

Started August 16, 2018 by @Riorlyne pets

tune

Hi writers! I have a question for those of you who are also readers. I'm looking for good chapter books/novels (a whole series would be awesome but not essential) written for primary-age children where the main characters are POC. Does anyone know of some books like this that you enjoyed growing up?

I am also using Google but most of the results are either picture books or YA novels, and I need something at an intermediate level.

Main Main or Main but not always the focus?
Heroes of Olympus is a 5 book sequel series to Percy Jackson. The MCs include Native America, Asian, Latino, and Black representation.

Addy, Kaya, Cecile, and Melody are all POC American Girls. Melody, Cecile, and Addy are Black, and Kaya is Native American. There are also 2 native Hawaiian girls and a Jewish girl, but I'm not sure if those are POC or not.

I don't read a lot of non-YA novels anymore, I almost fully switched over to YA earlier this year.

Main Main or Main but not always the focus?

Preferably main main, but at this point I'll take what I can get. Thank you for the suggestions, though. I did know about the American Girls series, but as the book recipients will be quite Australian I don't think AG books will be an option. Funnily enough, we do have an "Australian Girls" group of books, but so far all the main characters are white.

• Inside Out and Back Again has a Vietnamese protagonist, but it's written in verse so that might be a dealbreaker.
• The True Meaning of Smekday (weird title, I know) inspired the Dreamworks movie Home, but is way better. The MC is a POC girl.
• There's one that I read that has Filipino and and Latinx protagonists and it was really good, but I forgot the name.