Controversial Books for UmiSays

This page shows the most "controversial" books in this library, as measured by the highest standard deviation of members' star ratings.

Standard Deviation Average Rating Your Rating Title
1.237 3.76 Moonwalk by Michael Jackson
1.221 2.95 Bluish by Virginia Hamilton
1.179 3.91 Omeros by Derek Walcott
1.154 3.45 Storm Warriors by Elisa Carbone
1.120 3.72 Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
1.117 3.99 The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison
1.112 3.29 Xala by Ousmane Sembène
1.100 4.17 Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton
1.065 3.91 Beloved by Toni Morrison
1.052 3.61 Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart by Alice Walker
1.037 3.90 Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson
1.037 3.40 Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
1.036 3.85 Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange
1.034 3.38 Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks
1.031 3.77 Cane [Norton Critical Edition] by Jean Toomer
1.015 3.81 The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
1.007 3.69 "Master Harold" … and the Boys by Athol Fugard
1.000 3.57 Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange
0.995 3.78 Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali by D. T. Niane
0.993 3.62 The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
0.993 3.80 Why War Is Never a Good Idea by Alice Walker
0.990 4.18 Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case by Chris Crowe
0.984 3.98 Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
0.982 3.79 A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
0.981 3.38 The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton
0.980 3.80 The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart by Alice Walker
0.978 3.69 When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone
0.972 3.76 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
0.967 3.87 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
0.965 4.03 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
0.961 4.09 Fold Me a Poem by Kristine O'Connell George
0.959 3.50 A Tempest by Aimé Césaire
0.959 3.92 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
0.956 3.95 Native Son by Richard Wright
0.949 4.03 If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson
0.940 4.19 The Ways of White Folks: Stories (Vintage Classics) by Langston Hughes
0.940 3.82 The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah
0.940 4.00 Black Boy by Richard Wright
0.940 3.97 Othello by William Shakespeare
0.940 3.83 Linden Hills by Gloria Naylor
0.938 3.98 Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
0.938 3.94 Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke by Peter Guralnick
0.938 4.10 Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
0.937 3.89 Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
0.935 4.12 The Tradition by Jericho Brown
0.932 4.04 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
0.930 3.78 The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson
0.927 4.12 Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo by Ntozake Shange
0.926 4.15 Blues People: Negro Music in White America by Amiri Baraka
0.925 4.00 A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines
0.924 3.95 My Librarian is a Camel: How Books Are Brought to Children Around the World by Margriet Ruurs
0.921 4.08 Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems by Eloise Greenfield
0.921 4.12 Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
0.918 3.90 Haiti After the Earthquake by Paul Farmer
0.918 3.96 Collected Poems, 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott
0.913 3.97 Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison
0.910 3.85 Jazz by Walter Dean Myers
0.909 4.41 Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast by Mike Tidwell
0.906 3.78 A Choice of Weapons by Gordon Parks
0.906 3.71 No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
0.905 3.97 Ellington Was Not a Street by Ntozake Shange
0.900 4.05 Uptown by Bryan Collier
0.900 4.08 for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
0.896 3.70 By the Light of My Father's Smile by Alice Walker
0.896 4.22 Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories by Zora Neale Hurston
0.893 3.63 The Penguin Atlas of African History by Colin McEvedy
0.892 4.02 The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Thomas J. Sugrue
0.889 4.21 Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
0.888 3.97 To Be a Slave by Julius Lester
0.888 3.69 Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
0.888 3.27 The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World by Jay Bahadur
0.885 4.05 Color Me Dark: The Diary of Nellie Lee Love, the Great Migration North, Chicago, Illinois, 1919 by Patricia C. Mckissack
0.881 3.68 After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
0.877 3.79 Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women by Alice Walker
0.877 3.98 The Big Box by Toni Morrison
0.876 4.14 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
0.874 4.08 Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (American Poets Continuum) by Lucille Clifton
0.872 4.14 Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks
0.870 4.23 Dizzy by Jonah Winter
0.869 3.82 Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes
0.866 3.96 The Big Sea: An Autobiography by Langston Hughes
0.866 3.48 The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult by Alice Walker
0.859 3.90 In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women by Alice Walker
0.856 3.83 All Shot Up by Chester Himes
0.854 4.03 The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes
0.853 3.97 The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay
0.852 4.25 To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry
0.852 4.33 Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Maya Angelou
0.850 4.52 God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse by James Weldon Johnson
0.850 4.17 Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
0.848 4.15 Anything We Love Can Be Saved by Alice Walker
0.848 4.09 In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World by Virginia Hamilton
0.847 4.02 Segu by Maryse Condé
0.847 4.00 Haiku: This Other World by Richard Wright
0.845 3.66 Dutchman and The Slave: Two Plays by Amiri Baraka
0.842 4.15 But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer
0.838 3.73 Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol. 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785-1985 by Martin Gardiner Bernal
0.833 3.92 Here in Harlem: Poems in Many Voices by Walter Dean Myers
0.828 3.97 Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman? by Patricia C. Mckissack
0.828 4.20 Selected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes
0.828 4.16 When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America by Paula J. Giddings
0.827 3.81 The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman
0.827 3.92 Aké: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
0.826 4.00 The Blue Nile by Alan Moorehead
0.826 3.81 When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head
0.823 4.16 Richard Wright and the Library Card by William Miller
0.820 3.97 The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
0.820 3.34 Home to Harlem by Claude McKay
0.820 3.69 Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood
0.819 4.21 Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire
0.817 3.71 Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue by Paul Bowles
0.813 3.57 Meridian by Alice Walker
0.812 4.39 This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherrie Moraga
0.811 4.30 Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
0.810 3.72 You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down by Alice Walker
0.808 3.68 Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story by Ray Charles
0.803 4.02 Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks
0.797 4.01 Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind by Donald C. Johanson
0.795 4.27 A Burst of Light by Audre Lorde
0.794 3.64 A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe
0.790 4.36 For Every One by Jason Reynolds
0.790 4.25 Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
0.787 4.30 The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James
0.781 3.91 The Dragon Can't Dance by Earl Lovelace
0.780 4.10 They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Benjamin Ajak
0.780 4.28 Just Above My Head by James Baldwin
0.777 4.22 Going to Meet the Man: Stories by James Baldwin
0.776 3.96 The Devil Finds Work: An Essay by James Baldwin
0.774 4.40 Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford
0.772 4.10 Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine
0.772 4.19 Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day by Nikki Giovanni
0.769 4.09 Life on Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith
0.768 4.21 Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson
0.764 3.95 Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
0.764 4.21 In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker
0.763 3.87 Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul by James McBride
0.763 4.09 Jubilee by Margaret Walker
0.762 4.55 Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W. E. B. Du Bois
0.762 4.08 No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
0.761 4.03 Behind You by Jacqueline Woodson
0.757 3.90 Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow by James Sturm
0.756 4.11 The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales by Virginia Hamilton
0.755 4.16 Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
0.755 4.38 Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
0.754 4.42 A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson
0.747 4.03 Ella Fitzgerald: the Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa by Andrea Pinkney
0.745 3.84 Bailey's Cafe by Gloria Naylor
0.745 3.74 National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways & Byways: The 275 Best Drives in the U.S. by National Geographic
0.744 4.37 My People by Langston Hughes
0.737 4.14 Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra by Andrea Pinkney
0.734 4.26 Coming On Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson
0.732 4.15 Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler
0.731 3.94 Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks
0.729 3.94 There Is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me by Alice Walker
0.723 4.36 Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes
0.723 4.54 Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
0.721 4.10 Little Stevie Wonder by Quincy Troupe
0.719 4.12 Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright
0.717 3.67 Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
0.717 3.74 Surrender or Starve: Travels in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea by Robert D. Kaplan
0.716 3.65 Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis by Mark Binelli
0.714 4.56 The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson
0.710 4.34 That Book Woman by Heather Henson
0.710 3.89 Harlem by Walter Dean Myers
0.709 4.04 Jazz on a Saturday Night by Leo Dillon
0.705 4.48 We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson
0.701 4.22 Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn
0.695 3.84 Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa by Katherine A. Dettwyler
0.691 4.26 Remember: The Journey to School Integration by Toni Morrison
0.688 3.91 Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans by Louis Armstrong
0.686 4.39 The Dream Keeper and Other Poems by Langston Hughes
0.685 4.24 The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom (Scholastic) by Emily Arnold McCully
0.685 4.51 Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
0.684 4.54 I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes
0.682 4.41 Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
0.678 3.89 Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes
0.677 4.19 Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford
0.676 4.30 King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
0.669 4.29 Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe
0.666 4.25 Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U. S. Marshal by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
0.665 4.30 This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration by Jacqueline Woodson
0.657 3.92 The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays by Chinua Achebe
0.648 4.23 A Band of Angels: A Story Inspired by the Jubilee Singers by Deborah Hopkinson
0.639 4.32 Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton by Don Tate
0.638 4.60 Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry
0.622 4.22 The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith
0.619 4.43 James Baldwin: Early Novels and Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni’s Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
0.617 4.35 Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown
0.582 4.33 Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson
0.580 4.60 James Baldwin: Collected Essays, Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street, The Devil Finds Work, Other Essays by James Baldwin
0.579 4.14 It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw by Don Tate
0.538 4.14 Art From Her Heart: Folk Artist Clementine Hunter by Kathy Whitehead
0.518 4.66 The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander