Sports Fiction

Mrs. Lopez, Media Specialist Highland Park Middle/High

School

Multicultural Literature

Book in which the main character(s) or a specific theme represents the lives and challenges of an underpresented group.

Multicultural Literature

• Began during the Civil Rights movement –

1950s & 1960s• African Americans - first group

represented• 1980s: Latinos, Native Americans, Asian

Americans, women, handicapped people, alternate lifestyles 

• These groups were often overlooked or had minimal impact in literature and school curriculum.

African American Authors

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1962

Christopher Paul Curtis

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African-American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

Also by this author: Bucking the Sarge; Bud, Not Buddy

Coretta Scott King Honor Book Newbery Honor Book

Forged By Fire Sharon M. Draper

Gerald, a teenager who has spent years protecting his fragile half-sister from their abusive father, must face the prospect of one final confrontation before the problem can be solved.

Also by this author: The Battle of Jericho, Darkness Before Dawn, Double Dutch, Tears of a Tiger

Coretta Scott King Medal Winner

Second Cousins Virginia Hamilton

Sequel to: Cousins. Twelve-year-old cousins Cammy and Elodie have their friendship threatened when the family reunion includes two other cousins and Elodie is tempted to drop Cammy for a new companion.

Also by this author: Bluish: a novel, Cousins, Drylongso, M. C. Huggins, Plain City, Sweet Whispers: Brother Ruth, Zeely

Looking for Red Angela Johnson

A thirteen-year-old girl struggles to cope with the loss of her beloved older brother, who disappeared four months earlier off the coast of Cape Cod.

Also by this author: Bird, The First Part Last, Heaven, Toning the Sweep

MonsterWalter Dean Myers

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

 

Also by this author: Bad Boy: a Memoir, The Beast, Handbook for Boys, Hoops, Scorpions, Shooter, Slam!

Boston Globe Horn Book - Fiction & Poetry Coretta Scott King Honor Book

Outstanding Books for the College Bound - 2004

The Bluest EyeToni Morrison

An eleven-year-old African-American girl in Ohio, in the early 1940s, prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be beautiful.

Also by this author: Beloved, Sula, Tar Baby, Paradise, Jazz, Love

Roll of Thunder, Hear My CryMildred D. Taylor

Sequel: Let the circle be unbroken.;Newbery Medal, 1977. An African-American family living in Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand.

Also by this author: The Friendship, The Gold Cadillac, The Land, The Road to Memphis, Song of the Trees, The Well: David’s Story

The Color PurpleAlice Walker

Tells the story of two African-American sisters: Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a child-wife living in the south, in the medium of their letters to each other and in Celie's case, the desperate letters she begins, "Dear God."

Also by this author: In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Possessing the Secret of Joy,

Emako BlueBrenda Woods

Opening with the title character's funeral, this moving novel about an innocent teen victim of gang violence flashes back through the months leading up to her murder, as seen through the eyes of the four teen narrators.

Monterey, Savannah, Jamal, and Eddie have never had much to do with each other until Emako Blue shows up at chorus practice, but just as the lives of the five Los Angeles high school students become intertwined, tragedy tears them apart.

Miracle’s BoysJacqueline Woodson

After their mother’s death, Lafayette's responsible oldest brother, Ty'ree, gives up his chance to attend college to work and raise Lafayette and their middle brother, Charlie. Charlie was sent to a correctional facility after robbing a local candy store. He returns home an angry stranger, blaming Lafayette for the death of their mother.

Also by this author: Behind You, Between Madison and Palmetto, From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun: a novel, Locomotion.

Coretta Scott King Medal Winner

Latino Authors

City of BeastsIsabel Allende

When fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold accompanies his individualistic grandmother on an expedition to find a humanoid Beast in the Amazon, he experiences ancient wonders and a supernatural world as he tries to avert disaster for the Indians. Also by this author: Daughter of Fortune, The House of the Spirits, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, Paula/Isabel Allende

Surprising CeciliaSusan Gonzales abraham & Denise Gonzales Abraham

• In the 1930s as she ventures from her small and poor New Mexican farming community to go to high school in the city, teenaged Cecilia finds herself challenged in unexpected ways.

• Based on the life of the writers' mother, this fictionalized biography gives a rich sense of a strong Latino family during the Depression, including lots of detail about farm chores through the seasons and traditional celebrations and foods.

America’s Award for Children’s and YA Literature

Estrella’s QuinceaneraMalin Alegria

While her mother sees it as tradition, Estrella believes a quincea-era, the Mexican custom of celebrating a girl's 15th birthday, is "just a lame party with cheesy music and puffy princess dresses."

Estrella's mother and aunt are planning a gaudy, traditional quinceanera for her, even though it is the last thing she wants.

Children’s Book of the Year 2007

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their AccentsJulia Alvarez

Tells the story of the wealthy Garcia family exiled from the Dominican Republic after a failed coup, and how the daughters come of age, weathering the cultural and class transitions from privileged Dominicans to New York Hispanic immigrants.

Also by this author: Before We Were Free, How Tia Lola Came To Visit, Finding Miracles, In the Time of the Butterflies.

The House on Mango StreetSandra Cisneros

• Esperanza Cordero, a girl coming of age in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, uses poems and stories to express thoughts and emotions about her oppressive environment.

• She ponders the advantages and disadvantages of her life and evaluates her relationships with family and friends.

Also by this author: Carmelo

Salsa StoriesLulu Delacre

Carmen Teresa celebrates New Year's Day with her Latin American family, a friend gives her a diary. She wonders what to write in it: "Stories from our family and friends," suggests Mama, and in each of the following chapters, a different family member tells a story about childhood inspired by the memory of a favorite food. Finally, Carmen Teresa announces that she will use the diary to record the family's recipes, which follow the stories in cookbook format.

Becoming Naomi LeonPam Munoz Ryan

Half-Mexican Naomi Soledad, 11, and her younger disabled brother, Owen, have been brought up by their tough, loving great-grandmother in a California trailer park, and they feel at home in the multiracial community. Then their alcoholic mom reappears after seven years with her slimy boyfriend, hoping to take Naomi (not Owen) back and collect the welfare check. Determined not to let that happen, Gram drives the trailer across the border to a barrio in Oaxaca to search for the children's dad.

Also by this author: Esperanza Rising

Pura Belpre Honor Book

Baseball in April and Other StoriesGary Soto

A collection of eleven short stories focusing on the everyday adventures of Hispanic young people growing up in Fresno, California.

Soto describes the desires, fears, and foibles of children and teenagers going about the business of daily living.

Also by this author: Accidental Love, The Afterlife, Buried Onions, Jesse Pacific Crossing.

Asian Authors

Children of the RiverLinda Crew

A Cambodian girl who fled her country struggles to fit in to an American lifestyle, offering a moving look at the way in which a survivor of great tragedy.

Having fled Cambodia four years earlier to escape the Khmer Rouge army, seventeen-year-old Sundara is torn between remaining faithful to her own people and adjusting to life in her Oregon high school as a "regular" American.

The Emperor’s New ClothesDemi

Two rascals sell a vain Chinese emperor an invisible suit of clothes.

This emperor lived "long ago in a province in China," but his vanity and fondness for clothes doom him to the well-known humiliation.

The Conch BearerChitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Twelve-year-old Anand is entrusted with a conch shell that possesses mystical powers and sets out on a journey to return the shell to its rightful home many hundreds of miles away.

Also by this author: Arranged Marriage

Chang and the Bamboo FluteElizabeth Starr Hill

Chang, the mute fisherman's son introduced in Bird Boy, expresses himself by communing with cormorants and playing his flute. When a flood nearly destroys his family's houseboat, Chang's flute-playing helps them recover.

Chang, whose father uses cormorants to fish, becomes a hero when a heavy rain strands his father's fishing raft.

Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President

Kaiji Kawaguchi

Translated from Japanese.

Japanese reporter Takashi Jo learns the scheming Senator is his father, and must decide whether to go public with the information and risk ruining the Senator's campaign.

Graphic novel format.

LandedMilly Lee

After leaving his village in southeastern China, twelve-year-old Sun is held at Angel Island, San Francisco, before being released to join his father, a merchant living in the area. Includes historical notes.

Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2007

Secondhand World: a NovelKatherine Min

A Korean-American burn victim circa 1976 tries to make sense of the house fire that killed her parents.

Isa refuses to conform to the traditional meek and quiet role daughters of Asian Americans are often forced into and embarks on a journey of sexual and self awareness with an albino boy her parents do not accept.

Tangled Threads: a Hmong Girl’s StoryPegi Deitz Shea

Thirteen-year-old Laotian Mai Yang and her grandmother have survived the war that killed Mai's parents and 10 years in a Thai camp for Hmong refugees

After ten years in a refugee camp in Thailand, thirteen-year-old Mai Yang travels to Providence, Rhode Island, where her Americanized cousins introduce her to pizza, shopping, and beer, while her grandmother and new friends keep her connected to her Hmong heritage.

The Joy Luck ClubAmy Tan

In 1949 four Chinese women began meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong. They called their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Forty years later they look back and remember.

A moving exploration of two warring cultures, focused on the lives of four Chinese women--who emigrated, in their youth, at various times, to San Francisco--and their very American 30-ish daughters.

DragonwingsLaurence Yep

In the early twentieth century a young Chinese boy joins his father in San Francisco and helps him realize his dream of making a flying machine.

Also by this author: The Amah, Angelfish, Child of the Owl, Tiger’s Blood, When the Circus Came to Town.

 Boston Globe Horn Book -

Fiction & Poetry Newbery Honor Book

Girls for BreakfastDavid Yoo

Hours before his high school graduation, social misfit Nick Park wonders where he went wrong. In this hilarious and turbulent saga, Nick recounts a life full of raging hormones and insecurities about his Korean heritage. From the accidental murder of his third grade's pet hamster to the miserable showdown at his senior prom, the sarcastic and sensitive narrator emerges as an unlikely hero.

Native american Fiction Authors

Code TalkerJoseph Bruchac

• At age six, Ned Begay leaves his Navajo home for boarding school, where he learns the English language and American ways. At 16, he enlists in the U.S. Marines during World War II and is trained as a code talker, using his native language to radio battlefield information and commands in a code that was kept secret until 1969.

• Rooted in his Navajo consciousness and traditions even in dealing with fear, loneliness, and the horrors of the battlefield,

Also by this author: The Dark Pond, Eagle song, Geronimo.

BeardanceWill Hobbs

While accompanying an elderly rancher on a trip into the San Juan Mountains, Cloyd, a Ute Indian boy, tries to help two orphaned grizzly cubs survive the winter and, at the same time, completes his spirit mission.

Also by this author: Bearstone, Crossing the Wire, Down the Yukon, Downriver, Far North, Ghost Canoe.

Touching Spririt BearBen Mikaelsen

After his anger erupts into violence, fifteen year-old Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the Native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

House Made of DawnN. Scott Momaday

Abel, a young American Indian home from a foreign war, finds himself torn between his father's world on the reservation and the lure of industrial America.

The Silent StrangerJanet Beeler Shaw

An American Girl mystery

The arrival of an injured stranger from another tribe, traveling alone and apparently unable to speak, arouses suspicion in Kaya's Nez Perce village.

Shaw's narrative emphasizes tribal values (caring for the less fortunate, honoring the deceased) and the everyday life of the Nez Perce prior to European contact.

CeremonyLeslie Marmon Silko

Follows Tayo, a young Native American, after his release from a veteran's hospital following World War II as he searches for meaning and sanity in his life.

Jingle DancerCynthia Leitich Smith

Jenna, who lives in a suburban Oklahoma neighborhood, is of Muscogee and Ojibway descent. She borrows jingles--metal cones--from four important women in her life, so that her jingle dress will have its own voice for her first powwow dance

If you don’t see one of these?

• Look for a “good” titles.• Look for interesting covers• Look for a title by the same author.• Read the first sentence, paragraph or

page.• Check the blurb.• Review the OPAC (Here or at HPPL)• Or…ask your Media Specialist.