Program Materials

Young Adult Reading List
By Hazel Rochman

Nonfiction

Ashabranner, Brent. An Ancient Heritage: The Arab American Minority. 1991. HarperCollins, $14.89(0-06-020048-0).

Gr. 5–10. With a warming combination of personal involvement and unobtrusive background research, Ashabranner bases his book on informal interviews with a wide variety of Arab Americans, illustrated with lively black-and-white photos by Paul Conklin. They show what the immigrants left behind, why they came here, why they stay, and how they live—students, teachers, doctors, shopkeepers, artists, etc., from Boston and Portland to Detroit and New Orleans.

Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural. Ed. By Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn. 1998. Pantheon, paper, $13 (0-375-70011-0).

Gr. 7–12. “Where are you from?” The answers aren’t simple for the 18 writers of these personal essays who live and work in the U.S. but aren’t sure where they belong. Several are immigrants, and most are children or parents of biracial, bicultural families. Editor O’Hearn (part Irish American, part Chinese) says she is always a foreigner, wherever she is (“Suspended, I can go anywhere but home”).

Muslims in America. Ed. by Allen Verbrugge. 2005. Gale/Greenhaven, lib. ed., $26.96 (0-7377-2315-7); paper, $17.96 (0-7377-2316-5).

Gr. 9–12. With a wide selection of viewpoints, political and personal, historical and contemporary, this excellent collection in the Contemporary Issues Companion series goes behind the stereotypes to show the rich diversity among Muslims in the U.S. Beginning with the post-9/11 backlash, the text also considers where many different immigrants came from and why. One section focuses on the experience of women. As always in the series, there are extreme views that are sure to spark debate.

Nye, Naomi Shihab. 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. 2002. HarperCollins/Greenwillow, $16.95 (0-06-009765-5).

Gr. 5–10. A Palestinian American raised in St. Louis and Jerusalem, Nye is a writer and anthologist whose poetry, fiction, picture book, and essays speak to a wide audience. This small collection brings together her poems about the Middle East and about being Arab American. In the introduction she speaks about her experience as a child of immigrants: “I was born in the United States, but my father stared back toward the Middle East whenever he stood outside. . . . That’s what immigrants look like. They always have other worlds in their minds.”

Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States. Ed. by Lori Carlson. 2005. Holt, $14.95 (0-8050-7616-6).

Gr. 8–11. Like Cool Salsa (1994), Carlson’s new bilingual collection of poems in both Spanish and English includes well-known writers as well as emerging poets, some of them teens. Many talk about the complex challenges of being bicultural. “I’m a grafted flower that didn’t / take, a Mexican without being one, / an American without feeling like one,” writes Raphael Valle Senties.

Wachale! Poetry and Prose about Growing Up Latino. Ed. by Ilan Stavans. 2001. Cricket/Marcato, $16.95 (0-81264-750-5).

Gr. 5–8. “My first language was Spanglish,” Aurora Levins Morales says in her touching autobiographical poem, “Child of the Americas,” about growing up a U.S. Puerto Rican Jew. Like many of the authors in this lively bilingual anthology of poetry, essays, folktales, and stories, she celebrates her history, her diversity, and her rich individual identity (“I was born at a crossroads / and I am whole”). There is a lengthy glossary, but, as editor Stavans says, we live in a world where language and culture are already mixed, and it would be “silly” to claim definitions that deny the richness of multiple meanings.

Warren, Andrea. Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnamese Orphan Became an American Boy. 2004. 128p. illus. Farrar/Melanie Kroupa, $17 (0-374-32224-4).

Gr. 5–12. This stirring photo-essay begins as eight-year-old Long struggles to survive in Vietnam near the end of the war, abandoned by a grandmother unable to care for him. It continues his remarkable saga through his rescue, adoption, and terrifying evacuation on a plane under fire. Just as gripping is his personal conflict: his struggle to become American; his attempt to deny his sadness at what he left behind; and, finally, his pride (he’s now a doctor in the U.S.) in his roots: “I will never forget that my American heart is half Vietnamese.”

Fiction

Buss, Fran Leeper. Journey of the Sparrows. 1991. Yearling, paper, $6.99 (0-440-40785-0).

Gr. 7–12. Nailed into a crate in the back of a truck, Maria, 15, and her sister and little brother, refugees from El Salvador, endure the cruel journey across the border from Mexico and then north to Chicago. There they struggle to find work, always careful to remain “invisible,” so that the authorities won’t arrest them and send them back.

Cofer, Judith Ortiz. An Island like You: Stories of the Barrio. 1995. Orchard, $21.50 (0-531-08747-6); Puffin, paper, $6.99 (0-140-38068-X).

Gr. 7–12. “The barrio is like an alternate universe . . . where the natives have history turned around, and none of the usual rules apply.” The contemporary teenage voices are candid, funny, weary, and irreverent in these stories about immigrant kids caught between their Puerto Rican families and the pull and push of the American dream. Some of the best stories are about those who try to leave. In one story, a teenage girl despises the newcomer just arrived from the island, but to her widowed mother, the hick (jibaro) represents all she’s homesick for. Without reverence, Cofer writes about a girl visiting her grandmother in Puerto Rico and finding connections.

Danticat, Edwidge. Behind the Mountains. 2002. Scholastic, $16.95 (0-439-37200-2).

Gr. 5-9. In this installment of the First Person Fiction series about coming to America, Danticat tells the story of a contemporary Haitian American family through the diary entries of a young teen. Celiane Esperance loves her home in the Haitian mountains, but she hasn’t seen Papa since he left for New York five years ago. Long-awaited visas come through, and Celiane, her mother, and her older brother join Papa in Brooklyn, but it isn’t the blissful reunion she dreamed about. Danticat’s simple, lyrical writing tells a gripping homecoming story of tension, disappointment, anger, and hope.

First Crossing: Stories about Teen Immigrants. Ed. by Don Gallo. 2004. Candlewick, $16.99 (0-763-62249-4).

Gr. 7–10. The contemporary teen immigrants in Gallo’s newest story collection hail from a mix of countries—including Cambodia, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Mexico, and South Korea. Some have left homelands behind for reasons not so different from those of earlier generations; others’ circumstances are more distinctly modern, such as the Korean-born girl adopted by white parents and the Swedish teen uprooted from his home by his father’s globe-trotting career.

Fleischman, Paul. Seedfolks. 1997. Illus. by Judy Pedersen. HarperCollins, $14.99 (0-0602-7471-9); paper, $4.99 (0-06447-207-8).

Gr. 4–8. Fleischman shows how the different members of a multiethnic urban neighborhood overcome the barriers of language and background to enrich one another and forge new connections. Kim, a Vietnamese girl mourning her dead father, is the one who begins the garden in a vacant lot near her Cleveland home. Ana, an elderly white woman who has watched the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood change, makes it her mission to ensure that the girl’s plants are watered. Gonzalo’s grandfather sees the garden as an opportunity to be productive without being humiliated because of his inability to learn English. Black body builder Curtis uses the garden to help him rebuild his romance with Lateesha. With shifting viewpoints, each character springs to life complete with attitudes, prejudices, and opinions.

Jiménez, Francisco. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. 1997. Houghton, $16 (0-395-97902-1); paper, $10.95 (0-395-95581-5).

Gr. 5–12. These exquisite stories, based on the author’s own childhood experience, follow a family of migrant farm workers from the time they leave Mexico to enter the U.S. “under the wire” through years of moving from place to place, picking cotton, picking grapes, picking strawberries, thinning lettuce, tapping carrots. Panchito’s dream is elemental: to stay in one place, to go to school without months of interruption. His joy is to return to a place he recognizes. The simple words are both fact and poetry: the physicality of the backbreaking work; the yearning for education, for place.

Marcantonio, Patricia Santos. Red Ridin’ in the Hood and Other Cuentes. Illus. by Renato Alarcão. 2005. Farrar, $16 (0-374-36241-6).

Gr. 3–up. The fractured fairy tale gets cool Latino flavor in this lively collection of 11 traditional stories retold from fresh new viewpoints with witty reversals of class and gender roles, and with full-page powerful pictures that set the drama from crop fields to barrio and skyscraper. The Sleeping Beauty story is told from the viewpoint of the hurt, angry orphan witch who gets her revenge because she wasn’t invited to the spoiled rich girl’s quinceañero. This is an excellent example of a current trend in youth publishing: pictures books whose hip content extend the audience from younger children to teens.

Memories of Sun: Stories of Africa and America. Ed. By Jane Kurtz. 2004. Greenwillow, $15.99 (0-06-051050-1).

Gr. 6–10. Avoiding the usual exotic primitive stereotypes, these 12 stories and three poems take readers to contemporary young people in all their diversity and connections. Born in Ghana, Danquah came to the U.S. when she was six, and her free-verse poem, “An African American,” celebrates the two places she considers home. In stark contrast, a teen in L.A. is haunted by his memories as a child soldier in Sierra Leone.

Na, An. A Step from Heaven. 2001. Front Street, $16.95 (0-886910-58-8); Puffin, paper, $7.99 (0-142-50027-5).

Gr. 9–12. A Korean American immigrant girl in California is ashamed of her parents, who don’t want her to become too American. She dreams of being an American straight out of Laura Ingalls Wilder: “When I grow up I want to be a pioneer girl and help Ma make Christmas pies.” The best chapter is about her visit with her father to the immigration office. He is enraged that he’s so helpless because he can’t speak the language and that she’s in control; she’s embarrassed by his behavior even as she feels his anguish.

Osa, Nancy. Cuba 15. 2003. Delacorte, $15.95 (0-385-73021-7); paper, $7.95 (0-385-73233-3).

Gr. 6–10. Cuban American Osa writes about Violet Paz, growing up in suburban Chicago. She barely knows Spanish, and her dad refuses to talk about his Cuban roots, so it’s a real surprise when Abuela insists that Violet have a grand quinceañero. But Violet insists that she is an American. After all, she looks a lot like her Polish American mother. The hilarious, cool first-person narrative veers between slapstick and tenderness, denial and truth, as she sees that her American friends are also locked in crazy families.

Park, Linda Sue. Project Mulberry. 2005. Clarion, $16 (0-618-47786-1).

Gr. 5–8. Conflict over assimilation is part of the drama in Newbery winner Park’s latest novel. Julia Song is not at all keen to do a silkworm project for the state fair. It’s too Korean; she wants something more American. She doesn’t like it that hers is the only Korean family in her small town. Kind, elderly Mr. Dixon donates the mulberry leaves that silkworms eat. But why is her mom against her spending time with him? Is it because he is black? The unforgettable family and friendship story, the quiet almost unspoken racism, and the excitement of the science make this a great cross-curriculum title.

Say, Allen. Grandfather’s Journey. 1993. Houghton/Walter Lorraine, $16.95 (0-395-57035-2).

K–up. This exquisite picture book for older readers is about Say’s grandfather’s journey—and Say’s own journey––from Japan to the U.S., and back and forth again. It is a version of the American dream that includes discovery and adventure but no sense of arrival. As Say puts it, “The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.” Everyone who has pored over old family photos or heard stories of “back home” will relate to this story.

Soto, Gary. Help Wanted. 2005. Harcourt, $17 (0-15-205201-1).

Gr. 7–10. From his first book, Baseball in April and Other Stories (1990) through these stories, Soto speaks candidly about the conflicts among generations and classes and within individuals. His casual idiom and easy rhythms capture the immediate experience of growing up Latino in California: hanging out with a friend, suppressing anger at a mean-spirited adult, learning karate, searching for somewhere to go.

Testa, Maria. Something about America. 2005. Candlewick, $14.99 (0-7636-2528-0).

Gr. 6–9. In spare verse, a young girl from Kosovo speaks of her burns scars sustained during the recent war. Even so the eighth-grader feels like a “typical American schoolgirl.” Her parents are more at odds with life in the U.S., and the girl speaks powerfully about the heartbreaking choices her parents have faced. But after her father organizes a protest against a hate group in a neighboring town, the family is heartened by the public’s support. Based on an actual incident, this is an excellent choice for readers’ theater and classroom discussion. Testa’s distilled poetry speaks eloquently of a young person caught between cultures: “I have two languages / in my head / and no accent / on my lips.”

Triana, Gaby. Cubanita. 2005. HarperCollins, $15.99 (0-06-056020-7); lib. ed., $16.89 (0-06-056021-5).

Gr. 9–12. Born in Miami to Cuban American parents, Triana writes in a teen’s fast hilarious first-person narrative to bring close up Cuban American Isabel Díaz’s coming of age. At 17, Isabel’s struggle is with hovering over-anxious Mami, who knows how to push all the guilt buttons, and won’t learn proper English (“Ay, all she ever talks about is Cuba! Can’t she try to act like the American citizen she is . . . You’d think in twenty-six years, she could learn how to speak correctly”). There is no glossary, and that’s fine: all the Spanish is clear from the context, and as Isabel says, the best idioms are not translatable anyway.

Yep, Laurence. Thief of Hearts. 1995. HarperCollins, $15.25 (0-613-02101-0); paper, HarperTrophy, $6.99 (0-064-40591-5).

Gr. 5–8. Stacy, of mixed Chinese and American heritage, has always felt comfortable in her suburban middle school, but when someone calls her a “half-breed,” she is shocked into realizing that she is not “just like everyone else.” The story is set 30 years after Yep’s acclaimed Child of the Owl (1977), which is about Stacy’s mother and great-grandmother in the 1960s. A journey back to San Francisco’s Chinatown allows Stacy to learn about her family’s immigrant past in all its richness and struggle.