Always Running - La Vida Loca: Gang Days In L.A.

RODRIGUEZ, L

The author discusses his life with gangs in East Los Angeles and in the San Gabriel Valley during the 1960's.

Am I Blue?

BAUER, M (ed.)

Sixteen short stories about gay adolescent experiences.

Angela's Ashes

Frank McCourt tells the story of his poverty-stricken childhood years after his family returned to the slums of Limerick, Ireland.

Annie's Baby: The Diary Of Anonymous, A Pregnant Teenager

SPARKS, C (ed.)

Diary of 14-year-old Annie, who writes her most private thoughts as she becomes pregnant and faces responsibilities beyond her years.

Bad*

Sentenced to six months in the Girls Rehabilitation Center for her participation in a convenience store robbery, Dallas acknowledges her responsibility for her actions and is insightful about how her low self-esteem and need for love has driven her to delinquency.

Beyond The Mango Tree

While living in Liberia with her possessive, diabetic and often absent father, Sarina longs for a friend with whom to experience the world beyond her yard.

Black Boy

Richard Wright's unforgettable story of growing up in the Jim Crow South. The book is told from the perspective of the adult Wright, who was still trying to come to grips with the cruel deprivations and humiliations of his childhood.

Black Like Me

GRIFFIN, J

Bless Me, Ultima

Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past. A depiction of life for a Chicano family in the American Southwest.

Blue Rapture*

A friend's suicide leads TJ to rethink both his motives and his actions in helping his learning-disabled but athletically gifted friend Tyrone through the college recruitment process.

Bluest Eye

Haunting story of a young black girl who prays every night for blue eyes, thinking that blue eyes would change her life and make it better.

Bodega Dreams

Powerful, darkly funny, novel that brilliantly evokes the trials of Chino, a smart, promising young man who finds himself over his head in an urban underworld of switchblades and violence.

Bonesetter’s Daughter

LuLing Young searches for the name of her mother, the daughter of the "Famous Bonesetter from the Mouth of the Mountain". Trying to hold on to the evaporating past, she begins to write all that she can remember of her life as a girl in China.

Boy Who Drank Too Much

A realistic and dramatic portrayal of a young man torn by alcoholism and the conflicting demands of his father, hockey and his own values.

Brave New World

Bread Givers

Sara Smolinksy, the youngest daughter of a rabbi, watches as her father marries off her sisters into dire circumstances, and she vows to escape this fate.

Breath, Eyes, Memory

At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village in Haiti to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti.

Buried Onions*

19-year-old Eddie just wants to get by and leave his past behind, but finds himself inexorably drawn back into the violence of Fresno's mean streets.

But What About Me?

Bygones

Forgetting the special bond that first brought them together, Bess and Michael Curran engage in a bitter divorce until their daughter, Lisa, makes a shocking announcement that forces the family to amend past mistakes.

Carolina Autumn*

Carolina slowly emerges from her grief after her father and sister's death in a plane crash, forging new relationships with her mother and friends.

Caucasia

A sensitive coming-of-age story about two sisters whose parents are an inter-racial couple, and the way the world perceives each girl as a result of her skin color.

Cay*

A prejudiced, blind white boy is stranded on a Caribbean Island with an old black man.

Child Called "It". One Child's Courage To Survive

Dave Pelzer shares his unforgettable story of the many abuses he suffered at the hands of his alcoholic mother and the averted eyes of his neglectful father. Someone with no one to turn to, his dreams barely kept him alive.

Children Of The River

A powerful novel that tells the story of teenage Sundra from Cambodia, who flees with her aunt’s family from the Khmer Rouge terror to a small Oregon town.

Chinese Cinderella: The True Story Of An Unwanted Daughter

YEN MAH, A

An authentic portrait of 20^th-century China, as well as the story of the painful childhood of an unwanted daughter.

Chosen

The odyssey of two young men journeying from boyhood to manhood, set against the background of the conflicts and traditions of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews.

Color Purple

WALKER, A

A triumphant novel of a black woman's life in the South.

Conditions Of Love*

A realistic and witty portrayal of high school freshman Sarah Morgan's struggle to survive the trauma of losing her father while coping with the pitfalls of adolescence.

Cry The Beloved Country

PATON, A

Beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940's

Dakota Dream

BENNETT, J

Determination, faith and a lot of crazy luck help Floyd make the journey to the Sioux reservation and embark on the sort of vision quest on which only Native Americans are allowed.

Dance For Three*

15-year-old Hannah must face some hard truths as pregnancy, and rejection by her boyfriend, propel her towards a mental breakdown.

Deep End Of The Ocean

Beth Cappadora, brings along her children to a school reunion. She asks 7-year-old Vincent to watch his younger brother Ben as she makes her way to the hotel's registration desk. When she returns, Ben is gone.

Door Near Here

Head of the household at 15 when her out-of-work, alcoholic mother refuses to get out of bed, Katherine wonders how long she can hold things together and keep her three siblings' teachers from becoming suspicious.

Eclipse Of Moonbeam Dawson*

Edgar Allen*

NEUFELD, J

The bitter repercussions of a white family's intended adoption of a black child.

Effects Of Knut Hansun On A Fresno Boy

SOTO, G

Forty-eight narrative memoirs that move from childhood memories, to reflections on poverty, to the joys and heartbreaks of love.

Eight Seconds*

18-year-old John must confront his own sexuality when he attends rodeo school and finds himself strangely attracted to an older boy who is smart, tough, attractive and gay.

Ellen Foster

Ellen Foster, cast adrift after the deaths of her drunken father and misused mother, moves from one bad situation to another until she finds a real home.

Finding My Voice

Korean-American high school senior Ellen Sung struggles against racism and her own family's dreams for her to find a place for herself in two very different cultures.

Flowers For Algernon

Provocative novel of a dramatic medical experiment and its implication for society. 30-year-old retarded Charlie is turned into a genius.

Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe

FLAGG, F

A folksy, funny and endearing story of life in a small town in Alabama in the Depression and in the 1980s.

Gathering Of Flowers: Stories About Being Young In America*

THOMAS, J (ed.)

Collection of short stories celebrating the diversity of races and cultures in America.

Gideon's People

Torn between youthful rebellion and their traditional heritage, two boys from very different cultures, one Amish and one Jewish, discover how similar they really are.

Glimmer*

Sage, youngest sibling of five, and the product of an interracial marriage, has lived her life knowing that her parents separated while her mother was pregnant with her. When she goes to college, she encounters fellow students that force her to consider how she wants to define herself in terms of race and sexuality.

Good Earth

BUCK, P

Modern classic of life in China as revealed through the life of one peasant family.

Great Santini

A tyrannical father brutalizes his family, and particularly his oldest son, interpreting humanity as weakness in this unsparing novel. Tragedy is the outcome.

Growing Up Asian American

Growing Up Chicano

Hispanic writers present a selection of stories and essays on their cultural heritage and lifestyle.

Growing Up Ethnic In America 

GILLAN, M

Handmaid's Tale

The story is set in a future America where women are categorized in terms of whether or not they are able to bear children, and function in the strictly defined roles assigned to them by men.

Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Unsentimental yet compassionate portrayal of a cross-section of humanity in a small Southern town.

Heaven

JOHNSON, A

When Marley, who is African American, learns that her itinerant uncle is really her father and her loving "parents" are her aunt and uncle, she has to come to terms with her feelings of anger, betrayal and curiosity as to who she really is.

How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Fifteen interconnected stories portray the immigrant experience with humor and insight when the four Garcia girls come to America from the Dominican Republic in 1960.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

The moving and beautiful autobiography of a talented black woman confronting her own life with dignity.

If You Come Softly*

For 15-year-old Jeremiah, who is black, and Ellie, who is Jewish, the love they find is special and rare. But can it withstand the prejudice the world around them feels towards a mixed relationship?

In Love And Trouble: Stories Of Black Women

WALKER, A

The lives of many black women and the hardships that they went through are described in this collection of short stories.

Invisible Man

Compelling saga of a black man who struggles from the South to the North, always encountering other people's preconceived notions about him.

Joy Luck Club

Chronicles the lives of four Chinese women, their forty-year friendship, and how the death of one member brings her daughter into the group, creating a new understanding for each.

Life In Prison

Light In The Forest*

The unforgettable story of a white boy raised by Native Americans and torn between the claims of blood and loyalty.

Living Up The Street

SOTO, G

The author describes with warmth and wry reality his experiences growing up as a Mexican American in Fresno, California, during the late 1950's and early 1960's.

Lovely Bones

On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is the latest victim of a serial killer. The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case.

Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America

MCCALL, N

A black Washington Post reporter who served time recounts his life and brilliantly shows why prison has become a rite of passage for many young black men.

Marchlands

Set on a 1,000-acre sheep ranch in the vast landscape of Wyoming, the story concerns one pivotal year in the life of 15-year-old Sophie Behr. She is a young woman searching for the truth about her family's past, even as she seeks to define her own future with the child she is carrying.

Memoirs Of A Geisha

The remarkable story of Nitta Sayuri, a gray-eyed geisha. In a world where ritual is prized above individual happiness, Nitta risks everything she has achieved for a chance at happiness.

Meridian

WALKER, A

A classic novel of both feminism and the Civil Rights Movement

Monster; The Autobiography Of An LA Gang Member

Monster Kody, today known as Sanyika Sakur, spent 16 years as a gangbanger in South Central Los Angeles. His account begins at age eleven, when he was inducted into the ranks of the Crips, and ends (hundreds of bodies later) with Scott serving a seven-year prison term for beating a crack dealer.

Moonlight Man*

Catherine's parents were divorced when she was a toddler, and her contact with her father over the years has been erratic. Subsequently she has a somewhat romantic picture of the man who is her father. Over the course of a summer holiday spent with him in Nova Scotia, Catherine comes face to face with his alcoholism.

Necessary Roughness

The move from LA to a small town in Minnesota is a cultural shock for Chan Kim, an Asian teen who must learn to deal with intolerance as well as the anxiety of adolescence and a problematic relationship with his father.

Nectar In A Sieve

The story of a simple woman in a village in India who, married as a child bride, worked with her husband to wrest a living from the ravaged land.

Needles: A Memoir Of Growing Up With Diabetes

DOMINICK, A

Dominick tells her story about how she and her sister grew up with diabetes, and the emotional and physical challenges she faced after her sister’s tragic death.

No More Saturday Nights

Ordinary People

An incisive, unsparing look at family politics among a father, a mother and a son in the wake of a family tragedy.

Pedro And Me

A heartfelt memoir about the author's friendship with AIDS educator Pedro Zamora, who died of the disease after appearing on MTV's Real World.

Peter

Petey

Petey, born with cerebral palsy, and misdiagnosed as retarded, has spent sixty years in institutions. When Trevor Ladd rescues him from a group of snow throwing bullies, Petey is compelled to overcome his physical difficulties to become Trevor's friend.

Picture Bride

UCHIDA, Y

Hana, a Japanese immigrant, comes to America to marry a man she has never met.

Poisonwood Bible

The story of an American missionary and his family in 1959. A compelling exploration of religion, conscience, imperialist arrogance, and the many paths to redemption.

Power Of One

Peekay, a white boy born in 1939 in South Africa as the seeds of apartheid are newly sewn, begins an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice.

Prince Of Tides

Rats Saw God

Having gone from top student to a bummed out and drugged out high school senior, Steve York is one step away from flunking out. As he writes a 100-page graduate paper, he begins to understand where he is and where he wants to go.

Revolutions Of The Heart

Cory’s 17^th year is marked by her mother’s sudden death, the return of her hothead brother, her love for and romance with a Native American boy, and the eruption of bigotry in her small Wisconsin town.

Rifle

The mesmerizing tale of a rifle, lovingly created by a gifted gunsmith in 1768, passed from one owner to another to the present day without anyone checking to see if the gun was loaded. And it was.

River, Cross My Heart

When 6-year-old Clara Bynum drowns, 12-year-old Johnnie Mae must come to terms with the powerful and confused emotions sparked by her sister's death.

Ryan White: My Own Story

The heartwarming story of Ryan White's life with AIDS and his courageous fight against it.

Sarah T: Portrait Of A Teen-Age Alcoholic*

WAGNER, R

Shocking and moving portrait of a teenage alcoholic.

Shabanu: Daughter Of The Wind*

The second daughter of a Pakistani family, Shabanu has been brought up with more freedom than most Muslim girls. Should she listen to the stirrings of her own heart when her family insists on an arranged marriage?

Sing Down The Moon*

15-year-old Bright Morning tells the story of the forced migration of the Navajos from their homeland.

Song Of The Buffalo Boy

Loi, a 17-year-old American-Asian left behind when the Americans withdraw from Vietnam, faces an important decision. Should she abandon her beloved country and family for a new life in America?

Streets Of Gold

Marissa and her brother flee Poland and struggle to build a new life in America on the unforgiving streets of New York.

Stuck In Neutral*

Cerebral Palsy traps Shawn McDaniel in a world where he can't speak or control his movement. No one knows that he is more than he seems - that he thinks, reads and understands that his dad wants him dead.

Sugar

The story of two women: a modest, churchgoing wife and mother, and the young prostitute she befriends.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

This classic of black literature, written in 1937, tells with sympathy and immediacy the story of Janie Crawford's evolving selfhood through three marriages.

They Cage The Animals At Night

Gripping autobiographical account of a child whose mother abandoned him at the age of eight.

Until Angels Close My Eyes

Until They Bring The Streetcar Back

Set in St. Paul (1949), this book tells the poignant story of Can Gant who, despite the shelter of his idyllic life, founds himself drawn into a strange and secret alliance by the haunting Gretchen Lutterman. Cal gets into a heart-stopping struggle with Gretchen's brutal father, leading him to the brink of self-doubt, terror and death itself.

Waiting To Exhale

MCMILLAN, T

Ways Of White Folk

HUGHES, L

Hughes depicts black people colliding - sometimes humorously, more often tragically - with whites in the 1920s and '30s.

We Were The Mulvaneys

Saga about a seemingly ideal family that is suddenly rocked by the date-rape of 16-year-old Marianne Mulvaney. This shattering event brings about an extraordinary journey into 25 years of shameful secrets and despair, culminating in the unforeseen miracles that can bring a family closer together.

What Kind Of Love? The Diary Of A Pregnant Teenager*

When Happily Ever After Ends*

Shannon knew her father had been troubled since he served in the Vietnam War, but his violent suicide still shocks her. Why wasn't her love enough to make him want to live? As Shannon and her mother try to make sense of his death, they courageously renew their commitment to living in the face of their loss.

When I Was Puerto Rican

Esmeralda Santiago's coming-of-age memoir begins in small rural Puerto Rico and follows her to New York, where the rules and language are bewilderingly different.

When We Were Colored

Taulbert looks back at his "colored" childhood in the segregated South with striking honesty and unusual affection, revealing the deep sense of community, optimism and self-worth instilled by his family.

Where The Broken Heart Still Beats. The Story Of Cynthia Ann Parker

White Horse

16-year-old Raina reveals her life with a dysfunctional family, life on the streets, drug abuse and an unplanned pregnancy through her writing to a concerned teacher.

White Oleander

Woman Warrior: Memoirs Of A Girlhood Amongst Ghosts

Vivid and poetic account of what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a traditional Chinese family that found women inferior to men and considered all non-Chinese "ghosts".

Women Of Brewster Place

NAYLOR, G

Chronicle of the communal strength of seven diverse black women who live in decaying rented houses on a walled-off street of an urban neighborhood.

Year They Burned The Books