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ANCIENT WORLD
FRONTIER WOLF by Rosemary Sutcliff.
Alexios takes charge of a Roman outpost in Britain during the fourth century and learns to work with the local leaders to obtain his goals.
Greece.
**ANABASIS by Ellen Gilchrist.
In 431 BC, Auria becomes the apprentice of Philokrates, a healer, and when Philokrates dies, Auria escapes into the mountains with a child and animals searching for a band of antislavery rebels.
Byzantine Empire.
A gifted novelist, Ms. Gillian Bradshaw has written three novels about the Byzantine Empire, which are challenging, yet compelling.
THE BEACON OF ALEXANDRIA
Betrothed in the fourth century to the Roman governor she hates, Charis flees with her brother's help to Alexandria, where, disguised as a eunuch, she begins studying Hippocratic medicine.
THE BEARKEEPER'S DAUGHTER
Theodora's illegitimate son arrives in Byzantium from Arabia, and although she fears acknowledging him, she gets him a job.
IMPERIAL PURPLE
An official forces Demetrias, a slave and silk weaver, to help in attempting to overthrow the Emperor Theodosius II in Tyre.
Mary Renault novels about Ancient Greece:
THE KING MUST DIE
Theseus joins the bull-dancers in Crete and takes advantage of an earthquake to overthrow the kingdom.
**THE BULL FROM THE SEA
Theseus, king of Athens, marries the Cretan princess Phaedra but loves the Amazon Hippolyta, in the sequel to The King Must Die.
**THE PRAISE SINGER (about Alexander the Great.)
Simonides, a famous bard, praises the ancient tyrants in his memorized songs of them and of Greek history.
THE MASK OF APOLLO
The antique mask of Apollo which the actor Nikeratos carries with him when he travels begins to represent his attitude as an artist.
THE LAST OF THE WINE
Alexias, taught by Socrates, tells about his life as a wealthy Athenian..
Roman Empire
AUGUSTUS.
Historical novel about this powerful Roman Emperor. Challenging but rewarding. .
PRIDE OF CARTHAGE by David Anthony Durham.
A saga set against the backdrop of the ancient Punic Wars describes Hannibal's struggle against the Roman Republic, his decision to attack Rome via a land route deemed impossible, and the young Roman military leader who defeated him.
SPARTACUS, by Howard Fast.
Spartacus leads a revolt against his Roman masters after being used for their pleasures as gladiator and slave.
I, CLAUDIUS, by Robert Graves.
The story of the Emperor Claudius, an historian, can finally be told when his famous lost autobiography is located.
AFRICA
**SOMEHOW TENDERNESS SURVIVES: STORIES OF SOUTHERN AFRICA.
Apartheid. It's about suffering, about violence. Here are ten stories and autobiographical accounts written by five Black and five White South Africans.
**THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe.
Traces the growing friction between village leaders and Europeans determined to save the heathen souls of Africa. But its hero, a noble man who is driven by destructive forces, speaks a universal tongue.
MANSA MUSA, by Khephra Burns, Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon.
When a stranger in a sky blue robe appears in the 14th century Malian village of Kaba Kangaba, young Kankan Musa is spellbound. He joins the other villagers in an evening of stories and celebration... only to have the spell broken by the arrival of slave raiders who seize Kankan and carry him off to the desert. Here begins our hero's story: is he destined to be a slave for life? Or will this be the launch of a journey to self-discovery and maturity?
THE AFRICAN, by Harold Courlander.
Sold into slavery in his native Dahomey, Hwesuhunu travels to Georgia in 1802, and after his experiences there, plans an escape to Ohio.
**OVER A THOUSAND HILLS I WALK WITH YOU by Hanna Jansen
Jeanne and her family, who are Tutsis living in Rwanda during a time of civil war, flee their home in hopes of evading Hutu soldiers as political events threaten to overtake them.
**THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver.
The family of a fierce evangelical Baptist missionary--Nathan Price, his wife, and his four daughters--begins to unravel after they embark on a 1959 mission to the Belgian Congo, where they find their lives forever transformed over the course of three decades by the political and social upheaval of Africa.
**No. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY by R.A. McCall Smith.
Working in Gaborone, Botswana, sleuth Precious Ramotswe investigates several local mysteries, including a search for a missing boy and the case of the clinic doctor with different personalities for different days of the week.
**CHANDA'S SECRETS by Allan Stratton.
A girl's struggle amid the African AIDS pandemic, Chanda, is an astonishingly perceptive girl living in the small city of Bonang, a fictional city in Southern Africa. When her youngest sister dies, the first hint of HIV/AIDS emerges, Chanda must confront undercurrents of shame and stigma.
**CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese
Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Addis Ababa, Marion and Shiva Stone come of age in an Ethiopia on the brink of revolution, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.
AUSTRALIA
**MY BRILLIANT CAREER by Miles Franklin.
Alternately hilarious and heartwarming, this beloved coming-of-age novel from the Australian outback brings together unforgettable characters with clarity and truth, all told in a unique young woman's voice.
REMEMBERING BABYLON by David Malouf.
Thirteen-year-old Gemmy Fairley is cast ashore in northern Australia and adopted by Australian aborigines during the mid-1840s.
**A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute.
A TOWN LIKE ALICE tells of a young woman who miraculously survived a Japanese "death march" in World War II, and of an Australian soldier, also a prisoner of war, who offered to help her--even at the cost of his life.
THE CARIBBEAN REGION
HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS by Julia Alvarez
The four Garcia girls escape the Dominican Republic and a life of privilege in the 1960s to come to the United States and difficult adjustment.
**IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES by Julie Alverez.
A fictional account of the young lives of Mirabal sisters Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa, otherwise known in the Dominican Republic as Las Mariposas, describes their suffering and martyrdom in the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship.
**THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET by Sandra Cisneros
For Esperanza, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, life is an endless landscape of concrete and run-down tenements, and she tries to rise above the hopelessness.
THE DEW BREAKER by Edwidge Danticat.
A scarred Brooklyn resident remembers his past life as a Haitian torturer in the 1960s, a period during which he waged personal and political battles before moving to New York, where his past continues to haunt him.
BANANA: THE FATE OF THE FRUIT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by Dan Koeppel
From its early beginnings in Southeast Asia, to the machinations of the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica and Central America, the banana's history and its fate as a victim of fungus are explored.
**THE TIME IT SNOWED IN PUERTO RICO by Sarah McCoy
It is 1961 and Puerto Rico is trapped in a tug-of-war between those who want to stay connected to the United States and those who are fighting for independence. Verdita has always been safe and secure in her sleepy mountain town, but she must find the strength to decide what sort of woman she'll become.
WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN by Esmerelda Santiago
Esmerelda and her seven siblings live in a corrugated metal shack in Puerto Rico. She is uprooted as a result of poverty and her parents' quarreling and suffers blows to her ego from their expectations of her. The girl goes to New York, where her grandmother lives, and must rely on her intelligence and talents to help her survive in an alien world in which being Puerto Rican is not advantageous.
CHINA
FORBIDDEN CITY:A NOVEL OF MODERN CHINA, by William Bell.
Thrilled when his cameraman father invites him along on an assignment in China, seventeen-year-old Alex Jackson does not suspect that they will become part of the great historical events sweeping China in the spring of 1989.
**THE EXAMINATION, by Malcolm Bosse.
Fifteen-year-old Hong and his older brother Chen face famine, flood, pirates, and jealous rivals on their journey through fifteenth century China as Chen pursues his calling as a scholar and Hong becomes involved with a secret society known as the White Lotus.
**THE GOOD EARTH, by Pearl Buck.
Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant, rises from poverty to become a rich landowner with the aid of his patient wife in the 1920s.
DRAGON'S VILLAGE. by Yuan-tsung Chen.
Ling-ling, 17, joins a revolutionary theater group carrying out reforms in the Chinese countryside in 1949.
WILD SWANS: THREE DAUGHTERS OF CHINA, by Jung Chang.
In Wild Swans Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century.
THE EMPEROR'S PEARL, by Robert Hans van Gulik.
Imperial China, T'ang dynasty, seventh century A.D.—home of imperial magistrate and detective Judge Dee. A near mythic figure in the Chinese consciousness, Judge Dee distinguished himself as tribunal magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger. Long after his death, accounts of his exploits were celebrated in Chinese folklore. Van Gulik's popular Judge Dee stories, often based on actual cases, offer a vivid insight into life in traditional China.
RIVER TOWN: TWO YEARS ON THE YANGTZE by Peter Hessler.
In 1996, 26-year-old Peter Hessler arrived in Fuling, a town on China's Yangtze River, to begin a two-year Peace Corps stint as a teacher at the local college. Along with fellow teacher Adam Meier, the two are the first foreigners to be in this part of the Sichuan province for 50 years. Expecting a calm couple of years, Hessler at first does not realize the social, cultural, and personal implications of being thrust into a such radically different society.
**DEATH OF A RED HEROINE by Xiaolong Qin
Inspector Chen must battle the political climate of Shanghai and seek the help of a former friend in order to solve the murder of a National Model Worker.
**SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN by Lisa See.
A story of friendship set in nineteenth-century China follows an elderly woman and her companion as they communicate their hopes, dreams, joys, and tragedies through a unique secret language.
**BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS by Dai Sijie.
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take an unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumble upon a forbidden stash of Western literature.
EMPEROR OF CHINA: SELF-PORTRAIT OF K'ANG-HSI by Jonathan Spence.
A remarkable re-creation of the life of K'ang-hsi, emperor of the Manchu dynasty from 1661-1772, assembled from documents that survived his reign.
**THE LANGUAGE OF THREADS by Gail Tsukiyama,
Pei travels with a young orphan named Ji Shen to 1930s Hong Kong, where they receive help from a British woman, but experience the chaos of the Japanese occupation.
**WOMEN OF THE SILK by Gail Tsukiyama.
Pei's peasant parents have her work in a silk factory to support them, and Pei finds strength from an older girl, Lin, as they begin to organize a union. HS.
LEAVING POINT by Betty Vander Els.
Home from boarding school to spend Christmas with their missionary parents, fourteen-year-old Ruth and her brothers find that the Communist Revolution has brought about many changes and new restrictions that complicate Ruth's growing friendship with a young Chinese girl who may not be what she seems. . MS.
DEATH OF A RED HEROINE, by Qiu Xiaolong.
Inspector Chen must battle the political climate of Shanghai and seek the help of a former lover in order to solve the murder of a National Model Worker.
A LOYAL CHARACTER DANCER by Qui Xiaolong.
Assigned to help the wife of an important witness to reach the United States safely, U.S. marshal Catharine Rohn learns that the woman has vanished, while inspector Chen reluctantly assumes the task of saving face.
BRAVE DRAGON: A CHINESE BASKETBALL TEAM, AN AMERICAN COACH, AND TWO CULTURES CLASHING by Jim Yardley
The wonderfully original story of a struggling Chinese basketball team and its quixotic, often comical attempt to right its fortunes by copying the American stars of the NBA-a season of cultural misunderstanding that transcends sports and reveals China’s ambivalent relationship with the West.
EGYPT
MOSES, PRINCE OF EGYPT, by Howard Fast
A classic novel based on the Old Testament story offers a compelling fictional portrait of a young Moses as he searches for his true destiny amid the corrupt court of ancient Egypt. HS.
**YEAR OF THE HYENAS by Brad Geagley.
A mystery inspired by ancient transcripts documenting the "Harem Conspiracy of Ramses III" finds investigations clerk Semerket exploring clues to the murder of a Theban princess and discovering a threat on the life of Pharaoh Ramses III.
DAY OF THE FALSE KING by Brad Greagley
In the wake of Ramses IV's ascension and a series of disasters in Babylonia, Semerket, Egypt's Clerk of Investigations and Secrets, endeavors to rescue his beloved ex-wife Naia from her life in exile, an effort that is challenged by power-hungry tribes.
EUROPE AT PEACE
**THE ART THIEF by Noah Charney
In the wake of the thefts of three priceless art treasures from Rome, Paris, and London, art detective Gabriel Coffin and art historian Genevieve Delacloche team up to investigate a series of false leads, forgeries, and bizarre clues.
**GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier
A poor seventeenth-century servant girl knows her place in the household of the painter Johannes Vermeer, but when he begins to paint her, nasty whispers and rumors circulate throughout the town.
**I AM REMBRANDT'S DAUGHTER by Lynn Cullen
In Amsterdam in the mid-1600s, Cornelia's life as the illegitimate child of renowned painter Rembrandt is marked by plague, poverty, and despair at ever earning her father's love, until she sees hope for a better future in the eyes of a wealthy suitor.
**THE BIRTH OF VENUS by Sarah Dunant
Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo.
**THE CONSTANT PRINCESS by Philippa Gregory
A fictional portrait of Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, follows her through her youthful marriage to Henry's older brother, Arthur, her widowhood, her marriage to Henry, and the divorce that led to Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn.
**THE FORGERY OF VENUS by Michael Gruber
Having inherited his father's considerable artistic talents but unable to find buyers for his works, Chaz Wilmot accepts a commission to restore an antique fresco in a European castle, a job that brings unexpected success and a sinister offer.
**THE LOST PAINTING by Jonathan Harr
Recounts the search for a long-lost masterpiece by Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Caravaggio, following a young graduate student across hundreds of years and four countries to uncover the mystery of "The Taking of Christ.".
**THE PASSIONS OF ARTEMESIA by Susan Vreelan
A novel set against the backdrops of Rome, Florence, and Genoa recreates the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, whose search for love, forgiveness, and wholeness through her art led to her fame as a painter.
EUROPE AT WAR
THE KITCHEN BOY by Robert Alexander
Presents a novel based on the 1918 Bolshevik revolutionary murder of Czar Nicholas II and the rest of the Russian royal family as told from the perspective of the event's only surviving witness, a young kitchen boy.
**BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS by Louis de Bernieres
During the finals days of the Ottoman Empire, the young men of the village are instructed to battle the invading forces during the Great War and destroy the peace.
**SKELETONS AT THE FEAST by Chris Bohjalian
During the final months of World War II, a small group of people make their way westward across a ravaged Europe in a desperate attempt to reach British and American lines.
**PEOPLE OF THE BOOK by Geraldine Brooks
Offered a coveted job to analyze and conserve a priceless Sarajevo Haggadah, Australian rare-book expert Hanna Heath discovers a series of tiny artifacts in the volume's ancient binding that reveal its historically significant origins.
**DAY AFTER NIGHT by Anita Diamant
A tale inspired by the post-Holocaust experience is set in an immigrant holding camp in 1945 Palestine, where four women, refugees from Nazi Europe, find healing in the bonds of friendship that are forged while recounting their losses.
PEARLS OF CHILDHOOD by Vera Gissing.
In June 1939, Vera Gissing escaped from occupied Czechoslovakia, to spend six years in Britain. Throughout the war years, Vera kept a diary, recording her experiences, her longing for her parents, her hopes and prayers for the freedom of her country. Here, she provides an account of the life of one child growing up in extraordinary circumstances.
**STONES FROM THE RIVER by Ursula Hegi
Trudi, a dwarf librarian, tells about the lives of people in the small German town of Burgdorf from World War I and into the 1950s.
**INCANTATION by Alice Hoffman
During the Spanish Inquisition, sixteen-year-old Estrella, brought up a Catholic, discovers her family's true Jewish identity, and when their secret is betrayed by Estrella's best friend, the consequences are tragic.
**REMAINS OF THE DAY by Kazuo Ishiguru.
Stevens, an elderly butler, hopes to rise to the top of his profession, and he remains stoic and unemotional at his father's death and neglects the opportunity to pursue a relationship with a former housekeeper.
**NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA by Robert K. Massie.
Massie offers a moving, tragic, and unforgettable account of the extraordinary Imperial dynasty of Tsar Nicholas II, his doomed empire, and a revolution that would inexorably change the world forever.
**ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Erich Maria Remarque
Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
**MAUS I and MAUS II.by Art Spiegelman
In a comic-book-style tale of the author's parents, Vladek and Anja, Vladek survives Auschwitz, is reunited with Anja, and sires young Art.
INDIA/PAKISTAN
**A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry.
A portrait of India featuring four characters. Two are tailors who are forcibly sterilized, one is a student who emigrates, and the fourth is a widowed seamstress who decides to hang on. A tale of cruelty, political thuggery and despair.
**THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy.
In 1969 in Kerala, India, Rahel and her twin brother, Estha, struggle to forge a childhood for themselves amid the destruction of their family life, as they discover that the entire world can be transformed in a single moment.
JAPAN
THE DOCTOR’S WIFE by Sawako Ariyoshi.
The intense devotion of his mother, wife, and sisters allows Hanaoka Seishu, an 18th-century Japanese doctor, to have time to develop a general anaesthetic for surgical use. Readers of The Doctor's Wife will find a tender and compassionate tale about a woman of great strength and courage, as well as an impelling account of Japanese society and the role of women in it.
SHOGUN by James Clavell.
After John Blackthorne shipwrecks in Japan, he makes himself useful to a feudal lord in a power struggle with another and becomes a samurai.
**MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden.
Because her mother is dying and her father old, Chiyo, nine, is sold to a wealthy geisha house in Gion where she learns her trade and works it in the 1930s and 1940s.
REVENGE OF THE FORTY-SEVEN SAMURAI by Eric Haugaard.
A fourteen-year-old serving boy finds himself surrounded by suspicion and betrayal as his master gathers a group of samurai to avenge Lord Asano's death.
POINTS AND LINES by Seicho Matsumoto.
Torigai, an old detective in Hakaata, investigates the deaths of two people found on Kyushu's Kashii Beach from arsenic poison in Japan in the 1950s.
**SHIZUKO'S DAUGHTER by Kyoko Mori.
After her mother's suicide when she is twelve years old, Yuki spends years living with her distant father and his resentful new wife, cut off from her mother's family, and relying on her own inner strength to cope with the tragedy.
**ONE BIRD by Kyoko Mori
After her mother leaves the family, fifteen-year-old Megumi tries to understand her father's need for his mistress while dealing with her own aching isolation..
Japan and World War II
HIROSHIMA MAIDENS by Rodney Barker
Chronicles the story of a group of young Japanese women disfigured in the atomic holocaust of Hiroshima and brought to the United States in the mid-nineteen-fifties for plastic surgery.
**HIROSHIMA, by John Hersey.
The classic tale of the day the first atom bomb was dropped offers a haunting evocation of the memories of survivors and an appeal to the conscience of humanity.
BLACK RAIN by Masuji Ibuse
The people of a Japanese village fight to maintain their humanity and tradition in the radioactive "rain" after Hiroshima.
BAREFOOT GEN by Keiji Nakazawa.
In this graphic novel depiction of nuclear devastation, three survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima--Gen, his mother, and his baby sister--face rejection, hunger, and humiliation in their search for a place to live. First in a series.
TWENTY-FOUR EYES, by Sakae Tsuboi,
Twenty-four Eyes tracks the growth of twelve innocent children from childhood to adulthood through their relationship with a young school teacher. The naiveté of youth and the harsh reality of war-torn Japan clash in this honest coming-of-age story.
KOREA
**YEAR OF IMPOSSIBLE GOODBYES by Sook Nyul Choi.
An unforgettable portrait of one community’s struggle under Japanese occupation. This book portrays the incredible courage of a young girl handling crisis after crisis.
**LOST NAMES by Richard Kim.
From 1932 to 1945, the Japanese occupied Korea. Richard Kim uses a simple but powerful voice to evoke painful times, a loving family, and a strong spirit of survival. Lost Names is a beautifully written tribute to the people of Korea that is subtle, moving, and hard to put down.
**CALLIGRAPHER'S DAUGHTER by Eugina Kim
In early-twentieth-century Korea, Najin Han, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher, longs to choose her own destiny. Smart and headstrong, she is encouraged by her mother--but her stern father is determined to maintain tradition, especially as the Japanese steadily gain control of his beloved country.
MIDDLE EAST
BORN UNDER A MILLION SHADOWS by Andrea Bushfield
In post-Taliban Afghanistan, Fawad and his mother move in with a Western woman who has a relationship with a notorious Afghan warlord, and soon, a horrible tragedy threatens to destroy Fawad's love for his country.
**FINDING NOUF by Zoe Ferraris
When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing and is found drowned in the desert outside Jeddah, Nayir--a desert guide hired by her prominent family to search for her--feels compelled to find out what really happened.
**SWEETNESS IN THE BELLY by Camilla Gibb
Orphaned at the age of eight, British-born Lilly devotes her life to the teachings of the Qur'an from within a Sufi shrine, but is persecuted for her foreign heritage, forcing her to flee to London, where she is equally disconnected.
**THE KITE RUNNER, by Khaled Hosseini
Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.
**A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khaled Hosseini
Two women born a generation apart witness the destruction of their home and family in wartorn Kabul, losses incurred over the course of thirty years that test the limits of their strength and courage.
**THE BOOKSELLER FROM KABUL by Asne Saierstad
The Norwegian journalist provides a portrait of a committed Muslim man and his family living in post-Taliban Kabul, Afghanistan.
**THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ by Dalia Sofer
Their serene villa life devastated by a wrongful imprisonment, the wife and children of Tehran gentleman Isaac Amin face potential betrayals within their own household and eventually plan a dangerous escape.
**PERSEPOLIS: THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD by Marjane Satrapi
The great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor and the daughter of ardent Marxists describes growing up in Tehran in a country plagued by political upheaval and vast contraditions between public and private life.
SHADOWS OF THE POMEGRANATE TREE by Ali Tariq.
Tells the story of a family in Moorish Spain and their attempts to survive after the fall of Granada.
**THE LEMON TREE: AN ARAB , A JEW, AND THE HEART OF THE MIDDLE EAST by Sandy Tolan.
Describes how a simple act of faith and the relationship between two families--one Israeli, one Palestinian--represent a personal microcosm of decades of Israeli-Palestinian history and symbolize the hope for peace in the Middle East.
UNITED STATES/CANADA
**HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENT by Julia Alvarez.
The four Garcia girls escape the Dominican Republic and a life of privilege in the 1960s to come to the United States and difficult adjustment.
**THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET by Sandra Cisneros.
For Esperanza, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, life is an endless landscape of concrete and run-down tenements, and she tries to rise above the hopelessness.
**COPPER SUN by Sharon Draper
Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant--escape their Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves.
**THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton.
Three brothers struggle to stay together after their parents' death, as they search for an identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society in which they find themselves "outsiders.".
LADY SINGS THE BLUES by Billie Holliday.
Billie Holiday describes her early childhood in an East Baltimore ghetto, her career as an internationally-acclaimed jazz vocalist, and her years spent battling a drug habit.
NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER by Langston Hughes.
Depicts a Black family's attempts to deal with life in a small Kansas town.
**COD: A BIOGRAPHY OF A FISH THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by Mark Kurlansky.
A history of the fish that has led to wars, stirred revolutions, sustained economies and diets, and helped in the settlement of North America features photographs, drawings, and recipes, as well as the natural history of this much sought after fish.
FINDING MY VOICE by Marie G. Lee.
As she tries to enjoy her senior year and choose which college she will attend, Korean American Ellen Sung must deal with the prejudice of some of her classmates and pressure from her parents to get good grades.
**A THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD by Ruthanne Lum McCunn.
The family of Polly Bemis (Lalu Nathoy) sells her to bandits and a Chinese saloon keeper, but she ends up married to an American and homesteading in Idaho.
**FALLEN ANGELS by Walter Dean Myers.
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS by Howard Norman.
After his friend drowns, fifteen-year-old Noah Krainik decides to leave his childhood and hometown in the frozen wilderness of Northern Manitoba and journey to a new life in the city of Toronto.
**THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O’Brien.
Heroic young men carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam, in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness.
**WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN by Esmerelda Santiago,
Magic, high comedy, and intense drama move through an echanted yet harsh life chronicle, as a young girl leaves rural Puerto Rico for New York's tenements and a chance for success.
U.S. HOMEFRONT: WORLD WAR II.
**SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS by David Guterson.
After returning from internment and trying to get his land back, Kabuo Miyomoto is arrested and tried for the murder of Carl Heine.
**RUMORS OF PEACE. By Ella Leffland.
Suse grows through adolescence with World War II in the background.
Internment Camp Experiences
**OBASAN by Joy Kogawa.,
Pearl Harbor changes life in Vancouver for Naomi Nakane when the government takes property from her relatives and interns them.
BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMIORS
Africa
**A LONG WAY GONE: MEMOIRS OF A BOY SOLDIER by Ishmael Beah
At the age of twelve, Ishmael Beh fled attacking rebels in Sierra Leone and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.
THE DARK CHILD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN AFRICAN BOY by Camara Laye.
The Dark Child is a distinct and graceful memoir of Camara Laye's youth in the village of Koroussa, French Guinea. More than autobiography of one boy, this is the universal story of sacred traditions struggling against the encroachment of a modern world. A passionate and deeply affecting record, The Dark Child is a classic of African literature.
ZENZELE: A LETTER FOR MY DAUGHTER by J. Nozipo Maraire.
Written as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard, J. Nozipo Maraire evokes the moving story of a mother reaching out to her daughter to share the lessons life has taught her and bring the two closer than ever before.
KAFFIR BOY: THE TRUE STORY OF A BLACK YOUTH'S COMING OF AGE IN APARTHEID, SOUTH AFRICA by Mark Mathabane.
In stark prose, Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg--and how he escaped its horrors.
China
**MAO’s LAST DANCER by Li Cunxin.
Chosen from millions of children to serve in Mao's cultural revolution by studying at the Beijing Dance Academy, Li knew ballet would be his family's best opportunity to escape the bitter poverty in his rural China home. From one hardship to another, Li persevered, never forgetting the family he left behind.
SON OF THE REVOLUTION, by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro.
An autobiography of a young Chinese man whose childhood and adolescence were spent in Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution.
THE YANGTZE RIVER: THE WILDEST, WICKEDEST RIVER ON EARTH by Madeleine Lynn
This new collection contains fifty-four passages about the Yangtze River dating from the Tang dynasty to the present day and spanning thirteen centuries. The pieces are taken from novels, biographies, letters, diaries, poems, and short stories, and range from the words of early Chinese poet-officials to the observations of contemporary travel writers such as Colin Thubron and Paul Theroux.
**FALLING LEAVES: THE TRUE STORY OF AN UNWANTED CHINESE DAUGHTER by Adeline Yen Mah.
The daughter of a wealthy Hong Kong businessman describes her very difficult childhood and the psychological abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepmother.
**IRON AND SILK by Mark Salzman.
The author recounts his experiences in China, as the sole private pupil to Pan Quingfu, China's foremost martial artist, discusses his relationships with the diverse Chinese people he came to know.
ALMOST A REVOLUTION by Shen Tong
In his groundbreaking memoir about China's democracy movement and the massacre at Tiananmen Square in June 1989, student leader Shen Tong offers us a rare look at a bold and daring new generation of Chinese citizens who tried to protest the restraints imposed by their country's government.
**THE RIVER AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD: A JOURNEY UP THE YANGTZE AND BACK IN CHINESE TIME by Simon Winchester.
British born author Simon Winchester lived in Hong Kong before setting off on a journey up the Chang Jiang or Yangtze River as it is most often referred to in the West. In The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze and Back in Chinese Time, he chronicles his adventures across China along the 3,964-mile River.
CHINESE LIVES: AN ORAL HISTORY OF COMTEMPORARY CHINA by Xinxin Zhang
This book consists of 70-odd short interviews with Chinese people in every walk of life. The pieces, which created a sensation when serialized in China in 1985, present their life stories and attitudes much more realistically than most Chinese reportage or fiction.
Europe at Peace
**ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL by James Herriot.
A country veterinary surgeon in Yorkshire describes the joys and trials of his profession and recalls his early career and experiences with his unique clientele. Part of a series.
**ANGELA’S ASHES by Frank McCourt.
The author recounts his childhood in Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish immigrants who decide to return to worse poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies.
**LONGITUDE: THE TRUE STORY OF A LONE GENIUS WHO SOLVED THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM OF HIS TIME by Dava Sobel
Describes the forty-year effort of John Harrison to invent the chronometer, the first instrument able to keep accurate time for navigational purposes.
Europe at War
**I HAVE LIVED A THOUSAND YEARS by Livia Bitton-Jackson
The author describes her experiences during World War II when she and her family were sent to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
SEED OF SARAH by Judith Isaacson
The author recounts her childhood in Hungary, her experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, and how she and others survived their ordeal.
CHILD OF THE HOLOCAUST by Jack Kuper
A true story of rare beauty and remarkable power, it has become an enduring classic. One day, when Jacob Kuperblum was eight, he came home to his town in Poland. His family and friends were gone, rounded up by the Germans only hours earlier. He would never see them again. Thus begins a journey of survival as a young boy travels from town to town in a desperate search for safety and shelter, growing up in fear, deprived of his home and his people--and even his identity. All that survived was his spirit--and his indomitable will to live.
**NIGHT by Elie Wiesel
In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur?
**WALLS: RESISTING THE THIRD REICH--ONE WOMAN'S STORY by Hiltgunt Zassenhaus
The author was 17 when she first resisted the Third Reich by refusing to say "Heil Hitler," and courageously persisted in finding clever ways to foil the Nazi oppressors. Forward written by Katherine Paterson.
Japan
**THE DREAM OF WATER by Kyoko Mori.
An American poet explores her past and the meaning of memory and examines the two countries she knows well, Japan and America.
THE GIRL WITH THE WHITE FLAG by Tomiko Higa.
The author tells how she survived the American invasion of Okinawa after she was separated from her family at age seven.
Middle East
**REVENGE: A STORY OF HOPE by Laura Blumenfeld.
In 1986, a Palestinian terrorist shot author Laura Blumenfeld's father. More than a decade later, Blumenfeld, a reporter for The Washington Post, decided to find the man who tried to kill her dad; she also wanted to learn about vengeance. “I was looking for the shooter, but I also was looking for some kind of wisdom,” she writes. “I wanted to master revenge.”
**NINE PARTS OF DESIRE: THE HIDDEN WORLD OF ISLAMIC WOMEN by Geraldine Brooks.
An intimate portrait of the lives of modern Muslim women reveals how male pride and power have distorted the message of Islam to justify the subjugation of women and how a feminism of sorts has flowered in spite of repression.
**ZOYA’S STORY: AN AFGAN WOMAN'S STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM, by John Follain and Rita Cristofari
Zoya grew up during the wars that ravaged Afghanistan and lost both her parents in a bombing raid on Kabul. Zoya's story is of a young woman fighting a clandestine war of resistance against the Taliban at the risk of her own life.
**PRICE OF HONOR: MUSLIM WOMEN LIFT THE VEIL OF SILENCE ON THE ISLAMIC WORLD by Jan Goodwin
A look at the treatment of Muslim women in the Islamic world describes the increasing repressive politics that govern their personal lives and how they are confined, isolated, and even killed to protect "male honor".
**NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER by Betty Mahmoody
The American wife of an Iranian describes her ordeal in Tehran as a virtual prisoner of her fanatical husband and his family and her perilous escape with her daughter to freedom.
**DREAMS OF TRESPASS: TALES OF A HAREM GIRLHOOD by Fatima Mernissi
Relates the story of a woman born in a harem in Morocco, growing up with wise, funny, individualistic women, and creating a fantasy world from sheer imagination because the outside world was inaccessible.
United States and Canada
**I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS by Maya Angelou.
A black woman recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums.
**WARRIORS DON’T CRY by Melba Patillo Beales.
In 1957 Melba Pattillo turned sixteen. That was also the year she became a warrior on the front lines of a civil rights firestorm. Following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board Education, she was one of nine teenagers chosen to integrate Little Rock's Central High School. This is her remarkable story.
**WHEN THE LEGENDS DIE by Hal Borland.
A young Ute grows up in Colorado from 1910 to 1920, and when he becomes civilized, his actions reflect his conflicts.
**MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND by Claude Brown.
With candor and passion Claude Brown records life in the Harlem ghetto as he experienced it.
THE RICE ROOM: GROWING UP CHINESE AMERICAN --FROM NUMBER TWO SON TO ROCK 'N ROLL by Ben Fong-Torres.
A leading entertainment journalist offers a poignant portrait of growing up Asian American, detailing his journey from alienation and the traditional world of his parents to assimilation and acceptance in the world of journalism.
**THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN by Ernest Gaines.
Miss Jane Pittman is 110 when she recalls her childhood and the arrival of both Union and Confederate troops on the plantation where she lived.
**A LESSON BEFORE DYING by Ernest Gaines.
A young illiterate African American man witnesses two black robbers kill a white store owner in Louisana in the late 1940s, and he is the one convicted.
**ALL SOULS: A FAMILY STORY FROM SOUTHIE by Michael Patrick MacDonald.
The author recounts growing up in a poor Irish neighborhood, and remembers the four brothers he lost to violence.
**THE COLOR OF WATER by James McBride.
A young African American man describes growing up as one of twelve children of a white mother and black father, and discusses his mother's contributions to his life and his confusion over his own identity.
NILDA by Nicholasa Mohr.
A young girl growing up in Spanish Harlem in the 1940's watches the secure world of her childhood years slowly erode away.
**IN THE HEART OF THE SEA:THE TRAGEDY OF THE WHALESHIP ESSEX by Nathaniel Philbrick.
Recounts the story of the 1820 wreck of the whaleship Essex, which inspired Melville's classic "Moby-Dick," and describes its doomed crew's ninety-day attempt to survive whale attacks and the elements on three tiny lifeboats.
**A HOPE IN THE UNSEEN: AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY FROM THE INNER CITY TO THE IVY LEAGUE by Ron Suskind.
Follows a determined African American teenager from a violent school in Washington, D.C., to the bewildering world of the Ivy League.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X.
The Black leader discusses his political philosophy and reveals details of his life, shedding light on the ideas that enabled him to gain the allegiance of a still growing percentage of the Black population.