Multicultural Literature- An Annotated Bibliography by M. Maguire

Fiction:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Set in a village in Nigeria, this novel portrays African tribal life and how yhe white man and Christianity affected the black man’s traditional existence.

Allende, Isabel. House of Spirits. Mixed reviews.

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, From 500 Great Books byWomen; review by Holly Smith: While visiting her relatives in the Dominican Republic, Yolanda reflects: “She and her sisters have led such turbulent lives - so many husbands, homes, jobs, wrong turns among them. But look at her cousins, women with households and authority in their voices. Let this turn out to be my home.” Yolanda left this home in the early 1960s when, for political reasons, her parents immigrated to the United States with their four young daughters. Her parents made sure Yolanda and her sisters went to prep school to meet the “right kind” of Americans and in time, when the political climate cooled down in the Dominican Republic, the girls were allowed to return to spend summers with their extended family. Now the daughters are grown. Carla is a child psychologist who believes that being dressed like her sisters when they were young weakened their identities. Sandi is obsessed with her weight, never quite satisfied with her life. Sofia, always a rebel, has just given birth to the first male child in two generations and named him after his grandfather. Yolanda, the primary narrator of the story, contemplates a move back to the Dominican Republic; perhaps there she can shed her uncomfortable identity as the family poet. With humor, grace, and insight, How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents looks back on the lives of the four Garcia sisters and their parents, blending family history and expectations with the realities of their adopted culture.

Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima: A Novel. TSQ Publications, 1972. 249 pp. Grades 10-12. Ultima, the local faith healer of the plains in Guadalupe, New Mexico, comes to live with seven-year-old Antonio Marez and his family. The subject of a witch hunt, Ultima’s residence with the Marez family greatly affects Antonio. Skillfully written, this work has received many awards, and is considered a classic of Chicano literature.

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain. A young black boy grows up in New York City.

Cannon, A. E. The Shadow Brothers. Delacorte Press, 1990. 179 pp. Grades 7-12. Henry Yazzie and Marcus Jenkins have been foster brothers since Henry was seven. When a Hopi boy comes to their high school, Henry is forced to deal with his own Navajo heritage.

Cao, Lan. Monkey Bridge. Editorial Review by Amazon.com. Hailed by critics and writers as powerful, important fiction, Monkey Bridge charts the unmapped territory of the Vietnamese American experience in the aftermath of war. Like navigating a monkey bridge—a bridge, built of spindly bamboo, used by peasants for centuries—thenarrative traverses perilously between worlds past and present, East and West, in telling two interlocking stories: one, the Vietnamese version of the classic immigrant experience in America, told by a young girl; and the second, a dark tale of betrayal, political intrigue, family secrets, and revenge—her mother’s tale. The haunting and beautiful terrain of Monkey Bridge is the “luminous motion,” as it is called in Vietnamese myth and legend, between generations, encompassing Vietnamese lore, history, and dreams of the past as well as of the future. “With incredible lightness, balance and elegance,” writes Isabel Allende, “[Lan Cao crosses] over an abyss of pain, loss, separation and exile, connecting on one level the opposite realities of Vietnam and North America, and on a deeper level the realities of the material world and the world of the spirits.”

Cortenay, Bryce. The Power of One. From the Publisher: In the Ballantine publicity department, we have an informal book club. It usually gets started is when one of us reads a book, loves it, and then passes it on to a friend in the department. Once one person has read a book and loves it, then we ALL have to read it too! THE POWER OFONE by Bryce Courtenay was one of those books. You may have seen the movie with Morgan Freeman, but I urge you to read the book because it was much better than the movie. It’s a coming-of-age story of a young boy in South Africa. He has such a hard time of things! He’s picked on as a young boy, then he befriends an older man who teaches him the wonders of life. The book is beautifully written, and the story is extremely compelling. If you liked Anna Quindlen’s OBJECT LESSONS or Edward Albee’s A DEATH IN THE FAMILY or John Irving’s A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY, you will love this book too.

Crew, Linda. Children of the River. Delacorte, 1989. 213 pp. Grades 7 up.
Seventeen-year-old Sundara has fled the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia and is struggling to gain the understanding of her aunt and uncle who hold on to their old culture while Sundara is drawn toward the American lifestyle which surrounds her in her new life in Oregon.

Fuentes, Carlos. The Years With Laura Dias. “A radiant family saga set in a century of Mexican history, by one of the world’s greatest writers. Carlos Fuentes’s hope-filled new novel sees the twentieth century through the eyes of Laura D’az, a woman who becomes as much a part of our history as of the Mexican history she observes and helps to create. Born in 1898, this extraordinary woman grows into a wife and mother, becomes the lover of great men, and, before her death in 1972, is celebrated as a politically committed artist. A complicated and alluring heroine, she lives a happy life despite the tragedies and losses she experiences, for she has borne witness to great changes in her country’s life, and shehas loved and understood with unflinching honesty. In his most important novel in decades, Carlos Fuentes has created a world filled with brilliantly colored scenes and heartbreaking dramas. The result is a novel of subtle, penetrating insight and immense power.” (Amazon.com)

Guy, Rosa. The Friends. Holt, 1973. 203 pp. Grades 7-12.
Having immigrated to Harlem from the West Indies with her family, Phyllisia is taught that she is “too good” for her neighborhood. When she befriends a poor “ragamuffin” girl, Edith, Phyllisia’s father is horrified.

Hurston, Zora Neale, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Of Hurston’s fiction, Their Were Watching God Eyes is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie’s life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world—a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists—but she doesn’t ignore the impact of black-white relations either: It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment. One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can “tell ‘em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat’s just de same as me ‘cause mah tongue is in mah friend’s mouf.” Hurston’s use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices.—Alix Wilber

Marques, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. “Probably García Márquez finest and most famous work. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.” (Amazon.com)

Morrison, Toni, The Bluest Eye. This is a challenging story of racism and child abuse in the life of a young black girl.

Namioka, Lensey. Ties That Bind, Ties That Break. Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancient tradition. But Ailin loves to run away from her governess and play games with her male cousins. Knowing she will never run again once her feet are bound, Ailin rebels and refuses to follow this torturous tradition. Asaresult, however, the family of her intended husband breaks their marriage agreement. And as she enters adolescence, Ailin finds that her family is no longer willing to support her. Chinese society leaves few options for a single woman of good family, but with a bold conviction and an indomitable spirit, Ailin is determined to forge her own destiny. Her story is a tribute to all those women whose courage created new options for the generations who came after them. (Amazon.com)

Okomoto, Jean Davies. Molly by Any Other Name. Scholastic, 1990. 257 pp. Grades 7-9. Molly, age seventeen, is an adopted child of Asian heritage. Her curiosity about this heritage leads her to have her court records opened, but she isn’t sure she wants to find the person who gave her up so long ago.

Pettepice, Thomas, and Anatoly Aleksin, eds. Face to Face. Putnam/Philomel, 1990. 233 pp. Grades 7-12.
The first collection of Soviet and American stories for young people, published simultaneously in both countries, Face to Face introduces readers in both countries to well known young adult authors and stories in the other.

Sanders, Dori. Clover. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1990. 196 pp. Grades 10-12. Clover is a ten-year-old black girl whose father dies just after marrying a white woman, Sara Kate. Black relatives want Clover to live with them, but Sara Kate has promised to take care of her. The portrayal of an interracial family’s adjustment to the death of a loved one gives this story its strength.

Santiago, Danny. Famous All over Town. A Mexican-American boy has a rough time on the Los Angeles streets, but is determined to make a better life for himself.

Schami, Rafik. A Hand Full of Stars. Translated from German by Rika Lesser. Dutton, 1990. 197 pp. Grades 7-12. The narrator, a fourteen-year-old Syrian boy in the mid-1960s, writes about his life in a diary. Encouraged by a warm, elderly mentor, the narrator begins to take his writing seriously, and eventually becomes an important part of the underground struggle for freedom.

Soto, Gary. Baseball in April and Other Stories. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1990. 111 pp. Grades 7 up. The author focuses on the everyday life of typical Hispanic youths in this collection of eleven short stories. Although culture-specific, the universal concerns and conflicts in these stories appeal to a broad teenage audience.

Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind. Knopf, 1988. 240 pp. Grades 7 up.
Having worked as a UPI correspondent in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, the author was inspired to write this story of a young nomadic girl’s betrothal and life in the Cholistan desert.

Wright, Richard, Native Son. Set in WWII-era Chicago, this powerful novel is about a young black man who inadvertently murders his employer’s daughter.

Nonfiction:

Ada, Alma Flor. Under the Royal Palms: A Childhood in Cuba. From Kirkus Reviews: Of books comprising nuggets of memory there seems to be no end, and in a companion volume to her Where the Flame Trees Bloom (1994, not reviewed), Ada recounts small stories of growing up in the town of in Camagey, Cuba. She captures with some feeling the powerful effect of scent on memory: night jasmine, coffee, ylang-ylang, and her grandmother’s perfume of lavender and sage. She immortalizes sibling hurts and uncles’ gifts, and writes of the childhood mystery of adult conversations partially overheard and partially understood. She is rich in family, attempting with her grandmother the impossible task of counting bats as they fly, and smashing her favorite doll when her dashing uncle dies in a plane crash. She is rich in memories of other adults, too: Madame Marie, a French-Jewish refugee; Gilda, a dance teacher, whose affection carried Ada through an impossible year at school. Some repetition does not detract, and children might be moved by Ada’s exhortation to consider their own family stories. (b&w photographs) (Memoir. 9-14) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1970. 280 pp. Grades 10-12. The first of several books that are considered Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings presents the first sixteen years of her life. Her story is both inspiring and heart-wrenching.

Ashabranner, Brent. To Live in Two Worlds: American Indian Youth Today. Dodd, Mead, 1984. 149 pp. Grades 7 up.
Speaking in their own words, a number of Native Americans present the contemporary problems, dilemmas and triumphs of a proud people.

Ashabranner, Brent, and Melissa Ashabranner. Into a Strange Land. Dodd, 1987. 120 pp. Grades 7 up.
Created for teenagers, this book focuses on true experiences of many Southeast Asian refugees who have come alone to America. The traumas of separation and adjustment to a new culture, language, and life are movingly described.

Atkinson, Linda. In Kindling Flame: The Story of Hannah Senesh 1921-1944. Lothrop, Lee and Shepherd Books, 1985. 214 pp. Grades 7 up.
The story of Hannah Senesh, a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl living in Hungary during World War II, is told through the diary that Hannah kept.

Criddle, Joan D., and Teeda Butt Mam. To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family. Little, Brown/Atlantic Monthly, 1987. 289 pp. Grades 10-12.
Teeda Butt Man’s story is a gripping narrative of a girl who spent her adolescence under the most horrifying of conditions after the Khmer Rouge victory in Cambodia. From the desire to commit suicide to the fierce determination that has been a part of her success in America today, this highly recommended work will give older teenagers personal insight into one of the great atrocities of this century.

Downie, Mary Alice, and Barabara Robertson, comps. The New Wind Has Wings: Poems from Canada. Previous edition entitled The Wind has Wings, 1968. Oxford University Press, 1984. 110 pp. Grades 7-up. This new edition of the Canadian Classic, The Wind Has Wings includes 19 more poems, and outstanding illustrations. Many of these poems have been translated from the original Yiddish, French, or Eskimo. They feature subjects that young readers will enjoy time and time again.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Review by Amazon.com: We rely, in this world, on the visual aspects of humanity as a means of learning who we are. This, Ralph Ellison argues convincingly, is a dangerous habit. A classic from the moment it first appeared in 1952, Invisible Man chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness. Searching for a context in which to know himself, he exists in a very peculiar state. “I am an invisible man,” he says in his prologue. “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.” But this is hard-won self-knowledge, earned over the course of many years. As the book gets started, the narrator is expelled from his Southern Negro college for inadvertently showing a white trustee the reality of black life in the south, including an incestuous farmer and a rural whorehouse. The college director chastises him: “Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of an education are you getting around here?” Mystified, the narrator moves north to New York City, where the truth, at least as he perceives it, is dealt another blow when he learns that his former headmaster’s recommendation letters are, in fact, letters of condemnation. What ensues is a search for what truth actually is, which proves to be supremely elusive. The narrator becomes a spokesman for a mixed-race band of social activists called “The Brotherhood” and believes he is fighting for equality. Once again, he realizes he’s been duped into believing what he thought was the truth, when in fact it is only another variation. Of the Brothers, he eventually discerns: “They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves.... Here I thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn’t see either color or men.” Invisible Man is certainly a book about race in America, and sadly enough, few of the problems it chronicles have disappeared even now. But Ellison’s first novel transcends such a narrow definition. It’s also a book about the human race stumbling down the path to identity, challenged and successful to varying degrees. None of us can ever be sure of the truth beyond ourselves, and possibly not even there. The world is a tricky place, and no one knows this better than the invisible man, who leaves us with these chilling, provocative words: “And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”—Melanie Rehak

Freedman, Russell. Indian Chiefs. Holiday House, 1987. 160 pp. Grades 7 up.
Including maps, photographs, and an index, this Newbery Award-winning book chronicles the stories of six Native American chiefs of the western tribe during the last half of the nineteenth century.

Fritz, Jean. China Homecoming. Putnam, 1985. 143 pp. Grades 7-9. Having grown up in China, the author returns after 55 years to rediscover the people, the land, and even the very house in which she lived as a child. The book includes a chronology of Chinese history, several pages of notes, and an intriguing and useful bibliography.

Hill, Errol, ed. Black Heroes: 7 Plays. Applause Theatre Book Publishers, 1989. 426 pp. Grades 10-12. Historical moments from the lives of seven men and women have provided the inspiration for the seven plays spanning the years 1935-1988. A short biography of the hero and the playwright introduces each play.

Mathabane, Mark. Kaffir Boy.Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.

McBride, James. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His Mother. The Color of Watertells the remarkable story of Ruth McBride Jordan, the two good men she married, and the 12 good children she raised. Jordan, born Rachel Shilsky, a Polish Jew, immigrated to America soon after birth; as an adult she moved to New York City, leaving her family and faith behind in Virginia. Jordan met and married a black man, making her isolation even more profound. The book is a success story, a testament to one woman’s true heart, solid values, and indomitable will. Ruth Jordan battled not only racism but also poverty to raise her children and, despite being sorely tested, never wavered. In telling her story—along with her son’s—The Color of Water addresses racial identity with compassion, insight, and realism. It is, in a word, inspiring, and you will finish it with unalloyed admiration for a flawed but remarkable individual. And, perhaps, a little more faith in us all.

Soto, Gary. Neighborhood Odes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Grades 7 up.
A collection of Soto’s poems, Neighborhood Odes depicts everyday events of the Los Angeles Hispanic neighborhood in which the author grew up.

Szymusiak, Molyda. The Stones Cry Out. This is an autobiographical account of a young Cambodian girl and her family during the oppression of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.

Wakatsukis, Jeanne. Farwell to Manzanar. During World War II a communitycalled Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese American internees. One of the first families to arrive was the Wakatsukis, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven-year-old child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted, observed and grew. For her father it was essentially the end of his life.