Purple Hibiscus

Purple Hibiscus
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
ISBN 0007189885

In the city of Enugu, Nigeria, fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother, Jaja, lead a privileged life. Their Papa is a wealthy and respected businessman; they live in a beautiful house; and they attend an exclusive missionary school. But, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, their home life is anything but harmonious. Her father, a fanatically religious man, has impossible expectations of his children and wife, and severely punishes them if they're less than perfect. Home is silent and suffocating.

When Kambili's loving and outspoken Aunty Ifeoma persuades her brother that the children should visit her in Nsukka, Kambili and Jaja take their first trip away from home. Once inside their Aunty Ifeoma's flat, they discover a whole new world. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins' laughter rings throughout the house. Jaja learns to garden and work with his hands, and Kambili secretly falls in love with a young charismatic priest.

When a military coup threatens to destroy the country and Kambili and Jaja return home changed by their newfound freedom, tension within the family escalates. And Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together after her mother commits a desperate act.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
Heidi W. Durrow
ISBN 1565126807

This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white. In the tradition of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, here is a portrait of a young girl - and society's ideas of race, class, and beauty.

Girl in Translation

Girl in Translation
Jean Kwok
ISBN 1101187484

Kimberly Chang is a brilliant, dirt-poor sixth grader, just off the boat from Hong Kong but determined to make it in America. She and her mother
arrive planning to live with family on Staten Island, but they're forced into a roach-infested tenement in one of the worst neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Kimberly spends her days trying to fit in at school, where she can barely communicate in English but commands perfect scores in math and science;
after school, she pulls second shift helping her mother at a Chinatown sweatshop. Drawing on her own experience in relocation, Kwok weaves a modern immigrant tale with a twist. Overcoming her many hardships, Kimberly learns to excel in both of her worlds. At the factory, she becomes the fastest skirt bagger and meets the love of her life; at school, she scales the heights of academic excellence and begins to move with the popular crowd. But as these two worlds progress on a collision course, Kimberly is forced to make a wrenching choice. Girl in Translation is a gripping, poignant story
of perseverance and success against all odds.

Sanshiro

Sanshiro
Natsume Sōseki
ISBN 1929280106

One of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving 'real world' of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki's lively humour and our awareness of Sanshiro's doomed innocence, the novel comes to life. Sanshiro is also penetrating social and cultural commentary.

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood
Benjamin Alire Saenz
ISBN 0938317814


The "Hollywood" where Sammy Santos and Juliana Ros live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and this friends-members of the 1969 high school graduating class-face a world of racism, dress codes, war in Vietnam and barrio violence. In the summer before his senior year begins, Sammy falls in love with Juliana, a girl whose tough veneer disguises a world of hurt. By summer's end, Juliana is dead. Sammy grieves, and in his grief, the memory of Juliana becomes his guide through this difficult year. Sammy is a smart kid, but he's angry. He's angry about Juliana's death, he's angry about the poverty his father and his sister must endure, he's angry at his high school and its thinly disguised gringo racism, and he's angry he might not be able to go to college.