Asian Americans
Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
Scholastic Press, c2002
Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the Americans, as she sees her hypnotically beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of both her heritage and the boy she likes.
YA FICTION DES
China Boy by Gus Lee
Dutton, c1991
Born to Chinese parents in 1940's San Francisco, Kai Ting struggles to find his place in the world. He turns to boxing to save face and regains strength and devotion of his father.
FICTION LEE
Necessary Roughness by Marie G. Lee
HarperCollins, c1996
Sixteen-year-old Korean American Chan moves from Los Angeles to a small town in Minnesota, where he must cope not only with racism on the football team but also with the tensions in his relationship with his strict father.
YT FICTION LEE
A Step from Heaven by An Na
Front Street, c2001
Young Ju, a young Korean girl, and her family deal with the difficulty of learning English and the stresses of adjusting to their new lives in America.
YA FICTION NA
African Americans
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Plume Books, 1994
The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedloe, a black girl who prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, and so that her world will be different.
FICTION MOR
Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper
Aladdin Paperbacks, c1994
Star basketball player Andy Jackson deals with the death of his best friend through the eyes of his friends, family and others in his school and community.
YA FICTION DRA
Slam! by Walter Dean Myers
Scholastic Press, c1996
Seventeen-year-old "Slam" Harris is counting on his noteworthy basketball talents to get him out of the inner city and give him a chance to succeed in life, but his coach sees things differently.
YA FICTION MYE
The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
Delacorte Press, c1995
The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.
YT FICTION CUR
Hispanic Americans
Buried Onions by Gary Soto
Harcourt Brace, c1997
When nineteen-year-old Eddie drops out of college, he struggles to find a place for himself as a Mexican American living in a violence-infested neighborhood of Fresno, California.
YA FICTION SOT
The Flight to Freedom by Ana Veciana-Suarez
Orchard Books c2002
Writing in the diary which her father gave her, thirteen-year-old Yara describes life with her family in Havana, Cuba, in 1967 as well as her experiences in Miami, Florida, after immigrating there to be reunited with some relatives while leaving others behind.
YT FICTION VEC
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Vintage Books, 1991
This novel is a collection of remembrances of the childhood of a young Chicana growing up in Chicago.
FICTION CIS
Party Girl by Lynne Ewing
Alfred A. Knopf, c1998
The death of her best friend Ana in a drive-by shooting causes fifteen-year-old Kata to question her position in the Los Angeles gang life.
YT FICTION EWI
Middle Eastern Americans
The Enemy Has a Face by Gloria D. Miklowitz
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, c2003
Netta and her family have relocated temporarily from Israel to Los Angeles, and when her seventeen-year-old brother mysteriously disappears, she becomes convinced that he has been abducted by Palestinian terrorists.
YA FICTION MIK
Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye
Simon & Schuster 1997
When fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud, her younger brother, and her parents move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.
YT FICTION NYE
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
W. W. Norton, c1999
Kathy, a recovering alcoholic, separated from her husband, fails to open a series of letters from the tax office. The State seizes her house and it is sold to Behrani, a former Iranian Air Force officer. For him, the house comes to represent a passport to the American dream, but not for Kathy.
FICTION DUB
Native Americans
The Brave by Robert Lipsyte
HarperKeypoint, 1993
Having left the Indian reservation for the streets of New York, seventeen-year-old boxer Sonny Bear tries to harness his inner rage by training with Alfred Brooks, who has left the sport to become a policeman.
PB YA FICTION LIP
Rain Is Not My Indian Name by Cynthia Leitich Smith
HarperCollins, c2001
Tired of staying in seclusion since the death of her best friend, a fourteen-year-old Native American girl takes on a photographic assignment with her local newspaper to cover events at the Native American summer youth camp.
YT FICTION SMI
Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie
Grove Press, c2003
In this collection of short stories, Indians (mostly of the Spokane tribe in Washington state) deal with life in contemporary America. If they are prosperous or not, their culture influences actions, even when they least expect it.
FICTION ALE
Multiethnic Americans
America by E.R. Frank
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2002
America, a part-black, part-white, part-anything teenage boy who has spent many years in institutions for disturbed, antisocial behavior, tries to piece his life together.
YA FICTION FRA
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
Greenwillow Books, c2001
Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students.
YA FICTION CRU
