WORLD LIT Book List – SVHS Media Center
NONFICTION
Youth in the Middle East : voices of despair
(EGYPT/ISRAEL/LEBENON/PALESTINIAN)
David J. Abodaher
Conversations with young people in the Middle East depict the
political strife there and how it has affected their lives.
Slumgirl dreaming : Rubina's journey to the stars
(INDIAN)
Rubina Ali
Nine-year-old Rubina Ali recounts her childhood in the slums of
Mumbai and her rise to stardom after being chosen to act in the
Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire."
Along the tracks (POLISH)
Tamar Bergman
Recounts the adventures of a young Jewish boy who is driven
from his home by the German invasion, becomes a refugee in
the Soviet Union, is separated from his family, and undergoes
many hardships before enjoying a normal home again
I have lived a thousand years : growing up in the
Holocaust (HUNGARIAN)
Livia E. Bitton-Jackson
A memoir of Elli Friedmann in which she tells about her
experiences at Auschwitz concentration camp where she was
taken at the age of thirteen in 1944 when the Nazis invaded her
native Hungary.
Valkyrie (FRENCH/GERMAN)
Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager
The author, a German military officer working for the German
resistance, recounts his role in the secret plot, code-named
Valkyrie, focused on assassinating Adolph Hitler during World
War II.
The adversary : a true story of monstrous deception
(FRENCH)
Emmanuel Carrère
Tells the story of Jean-Claude Romand, who killed his wife,
children, and parents in 1993 and was found to have lived a life
of lies--having lied about being a doctor and a part of the
international humanitarian community, and having spent his in-
laws' savings, which they had entrusted to him.
Paper shadows : memoir of a past lost and found
(CHINESE-CANADIAN)
Wayson Choy
A memoir in which the author recalls his childhood in light of the
knowledge, gained at the age of fifty-seven, that he was adopted
and that his biological mother was still alive
Zlata's diary : a child's life in Sarajevo (BOSNIAN)
Zlata Filipović
The diary of a thirteen-year-old girl living in Sarajevo, begun just
before her eleventh birthday when there was still peace in her
homeland.
The Ra expeditions (NORWEIGAN/EGYPTIAN)
Heyerdahl, Thor
The author recounts the planning for his voyage across the
Atlantic Ocean in an Egyptian reed boat and describes the
voyage made by himself and his crew.
Three Cups of Tea (PAKINSTAN)
Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin ; adapted for young
readers by Sarah Thomson.
Adapts for young readers Greg Mortenson's book in which he
recounts the experiences he had while trying to help
impoverished villages in Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya build
schools for their children.
Seven years in Tibet (CHINESE-TIBETAN-AUSTRIAN)
Harrer, Heinrich
An account of an Austrian mountain climber's escape from a
British internment camp in India during World War II and his
twenty-one-month journey through the Himalayas to safety in the
Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet.
Red scarf girl : a memoir of the Cultural Revolution
(CHINESE)
Ji-li Jiang
Gives a child's-eye view of a terrifying time in 20th century
history, and of one family's indomitable courage under fire.
The woman warrior : memoirs of a girlhood among
ghosts (CHINESE-AMERICAN)
Maxine Hong Kingston
A memoir of the American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants
who lived within the traditions and fears of the Chinese past as
well as the realities of the alien modern American culture.
No pretty pictures : a child of war (POLISH)
Anita Lobel
The author, known as an illustrator of children's books,
describes her experiences as a Polish Jew during World War II
and for years in Sweden afterwards.
Chinese Cinderella : the true story of an unwanted
daughter (CHINESE)
Adeline Yen Mah.
The author tells the story of her painful childhood in China where
she lived until the age of fourteen with her father, stepmother,
and siblings, all of whom considered her bad luck because her
mother died shortly after giving birth to her.
Angela's ashes : a memoir (IRISH)
Frank McCourt
The author chronicles his impoverished childhood in Limerick,
Ireland, in the 1930s and 1940s, describing his father's
alcoholism and talent for storytelling; the challenges and
tragedies his mother faced, including the loss of three children;
and his early experiences in the Catholic church, and balances
painful memories with humor
I, Rigoberta Menchú : an Indian woman in Guatemala
(GUATEMALAN)
Rigoberta Menchu
Recounts the life of Rigoberta Menchú, a young Guatemalan
peasant woman who turned to catechist work as an expression
of political revolt and religious commitment after her brother
and parents were murdered by the Guatemalan military; and
sheds light on everyday life in Latin America's Indian
communities
A Cambodian odyssey (CAMBODIAN)
Haing Ngor with Roger Warner
Haing Ngor's memoir of life under the communist Khmer Rouge
regime in Cambodia
Beyond good and evil : prelude to a philosophy of the
future (GERMAN)
Friedrich Nietzsche
Presents an English translation of the 1885-86 work in which
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche considers how cultures
lose their creative drive and become decadent
The island of the colorblind and Cycad Island (BRITISH)
Oliver Sacks
The author, a neurologist, tells of his journey to Pingelap where
he went to observe a community of islanders born with
hereditary total colorblindness, and a subsequent visit to Guam
where he went to investigate a fatal neurodegenerative disorder
that has been plaguing people for over a century
The cage (POLISH)
Ruth Minsky Sender
A teenage girl recounts the suffering and persecution of her
family under the Nazis--in a Polish ghetto, during deportation,
and in a concentration camp.
Cancer ward (RUSSIAN)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
An account of a group of people who pass through the cancer
wing of a provincial Soviet hospital in 1955.
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 : an experiment in
literary investigation (RUSSIAN)
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Shozhenitsyn recounts four decades of oppression in
the Soviet Union, describing how the government tried to control
every aspect of Russian society.
Spandau : the secret diaries (GERMAN)
Albert Speer
He served as Hitler's architect, the undisputed master of the
German war machine, and the one responsible for conscripted
foreign labor in the Third Reich. And, when Albert Speer was
captured and sentenced at Nuremberg--after becoming the only
defendant to plead guilty--he started keeping this secret diary,
much of it on toilet paper. After 20 years of imprisonment, he
found 25,000 of the smuggled pages waiting for him, and from
those entries he shaped this deeply powerful document
Chrysalis : Maria Sibylla Merian and the secrets of
metamorphosis (DUTCH/BRITISH)
Kim Todd
Chronicles the life and work of seventeenth-century Dutch artist
and naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian. Describes her voyage to
South America to document caterpillars, butterflies, moths, and
plant life. Places her work on metamorphosis in the context of
her era, and lauds her as a pioneer in biology.
Wandering girl (AUSTRALIAN)
Glenyse Ward
An autobiographical account of an Australian aborigine, brought
up in an orphanage and sent to work in a rich white family's
house where she is treated virtually like a slave
FICTION
Mrs. Chippy's last expedition : the remarkable journal
of Shackleton's polar-bound cat (BRITISH)
Caroline Alexander
A fictional account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's treacherous
voyage to Antarctica--in which he and his crew became trapped
in ice--told by Mrs. Chippy, a cat on the ship.
The house of the spirits (PERUVIAN)
Isabel Allende
The epic story of the passionate Trueba family begins at the turn
of the century in South America.
Kit's wilderness (BRITISH)
David Almond
Thirteen-year-old Kit goes to live with his grandfather in the
decaying coal mining town of Stoneygate, England, and finds
both the old man and the town haunted by ghosts of the past.
How the García girls lost their accents (DOMINICAN)
Julia Alvarez
The story of the Garcia families adjustment to life in the United
States
Before we were free (DOMINICAN)
Julia Alvarez
In the early 1960s in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old
Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground
movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo.
The thief of always (BRITISH)
Clive Barker
After a mysterious stranger promises to end his boredom with a
trip to the magical Holiday House, ten-year-old Harvey learns
that his fun has a high price
Fat boy saves world (AUSTRALIAN)
Ian Bone
When her older brother Neat, who hasn't spoken in eight years,
turns to her one day and says "I want to save the world," sixteen
year-old Susan Bennett and a young street actor named Todd try
to help him do it
Lucas (BRITISH)
Kevin Brooks
On an isolated English island, fifteen-year-old Caitlin McCann
makes the painful journey from adolescence to adulthood
through her experiences with a mysterious boy, whose presence
has an unsettling effect on the island's inhabitants.
The first man (FRENCH-ALGERIAN)
Albert Camus
Autobiographical novel translated from the author's final,
unfinished manuscript, tells the story of Jacques Cormery, an
Algerian boy whose poverty-stricken, fatherless life is offset by
the beauty of his country and his loving relationship with his
deaf-mute mother.
The plague (FRENCH-ALGERIAN)
Albert Camus
A coastal city in Algeria is struck by bubonic plague and is shut
off from the world for months.
The stranger (FRENCH-ALGERIAN)
Albert Camus
Caught in the grip of forces he does not understand, a quiet,
ordinary clerk in Algiers commits a murder.
The pilgrimage : a contemporary quest for ancient
wisdom (BRAZILIAN)
Paulo Coelho
The author describes his journey across Spain along the road to
Santiago on a quest for ancient wisdom
The alchemist (BRAZILIAN)
Paulo Coelho
Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, sets out from his home in
Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of buried treasure, but
through his encounters with a Gypsy woman, a man who calls
himself a king, and an Alchemist, he learns the value of the
treasures found within himself.
Hunger : a novella and stories (CHINESE)
Lan Samantha Chang
Contains a novella and five short stories by contemporary
American author Lan Samantha Chang in which she explores the
lives of immigrant families haunted by loves lost to the forces of
history
She's so money (THAI-AMERICAN)
Cherry Cheva
Maya, a high school senior bound for Stanford University, goes
against her better judgement when she and a popular but
somewhat disreputable boy start a profitable school-wide
cheating ring in order to save her family's Thai restaurant, which
she fears will be shut down due to her irresponsible actions
Donald Duk (CHINESE)
Frank Chin
On the eve of the Chinese New Year in San Francisco's
Chinatown, twelve-year-old Donald Duk attempts to deal with his
comical name and his feelings for his cultural heritage.
Year of impossible goodbyes (KOREAN)
Sook Nyul Choi
A young Korean girl survives the oppressive Japanese and
Russian occupation of North Korea during the 1940s, to later
escape to freedom in South Korea.
Daniel half human and the good Nazi (GERMAN)
David Chotjewitz
In 1933, best friends Daniel and Armin admire Hitler, but as anti-
Semitism buoys Hitler to power, Daniel learns he is half Jewish,
threatening the friendship even as life in their beloved Hamburg,
Germany, is becoming nightmarish. Also details Daniel and
Armin's reunion in 1945 in interspersed chapters.
The moonstone (BRITISH)
Wilkie Collins
English police Sergeant Cuff tries to locate a fabulous diamond
that might have been stolen by a group of Hindus who regard it
as a sacred stone.
Many Stones (SOUTH AFRICAN)
Carolyn Coman
After her sister Laura is murdered in South Africa, Berry and her
estranged father travel there to participate in the dedication of a
memorial in her name.
Tightrope (BRITISH)
Gillian Cross
When she begins receiving bizarre threatening messages from
someone who seems to know her every move, teenage Ashley,
after seeking help from the neighborhood tough guy, comes to
realize that she alone can end the stalker's reign of terror
Breath, eyes, memory (HAITIAN)
Edwidge Danticat.
Sophie Caco, a child who was born of rape, leaves Haiti at the
age of twelve to join her mother in New York City, where they
both battle with the results of sexual abuse.
The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao (DOMINICAN-
AMERICAN)
Junot Díaz
Overweight and nerdy Oscar lives with his Dominican American
mother and sister in New Jersey and dreams of becoming a
renowned author and finding true love, but unfortunately, a
family curse stands in the way of his wishes.
The brothers Karamazov (RUSSIAN)
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The story of the lives of three sons of an old drunkard are used
to depict Russian character and investigate the concepts of
good, evil, and faith
Tell me what you see (CROATIAN-GERMAN)
Zoran Drvenkar
Sixteen-year-old Alissa and her friend Evelin get lost in the
cemetery while searching for Alissa's dad's grave when Alissa
suddenly stumbles into a subterranean crypt that holds a child's
casket and evil powers.
The neverending story (GERMAN)
Michael Ende
Shy, awkward Bastian is amazed to discover that he has become
a character in the mysterious book he is reading and that he has
an important mission to fulfill.
Like water for chocolate : a novel in monthly
installments, with recipes, romances, and home
remedies (MEXICAN)
Laura Esquivel
A romantic and poignant tale of love and family life in turn-of-the-
century Mexico
It's not about the accent (CUBAN-AMERICAN)
Ferrer, Caridad
Caroline Darcy decides to start college as a new person and
takes her inspiration from her vibrant Cuban great-
grandmother, becoming a half-Cuban aspiring actress, but once
she arrives at school, Caroline realizes she cannot shed her past
so easily.
The hound of the Baskervilles (BRITISH-SCOTTISH)
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes is asked to investigate the tale of a hound that
haunts the lonely moors around the Baskervilles' ancestral
home.
Madame Bovary (FRENCH)
Gustave Flaubert
A nineteenth-century French woman pursues her romantic
dreams through a series of lovers.
The keeper of dreams (AUSTRALIAN)
Peter Shann Ford
When a sacred stone that contains codes and carvings of an
Aboriginal group's most powerful creation stories is stolen, the
group's elders know that unless the stone is recovered and the
thieves punished, every member of their tribe will die.
A passage to India (BRITISH)
E.M. Forster
Story about the clash between Eastern and Western cultures
during British rule in India
The Thief Lord (GERMAN)
Cornelia Funke
Orphaned brothers Prosper and Bo, having run away from their
cruel aunt and uncle, decide to hide out in Venice where they fall
in with the Thief Lord, a thirteen-year-old boy who leads a crime
ring of street children
Inkheart (GERMAN)
Cornelia Funke
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father Mo, a bookbinder,
can "read" fictional characters to life when an evil ruler named
Capricorn, freed from the novel "Inkheart" years earlier, tries to
force Mo to release an immortal monster from the story
Inventing Elliot (BRITISH)
Graham Gardner
Elliot, a victim of bullying, invents a calmer, cooler self when he
changes schools in the middle of freshman year, but soon
attracts the wrong kind of attention from the Guardians who
"maintain order" at the new school.
The tower room (ISRALI-BRITISH)
Adele Geras
In a modern version of the Rapunzel fairy tale, Megan, who lives
at a secluded girl's school where her foster mother is
headmistress, falls in love for the first time with the young man
her foster mother has chosen for herself.
Habibi (PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN)
Naomi Shihab Nye
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.
Sarah : a novel (FRENCH)
Marek Halter
Presents a novel based on the life of the Old Testament
character Sarah, the daughter of a powerful lord who employs
drastic measures in an attempt to avoid an arranged marriage
and whose actions lead her to give up her exalted life to join
Abram, a member of a nomadic tribe and follower of the one true
God
Kiss me kill me (BRITISH)
Lauren Henderson
Longing to be part of the in-crowd at her exclusive London
school, orphaned, sixteen-year-old Scarlett, a trained gymnast,
eagerly accepts an invitation to a party whose disastrous
outcome changes her life forever.
Alone at ninety foot (CANADIAN)
Katherine Holubitsky
Fourteen-year-old Pamela Collins struggles to come to terms
with her mother's death.
Mates, dates, and mad mistakes (BRITISH)
Cathy Hopkins
British teen Izzy tries to spread her wings but soon finds herself
thwarted by her mother, shunned by her friends, and confused
and a bit frightened by her older, somewhat wild boyfriend, Josh
The Devil and his boy (BRITISH)
Anthony Horowitz.
In 1593, thirteen-year-old Tom travels through the English
countryside to London, where he falls in with a troupe of actors
and finds himself in great danger from several sources.
Sun signs (CANADIAN)
Shelley Hrdlitschka
While battling cancer, fifteen-year-old Kaleigh Wyse tries to
complete her classes online and enlists other online learners for
a science project on astrology. The project falls apart when
Kaleigh discovers that her online friends are hiding vital
information about their identities.
Les misérables (FRENCH)
Victor Hugo
Traces the life of Jean Valjean, a peasant who steals a loaf of
bread to feed his starving children and thereby becomes a
convict
Black Rain (JAPANESE)
Masuji Ibuse
On the atomic bombing in Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945
Evil genius (AUSTRALIAN)
Catherine Jinks
Child prodigy Cadel Piggot, an antisocial computer hacker,
discovers his true identity when he enrolls as a first-year student
at an advanced crime academy
Kira-kira (JAPANESE-AMERICAN)
Cynthia Kadohata
Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-
American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late
1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister
becomes terminally ill.
Kim (INDIAN-ENGLISH)
Rudyard Kipling
Kim, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, grows up in British
India and becomes involved in the British Secret Service
China boy : a novel (CHINESE)
Gus Lee
Kai Ting, a young Chinese-American boy adjusting to life in San
Francisco after the death of his mother, must face cultural
differences in his own family when his father takes a new
American wife
Crazy (GERMAN)
Benjamin Lebert
An English translation of the German novel about Benjamin
Lebert, a sixteen-year-old with a disability who has been sent to
a remedial boarding school where he embarks on a discovery of
life, friends, love, booze, girls, and sex.
24 hours (NEW ZEALAND)
Margaret Mahy
During his first twenty-four hours after finishing high school,
seventeen-year-old Ellis unexpectedly becomes part of an inner-
city world far different from his comfortable life, which helps
deal with his best friend's recent suicide.
The tricksters (NEW ZEALAND)
Margaret Mahy
While gathered together for the Christmas holiday, a large New
Zealand family and their various guests and hangers-on find
their lives suddenly invaded by three fascinating but rather
sinister brothers
Dreams of my Russian summers (FRENCH)
Andreï Makine
Translation of a French novel which tells the story of a boy
growing up in the Soviet Union of th 1960s and 1970s, who
spends his summers listening to his beloved grandmother as she
recalls the Paris and Russia of an earlier era
Life of Pi (SPANISH-CANADIAN)
Yann Martel
Pi Patel, having spent an idyllic childhood in Pondicherry, India,
as the son of a zookeeper, sets off with his family at the age of
sixteen to start anew in Canada, but his life takes a marvelous
turn when their ship sinks in the Pacific, leaving him adrift on a
raft with a 450-pound Bengal tiger for company
Chronicle of a death foretold (COLOMBIAN)
Gabriel García Márquez
Studies a murder which takes place shortly after a wedding and
explores the mass community complicity that allowed it to
happen.
One hundred years of solitude (COLOMBIAN)
Gabriel García Márquez
The rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of
Macondo through the history of the Buendia family
Letters from the inside (AUSTRALIAN)
John Marsden
The relationship between two teenage girls who become
acquainted through letters intensifies as their correspondence
reveals some of the terrible problems of their lives
Burning for revenge (AUSTRALIAN)
John Marsden
Having been separated from the New Zealand rescue troops
they were guiding, five Australian teenagers continue their
resistance against the unknown enemy invading their homeland.
Darkness, be my friend (AUSTRALIAN)
John Marsden
As survivors of an enemy invasion of their homeland, Ellie and
her friends return to Australia as guides for soldiers from New
Zealand who plan an attack on the Wirrawee airfield
The dead of night (AUSTRALIAN)
John Marsden
Six determined Australian teenagers try to find their missing
friends while continuing to resist the enemies who have invaded
their country.
The razor's edge (BRITISH-IRISH-FRENCH)
W. Somerset Maugham
A young American man named Larry Darrell traverses Europe,
China, Burma, and India in search of meaning after experiencing
the horrors of the First World War.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (BRITISH-
BOTSWANA)
Alexander McCall Smith
The cunning and engaging Precious Ramotswe sets up shop in a
small storefront in Gaborone, hoping to become a private
detective, and she soon has more business than she expected,
including a disturbing case involving a missing child.
Tears of the giraffe (BRITISH-BOTSWANA)
Alexander McCall Smith
Precious Ramotswe, owner and operator of the No. 1 Ladies'
Detective Agency in contemporary Botswana, accepts a job
searching for a missing American man, while also dealing with
her impending marriage, and her fiance's resentful maid.
Everything in this country must : a novella and two
stories (IRISH)
Colum McCann
Three stories discuss the emotional upheaval of the troubles in
Northern Ireland, exploring a teenage girl's gratitude toward
British soldiers, a young man's hunger strike, and a small boy's
participation in a Protestant political march.
3 days off (FRENCH)
Susie Morgenstern
During a three-day suspension for insulting a teacher, an
apathetic French high school student meets diverse people who
give him new insights into education and life.
Shizuko's daughter (JAPANESE-AMERICAN)
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.
Feeling sorry for Celia (AUSTRALIAN)
Jaclyn Moriarty
An epistolary novel about a teenager named Elizabeth, made up
of notes and letters from her best friend, a runaway named
Celia; Christina, the new pen pal Elizabeth reluctantly takes on
for a school assignment; her busy mother; and Elizabeth's own
angst-ridden mind.
The year of secret assignments (AUSTRALIAN)
Jaclyn Moriarty
Three female students from Ashbury High write to three male
students from rival Brookfield High as part of a pen pal program,
leading to romance, humiliation, revenge plots, and war
between the schools.
The murder of Bindy MacKenzie (AUSTRALIAN)
Jaclyn Moriarty
Class brain Bindy Mackenzie has alienated her entire high
school but when she realizes someone is trying to kill her, she
has to make friends in order to get help
The other side of truth (SOUTH AFRICAN-NIGERIAN)
Beverley Naidoo
Smuggled out of Nigeria after their mother's murder, Sade and
her younger brother are abandoned in London when their uncle
fails to meet them at the airport and they are fearful of their new
surroundings and of what may have happened to their journalist
father back in Nigeria.
Ties that bind, ties that break : a novel (CHINESE)
Lensey Namioka
Ailin's life takes a different turn when she defies the traditions of
upper class Chinese society by refusing to have her feet bound
No-no boy (JAPANESE)
John Okada
After World War II Ichiro returns home to Seattle after four
years--two spent in a Japanese internment camp, and two in
prison for refusing to fight in the U.S. Army, and finds himself
rejected by still-frightened whites, as well as his own people.
Cuba 15 : a novel (CUBAN)
Nancy Osa
Violet Paz, a Chicago high school student, reluctantly prepares
for her upcoming "quince," a Spanish nickname for the
celebration of an Hispanic girl's fifteenth birthday.
The not-so-star-spangled life of Sunita Sen : a novel
(INDIAN)
Mitali Perkins
When her grandparents come for a visit from India to California,
thirteen-year-old Sunita finds herself resenting her Indian
heritage and embarrassed by the differences she feels between
herself and her friends.
The roller birds of Rampur (INDIAN-BRITISH)
Indi Rana
An Indian teenager raised in England returns to India to find her
identity
All quiet on the Western front (GERMAN)
Erich Maria Remarque
Depicts the experiences of a group of young German soldiers
fighting and suffering during the last days of World War I.
Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging : confessions
of Georgia Nicolson (BRITISH)
Louise Rennison
Presents the humorous journal of a year in the life of a fourteen-
year-old British girl who tries to reduce the size of her nose, stop
her mad cat from terrorizing the neighborhood animals, and win
the love of handsome hunk Robbie
I was there (GERMAN)
Hans Peter Richter
A young German boy narrates his experiences in the Hitler youth
movement during the early years of the Third Reich.
Wide Sargasso Sea (WEST INDIES/BRITISH)
Jean Rhys
Story of a young woman in the Caribbean whose family's past
will be used against her by her cold-hearted and prideful
husband, Rochester
Esperanza rising (MEXICAN)
Pam Muñoz Ryan
Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth
and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of
Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh
circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the
Great Depression.
On the beach (AUSTRALIAN)
Nevil Shute
A novel about the survivors of an atomic war, who face an
inevitable end as radiation poisoning moves toward Australia
from the north
No tigers in Africa : a novel (BRITISH-SOUTH AFRICAN)
Norman Silver
Newly arrived in England from South Africa, a fifteen-year-old's
family deteriorates, as the effects of living under apartheid take
a toll on every aspect of the family members' lives.
Kidnapped (SCOTTISH)
Robert Louis Stevenson
After he is kidnapped by his villainous uncle, a sixteen-year-old
orphan escapes and becomes involved in the struggle of the
Scottish Highlanders against English rule
The Amulet of Samarkand (BRITISH)
Jonathan Stroud
Nathaniel, a young magician's apprentice, becomes caught in a
web of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion, after he
summons the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the
Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon
Loveland.
The hobbit, or, There and back again (BRITISH)
J.R.R. Tolkien
Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives
comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard
Gandalf chooses him to share in an adventure from which he
may never return
Anna Karenina (RUSSIAN)
Leo Tolstoy
In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important
government official loses her family and social status when she
chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.
Montmorency on the rocks : doctor, aristocrat,
murderer? (BRITISH)
Eleanor Updale
In Victorian London, when Montmorency and his alter ego,
Scarper, reunite with Dr. Farcett, the two cooperate to capture a
bomber and become involved in solving the mystery of the
poisoning of a village of Scottish children.
20,000 leagues under the sea (FRENCH)
Jules Verne
Retells the adventures of a French professor and his two
companions as they sail above and below the world's oceans as
prisoners on the fabulous electric submarine of the deranged
Captain Nemo
Around the world in eighty days (FRENCH)
Jules Verne
Englishman Phileas Fogg races around the world on a daring
wager in the seemingly impossible time of eighty days.
Homeless bird (INDIAN)
Gloria Whelan
Thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage
and must either suffer a destiny dictated by India's customs or
find the courage to oppose tradition.
My cup runneth over : the life of Angelica Cookson
Potts (SCOTTISH-BRITISH)
Cherry Whytock
Believing she is too big, fourteen-year-old Angel tries dieting
and kick-boxing to lose weight, but thanks to her friends and the
school fashion show, she discovers that her size is just right.
Includes recipes
Dawn (FRENCH)
Elie Wiesel
An eighteen-year-old terrorist spends a night waiting to kill an
English officer in Palestine as a reprisal for Britain's execution of
a Jewish prisoner.
To the lighthouse (BRITISH)
Virginia Woolf
Describes a family gathered at a house on the Scottish coast,
where in later years only caretakers live. Then, the house is
again filled with surviving family members
(Graphic Novel) American born Chinese (CHINESE)
Gene Luen Yang ; color by Lark Pien.
A graphic novel which examines issues of self-image, cultural
identity, transformation, and self acceptance as Jin Wang moves
with his family from Chinatown to an upper class suburb in San
Francisco.
Lady of Ch'iao Kuo : warrior of the South (CHINESE-
AMERICAN)
Laurence Yep
In 531 A.D., a fifteen-year-old princess of the Hsien tribe in
southern China keeps a diary which describes her role as liaison
between her own people and the local Chinese colonists, in
times of both peace and war.
Dragon’s Gate (CHINESE-AMERICAN)
Laurence Yep
When he accidentally kills a Manchu, a fifteen-year-old Chinese
boy is sent to America to join his father, an uncle, and other
Chinese working to build a tunnel for the transcontinental
railroad through the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1867.
Dragonwings (CHINESE-AMERICAN)
Laurence Yep
In the early twentieth century a young Chinese boy joins his
father in San Francisco and helps him realize his dream of
making a flying machine.
I am the messenger (AUSTRALIAN)
Markus Zusak
After capturing a bank robber, nineteen-year-old cab driver Ed
Kennedy begins receiving mysterious messages that direct him
to addresses where people need help, and he begins getting
over his lifelong feeling of worthlessness.
The book thief (AUSTRALIAN)
Markus Zusak
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death
relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-
stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the
Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.