Selected Children’s Books

Raised to take the place of her dead brother, Carlota de Zubaran can do anything Carlos could have done. She races her stallion through the California lowlands, dives into shark-infest waters searching for gold, and fights in the battles that rage between the Mexicans and the Americans. At sixteen, she is fearless ---and that pleases her father very much. But while Carlota thoroughly enjoys freedoms most other women are denied, she wants to be more than her father’s “son.” She wants to be herself, brave and courageous but free to show tenderness and compassion as well. Her father thinks such feelings are weak and shameful, so Carlota must defy him. That will be the most difficult battle of all.

Okomoto, Jean Davies. Molly by Any Other Name. New York: Backinprint.com, 2000.  ISBN: 0595007961

A teenage Asian girl who has been adopted by non-Asian parents decides to find out who her biological parents are

Ortiz Cofer, Judith.  An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio.  New York: Puffin Books, 1996. 
ISBN: 014038068X

Twelve stories about young people caught between their Puerto Rican heritage and their American surroundings.

Ortiz Cofer, Judith.  The Meaning of Consuelo : A Novel.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. 
ISBN: 0374205094

In this fierce, funny, and sometimes startling novel, we follow a Puerto Rican girl’s quest to negotiate her own terms of survival within the confines of her culture. Coming of age in the 1950’s, when American influence threatens to dilute the island’s traditional Spanish customs, as well as to harm, perhaps irreparably, its fragile ecology, Consuelo watches her family being torn asunder --- much like the island itself. Her father believes the future lies in American technology, including the new autopista that will soon cut the island in two. But Consuelo has heard her abuelo say that once foreign noise drowns our the song of the coqui, the island’s emblematic tree from, the voices of puertorriquenos themselves will be silenced.
Meanwhile, Consuelo confronts her own transformation. For something is not right in this Puerto Rican family; a tradedia is developing like a tumor at its core. It is Consuelo who first notices her younger sister Mili’s vivaciousness turn into mysterious bouts of hysteria, her playful, invented language shift into an incomprehensible and chilling “language of birds.” Ultimately it is Consuelo who much choose: Will she fulfill the expectations of her family, offering consolation as their tragedy unfoulds? Or will she, like Maria Sereno, risk becoming la fulana, the outsider, in her journey toward a definition of herself as a Puerto Rican woman different from her mother and her grandmother?
This affecting novel is a lively celebration of Puerto Rico as well as an archetypal story of loss, the loss each of us experience on our journey from the island of childhood to the uncharted territory of adulthood.

Ortiz Cofer, Judith.  Call Me Maria.  New York : Orchard Books, 2004.  ISBN: 0439385776

Fifteen-year-old Maria leaves her mother and their Puerto Rican home to live in the barrio of New York with her father, feeling torn between the two cultures in which she has been raised.

Ortiz Cofer, Judith.  The Line of the Sun.  Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989. ISBN: 0820313351

Set in the 1950s and 60s, The Line of the Sun moves from a rural Puerto Rican village to a touch immigrant housing project in New Jersey, telling the story of a Hispanic family’s struggle to become part of a new culture without relinquishing the old. At the story’s center is Guzman, an almost mythic figure whose adventures and exile, salvation and return leave him a broken man but preserve his place in the heart and imagination of his niece, w ho is his secret biographer.

Oswald, Nancy. Nothing Here But Stones: A Jewish Pioneer Story. Henry Holt and Co., 2004. 
ISBN: 0805074651

A Russian Jewish family struggles to make a new start in America
To Emma, Colorado seems as barren as an unfinished house. The land is too poor to farm, so Papa must work long hours in the mines. The trials of frontier life are especially hard for these Russian Jewish immigrants, who speak no English and practice a different religion from the others in the area. With a harsh, hungry winter coming, the settlement needs some good luck. Can Emma make it happen?

A twelve-year-old Vietnamese boy relates his experiences as he tries to adjust to his new life in the United States with his mother and American marine stepfather.

Rael Okon, Elsa. and Kovalski, Maryann. Rivka’s First Thanksgiving. Simon & Schuster Children’s Pub, 2002. 
ISBN: 0689841051

Having heard about Thanksgiving in school, nine-year-old Rivka tries to convince her immigrant family and her Rabbi that it is a holiday for all Americans, Jews and non-Jews alike.

Rappaport, Doreen. Ill. McCully, Emily. The Secret Seder. Hyperion, 2005.  ISBN: 0786807776

Rathe, Gustave. The Wreck of the Barque Stefano Off the North West Cape.  Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992.
ISBN: 0-37438585-8

One of only ten crew members to make it to shore after a shipwreck, sixteen-year-old Miho Baccich struggles to survive, with the aid of an aboriginal tribe, on the desolate North West Cape of Australia.

Reaver, Chap. A Little Bit Dead. Delacorte Press. 1992. ISBN: 0-385-30801-9

In 1876, after interfering with the attempted lynching of a young Yahi Indian named Shanti, eighteen-year-old Reece finds his own life in danger and becomes intimately involved in the future of Shanti's people.

Reeve, Kirk.  Lolo and Red Legs.  Rising Moon Books, 1998. ISBN: 0873586840

When eleven-year-old Lolo captures a tarantula, it turns an ordinary summer into a series of adventures that take him and his friends beyond their Mexican-American neighborhood in East Los Angeles. A Mexican red-leg tarantula is the key to turning an ordinary summer into an extraordinary one for three eleven-year-old boys. Mexican American Lolo Garcia is excited about showing his giant tarantula at the Los Angeles County Fair, but he discovers that local teenagers have stolen his pet.

Rodriguez, Luis J.  It Doesn't Have to Be This Way: A Barrio Story. Children’s Book Press, 1999.
ISBN: 0892391618

Reluctantly a young boy becomes more and more involved in the activities of a local gang, until a tragic event involving his cousin forces him to make a choice about the course of his life.

Rosen, Sybil. Ill. Nielsen, Cliff. Speed of Light. NY: Simon & Schuster, Aladdin Paperbacks, 2001.
ISBN: 0689841515

An eleven-year-old Jewish girl living in the South during the 1950s struggles with the anti-Semitism and racism which pervade her small community.

Ryan, Pam Munoz. Esperanza Rising. Illus. Joe Cepeda. .Scholastic, 2001. ISBN: 0-439-12042-X                    

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.

Sachs, Marilyn. Lost in America. Roaring Brook Press, 2005. ISBN: 1596430400

Follows the experiences of Nicole, a teenaged French Jew, from 1943 to 1948, as she loses her parents and sister to the concentration camps and then leaves her native France to make a new life for herself in New York City.

Salisbury, Graham. Under the Blood-Red Sun. Dell Yearling, 1994. ISBN: 0-440-41139-4

Tomikazu Nakaji's biggest concerns are baseball, homework, and a local bully, until life with his Japanese family in Hawaii changes drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Sherman Bluestone, Eileen. Independence Avenue. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN: 0827603673

Elias, a fourteen-year-old Russian immigrant, arrives alone in Kansas City in 1907, finding new employment and friends but also receiving bad news about his family back in Russia.

Soto, Gary.  Local News.  San Diego: Scholastic, 1993.  ISBN: 0152481176

In thirteen stories packed with wit and energy, Gary Soto illuminates the ordinary lives of young people. Whether these kids are battling infestations of squirrels, dancing to romantic music on El Radio, trick-or-treating for one last time, or saving the world by becoming vegetarian, their problems are hilarious and real and as big as only a kid can make them. Funny, touching, and wholly original, Local News is Gary Soto in top form.

Soto, Gary.  Taking Sides.  San Diego: Harcourt Paperbacks, 2003. ISBN: 0152046941

Lincoln Mendoza is brown, not white. Nothing is going to change that. Sure, these days he lives in Sycamore, the mostly rich, mostly white suburbs, instead of the hard-knocks barrio where he grew up. But he’s still loyal to his friends back at Franklin Junior High, and he’s still loyal to his old basketball team ---even though now he shoots hoops for Columbus.
But loyalty is not so easy when Lincoln’s new team faces his old team on the boards. How can he play his best against his best friends? Yet how can he betray his new teammates by not giving the game everything he’s got?

Field work. Not many people think about it. It’s just something other people do for a living. It’s what Jesse and his brother, Abel, do to get through college. With an education they won’t ever have to rely on the fields again.

Soto, Gary. Pacific Crossing. Harcourt Brace, 1992.  ISBN: 0-15-217763-9

Lincoln Mendoza doesn’t know jack about Japan. They make good cars, right? And somewhere there are old samurai men sitting cross-legged before bowls of incense, their gis stained with the blood of their enemies.

Stein, Robert and Moreno, Barry. Jewish Americans (Coming to America.) Barron’s Educational Series, 2003. 
ISBN: 0764156268

They escaped from oppression and poverty in Russia, Poland, Germany, and many other parts of Europe, and settled mainly in America’s large cities. With Jewish immigration to American came their rich family and religious traditions, and their abiding respect for the arts and sciences, inspiring many among them to great achievement in these fields. Biographical sketches include Albert Einstein, the Guggenheim family, Isaac Stern, Saul Bellow, and others.