I teach World Literature and I love the responsibility of introducing my students to literature from across time and across the world. Along with the canon literature that I am required to cover, I try to bring in as much multicultural YA as I can, through booktalks, book trailers, displays, and read-alouds. Over the past year I have been compiling a list of books that have caught the attention of my students and I am excited to share them today. This is by no means a complete list, as I focus on the areas of the world that my curriculum centers on.
Multicultural YA for Discerning Teen Reader
- Africa
- Purple Hibiscus: A Novel by Chimamanda Adichi
- Akata Witch Nnedi Okorafor
- Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You by Hanna Jansen
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beal
- Many Stones by Carolyn Coman
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba
- Asia
- A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata
- Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
- Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo
- Karma by Cathy Ostlere
- Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman
- Sold by Patricia McCormick
- Europe
- Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
- Nothing by Janne Teller
- Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
- The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
- Middle East
- The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Words In The Dust by Trent Reedyhold
- Under the Persimmon Tree Suzanne Fisher Staples
- Where The Streets Had A Name by by Randa Abdel-Fattah
- 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye
- Central/South America
- The Queen of Water by Laura Resau
- The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle
- The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan
- The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba by Margarita Engle
- Keeper by Mal Peet
Filed under: Book Lists, share a story-shape a future | Tagged: multicultural YA, share a story, world literature, YA | 4 Comments »
