World Literature That High School Students Actually Want to Read- Share a Story, Shape a Future 2012

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