10th Lit Book List:
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
When Antonio Márez is almost seven years old, the old healer Ultima comes to stay with him and his family in their small house in Guadalupe
,
New Mexico
. The family has taken in Ultima out of a respect for her healing powers, her knowledge of plant lore, and her long use of folk magic in service of the community. Though they have great respect for Ultima’s spirituality, the family, especially Antonio’s mother, is devoutly Catholic. Antonio’s father, Gabriel, is a former vaquero, or cowboy, who wandered the llano, the great plains of New Mexico
. Antonio’s mother, María, is the daughter of farmers. Antonio’s parents now argue about their young son’s future; Gabriel hopes he will become a vaquero on the llano, and María hopes he will become a priest. When he was born, Ultima served as his midwife and buried his afterbirth. As a result, it is now thought that she alone knows what lies in Antonio’s future.
When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
Story begins in rural Puerto Rico
, where her warring parents and seven siblings led a life of uproar, but one full of love and tenderness as well. Growing up, Esmeralda learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs in the mango groves at night, the taste of the delectable sausage called morcilla, an the formula for ushering a dead baby’s soul to heaven. But, just when she seemed to have learned everything, she was taken to New York City
, where the rules- and the language- were bewilderingly different. How Esmeralda overcame adversity, won acceptance to New York City
’s High School
of
Performing Arts
, and then went to Harvard, where she graduated with highest honors, is a record of a tremendous journey by a truly remarkable woman. Fantastic book!
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Story of a young black girl raped by her father. Amazing Story!
The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
Amy Tan is as delightful to listen to as she is to read. She creates magic in this story of two sisters: Olivia, totally American and pragmatic, and Kwan, Chinese and mystical, who converses more easily with the dead than with the living. Tan's contrasting American and Chinese accents bring both personalities vividly to life and provide enchanting images of alternately conflicting and blending cultures. She needs no special effects to engage the listener's hundred secret senses.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India
to North America
aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman
Iris Greenfeder is a 36-year-old barely published New York
writer and teacher whose long-term boyfriend, an artist, sees her schedule as strict and therefore will not spend the night, because he likes to get up and paint first thing every morning. When one of Iris's stories about her mother is picked up by a small literary journal with a well-connected editor, things start to happen for her. She becomes convinced that a summer out of the city, working as manager of the old hotel, will give her the perfect setting in which to pen a memoir of her writer mother, as well as an opportunity to look for the rumored manuscript of her mother's final book. But there are those who are just as determined to keep the dead woman's secrets in the grave.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neil Hurston
Woman’s fight for identity. Amazing story!!
Cold Sassy Tree by Burns
Coming of age story for a boy and his grandpa
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou
Mentors and maturity. Excellent story!
The Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcom X
Story of a man’s enlightenment.
Dracula by Stoker
Vampires and ordinary people collide
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A battle against bigotry and hate in the South. Absolutely Amazing!
Black Like Me by Griffin
A white man has his skin pigmented black and travels the South experiencing racism in 1950s- a true story.
A Raisin in the Sun by Hansberry
Overcoming self-destructiveness and bigotry
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
(French: Le comte de Monte Cristo) is a classic adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered, along with The Three Musketeers, as Dumas' best work, and is frequently included on lists of the best novels of all time. The writing of the work was completed in 1844.
Dumas got the idea for The Count of Monte Cristo from a true story, which he found in a memoir written by a man named Jacques Peuchet. Peuchet related the story of a shoemaker named Pierre Picaud, who was living in Paris
in 1807. Picaud was engaged to marry a rich woman, but four jealous friends falsely accused him of being a spy for England
. He was imprisoned for seven years. During his imprisonment a dying fellow prisoner bequeathed him a treasure hidden in Milan
. When Picaud was released in 1814, he took possession of the treasure, returned under another name to Paris
and spent ten years plotting his successful revenge against his former friends.
Shabanu by Suzanne Fisher Staples
Life is both sweet and cruel to strong-willed young Shabanu, whose home is the windswept Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. The second daughter in a family with no sons, she’s been allowed freedoms forbidden to most Muslim girls. But when a tragic encounter with a wealthy and powerful landowner ruins the marriage plans of her older sister, Shabanu is called upon to sacrifice everything she’s dreamed of. Should she do what is necessary to uphold her family’s honor—or listen to the stirrings of her own heart?
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick
,
Ireland
. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story.
Perhaps it is a story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing shoes repaired with tires, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner, and searching the pubs for his father, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors -- yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.
Simon & Schuster
Other options:
Things Fall Apart by Achebe
The Native Son or Black Boy by Richard Wright
Ireland
by Frank Delany
Is nationalism important or should we even promote citizens to take pride in our country? 
The Department of Immigration and Naturalization Service believes strongly in the promotion of active, proud citizens upon formal entry into the USA. The INS has even gone so far as to "improve" the naturalization exam believing that this change will do more to accomplish the goal of teaching immigrants to be democratic "good citizens". One example of the change in the naturalization exam was to modify questions such as "what are the three branches of the United States Government?" to ask, "Why are there three branches in the United States Government?" The INS believes that by asking such questions as the example above, immigrants will have a better understanding of the country where they are not only seeking residence but also seeking to call "home". "I am a citizen of the United States of America." 
A truly powerful statement for many world wide. But what exactly does that statement entail? And, going back to my first question (modified a tad) "What exactly is a citizen of the United States of America?" -What is a "good citizen"?
