Akbar, Said Hyder.  Come Back to Afghanistan: a California Teenager’s Story.  2005.  339p.  (CA setting). More>

• On 9/11, Akbar, who was born in Peshawar in 1984 but grew up in the U.S., was living near Oakland, Calif., where his father ran a clothing store. After the attack, the elder Akbar, a descendant of an Afghan political family, returned to his country to take a job as President Hamid Karzai's chief spokesman and, later, as governor of Kunar, a rural province. The author visited his father for three successive summers, and the result is this account, a closeup view of the creation of the country's post-Taliban democratic government, told from a perspective that's impressively both insider and objective. Akbar reports on chats with cabinet ministers and warlords, and sketches the lay of the land, visiting both sumptuous Kabul palaces as well as bombed-out villages. His youth and curiosity send him on some dangerous adventures (he retraces a mountain route between Afghanistan and Pakistan used by fleeing members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban)… (from Publisher’s Weekly)

Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki and James D. Houston.  Farewell to Manzanar: a true story of Japanese American experience during and after the World War II internment.  1973.  188p.  (CA setting and authors). More>

• A Japanese-American woman looks back on life at an internment camp during World War II and tells of how the fear, confusion, and ultimate dignity of the people there shaped her life.

Kadohata, Cynthia.  Weedflower.  2006.  260p. Gr. 6 and up (CA setting). More>

• After twelve-year-old Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp on a Mojave Indian reservation in Arizona, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a local Indian boy, and tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop. (from lapl.org)

Lopez, Lorraine.  Call Me Henri.  2006.  242p.  (CA setting). More>

• Enrique, a young boy in Peralta Middle School, faces abuse at home and danger on the barrio streets. Yet he is driven to succeed by the desire to join that "other America" he sees on TV and in the movies, and is aided in his quest by compassionate teachers. His ambition finds expression in his determination to drop his ESL class in favor of taking French, and his story begins, "Call me Henri." (from Amazon.com)

Na, An.   A Step from Heaven.  2001.  156p. Gr. 6 and up (CA author). More>

• Tells the tale of Young Ju as she grows from a toddler in Korea to a high-school graduate in California desperately trying to be a 'true' American while her immigrant parents try to make her stay close to her Korean heritage. Printz Award.

O’Dell, Scott.  Carlota.  2006 – reissue.  144p. (CA setting). More>

• Raised to take the place of her dead brother, Carlota de Zubaran can do anything that Carlos could have done. She races her stallion through the California lowlands, dives into shark-infested 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. (from Amazon.com)

Patneaude, David.  Thin Wood Walls.  2004.  231p.  Gr. 5-8 (CA setting). More>

• When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Joe Hamada and his family face growing prejudice. Eventually they are torn away from their home and sent to a relocation camp in California, even as his older brother joins the United States Army to fight in the war. (from lapl.org)

Reinhardt, Dana.  A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life.  2006.  240p.  (CA setting). More>

• Olive skinned and dark eyed, Simone looks nothing like her fair-haired family. She is, nonetheless, the beloved daughter of her adoptive parents and enjoys a close and supportive relationship with her younger brother. It therefore comes as a terrible intrusion in Simone's comfortable life when, after 16 years, her birth mother asks to meet her. After some resistance, Simone makes contact with Rivka, a 33-year-old self-exiled Hasidic Jew who is dying of ovarian cancer. (from Booklist review)

Roley, Brian Ascalon.  American Son: A Novel.  2001.  217p. (CA setting). More>

• Hard-hitting and brash, this debut novel takes a cold, clear-eyed look at the American immigrant experience. Come home, urges Uncle Betino in a letter from Manila at the beginning of Roley's tale. But Betino's sister Ika, divorced from her American husband and living in the U.S. with her two sons born in the Philippines, believes even the harsh struggle to survive in California is better than living under the strict caste system of her homeland. One of her boys, Tomas, has assumed the persona of a young Mexican street thug and is helping her make ends meet by raising and selling guard dogs to rich clients. His brother, Gabe, the story's narrator and the good son, seeks to understand the mysteries of his adopted country. (from Publisher’s Weekly review)

Ryan, Pam Munoz.  Esperanza Rising.  2000.  262p.  Gr. 6-9 (CA setting). More>

• For the first 12 years of her life, Esperanza Ortega is pampered by servants and sheltered by her doting parents on their ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. But a sudden tragedy shatters that world of wealth and privilege. Homeless and destitute, she and her mother emigrate to California to work in the fields and start a new life.

Sitomer, Alan Lawrence.  The Hoopster.  2006 (pbk).  224p. Gr. 8-10 (CA author). More>

• Andre Anderson spends his summer playing basketball with his pals and working at a magazine, where he is assigned to write an article dealing with race. As an African American, the teen is reluctant to take on this subject as his first assignment, but he comes to think about it more deeply and writes an explosive piece.

Sitomer, Alan Lawrence.  Hip Hop High School.  2006.  384p.  Gr. 10-12 (CA author). More>

• (Sequel to The Hoopster) Theresa Anderson is every kind of smart: too smart-mouthed for her own good, street smart enough to deal with a neighborhood that gets more dangerous every day, and more book smart than anyone knows. But with the example of her super-achieving older brother towering above her, Theresa hasn’t even been trying. How can a girl compete against the family favorite, especially when he’s a certified local hero? (from Booklist review)

Smith, D. James.  Boys of San Joaquin.  2005.  231p.  Gr. 5-8 (CA setting). More>

• In a small California town in 1951, twelve-year-old Paolo and his deaf cousin Billy get caught up in a search for money missing from the church collection, leading them to complicated discoveries about themselves, other family members, and townspeople they thought they knew.

Straight, Susan.  High Wire Moon.  2002.  320p.  (CA setting). More>

• A Mexican Indian mother, Serafina, is separated from her toddler daughter, Elvia, and forcibly taken back to Mexico without her. Fifteen years later, Elvia, a tough-talking pregnant teenager, fights her way out of crippling poverty, drug abuse and dysfunction to find her mother. Elvia's travels are interlaced with Serafina's simultaneous agonizing trek back from Mexico. National Book Award nomination (from Publisher’s Weekly review)

Trujillo, Carla Mari.  What Night Brings: A Novel.   2003.  242p. (CA setting). More>

• Eleven-year-old Marci Cruz has two requests for God: to change her into a boy and to make her dad disappear. Marci's world, a 1960s working-class Bay Area community, is a confusing one. Her mother continues to love her father despite his ongoing brutality. Her cousin returns from Vietnam physically and mentally maimed. Her teachers can't or won't answer her questions about sex-or anything else. 2003 Miguel Marmol Prize (from Library Journal review)

Woods, Brenda.  Emako Blue.  2004.  124p.  Gr. 9-12 (CA setting). More>

• Monterey, Savannah, Jamal, and Eddie have never had much to do with each other until Emako Blue shows up at chorus practice, but just as the lives of the five Los Angeles high school students become intertwined, tragedy tears them apart. (from lapl.org)

Yep Laurence.  The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner.  2000.  219p.  Gr. 5-8 (CA setting). More>

• Through his diary, a 12-year-old Chinese boy nicknamed "Runt" shares his thoughts, fears, insecurities, and adventures. When Runt's older brother, Blessing, is summoned to California by his uncle, his parents choose to send their younger son instead. Runt learns the hard way that although the Golden Mountain brings the promise of prosperity to his family in China, it also brings hardship, racism, and even death to the "guests" mining for gold.

Yep, Laurence.  The Traitor: Golden Mountain Chronicles, 1885.  2003.  310p.  Gr. 6-9 (CA author). More>

• In 1885, a lonely illegitimate American boy and a lonely Chinese American boy develop an unlikely friendship in the midst of prejudices and racial tension in their coal mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming.

 

compiled by Dorcas Wong