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Read What You Want: Asian American Books for Reading Lists

Sun, 08/30/2009 - 22:36

Remember in middle school and high school, when you were forced to read a specific list of books?  Usually they were books by dead white men, and stories I just personally couldn't relate to.  So I was pretty excited when I read that some school districts and teachers are experimenting with giving choice to students on what they would read.  I was impressed that one of the students in the NY Times article talked about reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.  Simply a fantastic book. 

What Asian American or Pacific Islander books would you recommend to 8th to 12th graders to read? 

My must reads would be:

  • Gene Yang's American Born Chinese for a fun yet thought-provoking graphic novel
  • Helen Zia's Asian American Dreams for good basic Asian American history by one of the greatest Asian American activists
  • Michael Mohammed Knight's the Taqwacores for the punk rockers
  • Shawn Wong's American Knees for an absorbing novel about race, sexuality, and identity
  • Vickie Nam's Yell-OH Girls! for a solid collection of short stories and poetry by young Asian American women on a range of issues
  • I would also recommend any chap books by poets like Bao Phi, ill-Literacy, Ching-In Chen, Kenji Liu, etc.

Since some teachers and schools create reading lists, it would be great to keep this reading list going!

What books would you recommend?

Your rating: None Average: 5 (2 votes)

  • spamfriedrice's blog
ebeh on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 14:09
Title: Excellent post! A list very

Excellent post! A list very near and dear to my heart. I'd also add

Frank Wu's Yellow: Race in American Beyond Black and White

 

    ebeh on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 15:29
    Title: Also Untold Civil Rights:

    Also Untold Civil Rights: Asian Americans Speak Out for Justice

    http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/archives/untoldcivilrights.htm

    Olivia Lee (not verified) on Wed, 09/16/2009 - 23:39
    Title: Great list!  I wasn't
    5

    Great list!  I wasn't motivated to read much from 8th-12th grade, but I'm sure I would have found reading much more fascinating with these books. 

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