- These books are selected in coordination with a series of classes I took with
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art multicultural workshops in partnership with and for the Los Angeles
Unified School District (I don't mean to imply that LACMA or LAUSD are involved in any way in
these pages--I made the selections in response to the classes).
This is a list of books encountered during the multicultural workshop
as well as related books of high artistic and cultural quality for elementary
(primary and upper), intermediate, high-school, and teacher levels.
They are available at discounts up to 30% and I have chosen paperback versions
whenever possible. Ali Baba's is an Amazon Associate and a labor of love for me.
I've done the research and the listing, and the books cost the same as through
Amazon direct, so save yourself the time and make use of the service.
It pays to order several books at a time, as shipping is $3.00 per shipment, plus $.95 per book.
Books are delivered direct to you, usually within 3-4 days of their receiving
payment. For busy teachers,
it's great to find the books you want within days on your front porch!
- See also the pages on The Real US
- links to web pages and books on various aspects of popular culture in America
Search Amazon's warehouse:
- Ali Baba's Bookshop Directory
- Ali Baba's Books for Primary Students
- Reading, Language Development, and just for fun
- Ali Baba's Books for Teachers
- Reading Methodology and Phonics
- Mrs. Johnson's Launch Pad
- Links to my teaching pages
- Ali's McArchives
- My Artwork
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Multiculturalism, Ancestors, and the Arts
Picture Books
- (primary)
- Count Your Way Through China, Jim Haskins
- The Folks in the Valley, A Pennsylvania Dutch ABC
- Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry (age 4-8) Hardcover
- Excellent poetry selections
- The Old Man and His Door, by Gary Soto
- El viejo misunderstands his wife to say Traje el puerto when she asks him to bring el puerco to a barbecue; however, he collects many items because of the door which add to the family barbecue. Good fun.
- The Gullywasher, Joyce Rossi, Hardcover
- Little Oh, Laura Krauss Melmed, Hardcover
- Use, Critical Thinking: Compare with Thumbelina, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Peach Boy, Pinocchio; Cross-cultural comparisons, universal themes.
- Brown Angels An Album of Pictures and Verse, Walter Dean Meyers
- Unremarkable poetry but excellent photographs of African-American children from the past (studio photographs)
- Grandpa's Town, Takaaki Nomura
- Immigrant Kids, Russell Freedman
- Photos of young urban immigrants at the turn of the century
- Follow the Drinking Gourd, Jeanette Winter
- Beautifully illustrated line by line version of the trail to freedom song; complete lyrics and music in the back.
- Coming to America, Susannah Ryan
- Smoky Night, Eve Bunting
- 1995 Caldecott Medal deals with the LA Riots from a child's point of view--external to losing her cat, which brings the family together with their Korean Neighbors. Found object collage illustrates the book.
- ***I have this one listed on my half.com page for a very low price, about $6.50***
- A Child's Book of Play in Art: Great Pictures, Great Fun, Lucy Micklethwait
- The Sweet and Sour Animal Book, Langston Hughes
- The Story of Jazz, audio cassette, narrated by Langston Hughes, $11 (4-6 weeks)
- (upper elementary)
- I'm in Charge of Celebrations, Byrd Baylor
- Grandfather's Journey, Allen Say (4-8)
- The Bracelet, Yoshiko Uchida (4-8)
- Canto Familiar, Gary Soto, (Hardcover)
- 25 Poems of common childhood moments, in Mexican-American context
- Tar Beach, Faith Ringgold
- Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, by Deborah Hopkinson, James Ransome (Illustrator)
- From Sea to Shining Sea, A Treasury of American Folkllore and Folksongs, compiled by Amy L. Cohn.
- My Dream of Martin Luther King, Faith Ringgold
- Baseball Saved Us, Ken Mochizuki (6-10)
- El beisbol nos salvó,Ken Mochizuki (6-10)
- I Was Dreaming to Come to America: Memories from the
- Ellis Island Oral History Project
- In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, Bette Bao Lord
- The Blue and the Grey, Eve Bunting
- Just Like Me, Stories and self-Portraits by 14 Artists, Tomie Arai, ed. Hardcover
- Multicultural Artists
- A Piece of My Heart/Pedacito de mi Corazón: The Art of Carmen Lomas Garza
- Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia Carmen Lomas Garza
- In My Family/En Mi Familia, Carmen Lomas Garza
- Do People Grow on Family Trees? Genealogy for Kids.... Ira Wolfman (9-12)
- My Backyard History Book, David L. Weitzman (9-12)
- Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story, Ken Mochizuki, (Hardcover)
- The Japanese Schindler
- If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island, Ellen Levine (9-12)
- Good list of borrowed words
- One More River to Cross: An African American Photograph Album, Walter Dean Meyers (All ages), (Hardcover) )
- Excellent photo album across time and frontiers
- Shades of L.A.: Pictures from Ethnic Family Albums, by Carolyn Kozo Cole (Editor), Kathy Kobayashi (Editor), Kathy Kobayaski (Contributor)
- Altogether, they testify to the long history of ethnic diversity in Los Angeles (their historic span is approximately 1907-65). Also, much more often than not, in the clothing and other physical accoutrements and in the happy attitudes of the people in them, they
bespeak cheerful acceptance of homogeneous American material culture rather than any cherishing of the artifacts of ethnic heritage. Discerning eyes will discover a lot more in them. Review: Ray Olson Copyright© 1996, American Library Association
Chapter Books:
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, Bette Bao Lord (9-12)
- Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear, Lensey Namioka (9-12)
- Yang the Third and Her Impossible Family, Lensey Namioka (9-12)
The Breath of the Dragon, Gail Giles (9-12)
- Hello, My Name Is Scrambled Eggs, Jamie Gilson (9-12)
for junior high school and above:
- Here is My Kingdom: Hispanic-American Literature and Art for Young People, Charles Sullivan, (Hardcover)
- Another beautifully assembled, balanced book of high quality art and literature
- A Jar of Dreams, Yoshiko Uchida (9-12)
- Japanese girl in 1935 Berkeley
- Journey Home, Yoshiko Uchida
- Farewell to Manzanar, Jean Wakatsuki Houston
- April and the Dragon Lady, Lensey Namioka (YA)
- Under the Blood-Red Sun, Graham Salisbury
- Japanese teenager in WWII Hawaii; book takes no sides, has no villains, no answers
- Pacific Crossing, Gary Soto (9-12)
- Chicano boy spends time in rural Japan and is reminded of migrant laborers here
- 500 Years of Chicano History in Photographs, Elizabeth Martinez
- for the high school reader (reading at grade level and AP); for independent reading: choose and report
- The Oregon Trail,
- My Name is Aram, William Saroyan
- The Best of Simple, Langston Hughes
- The Big Sea, Langston Hughes
- to pursue more by an author: Spring Moon, Bette Bao Lord
- Check the reviews: some states are giving this for high school social studies. It's "an epic novel of China," lively and exciting.
- Iron and Silk, Mark Salzman
- The Eighth Day, Thornton Wilder (not yet [re]published)
- The Bridge at San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
- Personal threads of life after a bridge collapse, 1700's Peru
- Our Town, Thornton Wilder
- The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
- We Dee Peepo, Antonio Burciaga
- Native Son, Richard Wright
- Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
- Blue Highways, A Journey Into America, William Least Heat Moon
- Colored People, Henry Louis Gates
- For adults--teachers:
- Tripmaster Monkey--His Fake Book, Maxine Hong Kingston
- "Think of it as The Joy Luck Club with more brains, more heart, and less syrup. Think of it as the Great American Classic that it is."--jjwylie@intermind.net from Henderson NV , August 15, 1997
- The Right to an Answer, Anthony Burgess (out of print)
- The Long Day Wanes, A Malayan Trilogy, Anthony Burgess
- The Eighth Day, Thornton Wilder (not yet re-published)
- We Dee Peepo, Antonio Burciaga
- Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston*
- China Men, Maxine Hong Kingston*
- Cuentos Hispanos de los Estados Unidos, Julian Olivares, ed. $12.00
- The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller
- Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner
- Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust: 2 Novels, Nathaniel West
- The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy, Evelyn Waugh
- Talking to High Monks in the Snow Lydia Yuri Minatoya
- Culture Shock, U.S.A., Esther Wanning
- *Having spent ten years living and working in Taiwan, an oasis of traditional Chinese culture, I found the books of Amy Tan pedestrian and cliched, but (so?) she's the one selected for schools. She seems to have a better publicity machine than Maxine Kingston, as well as be a writer of books that are "easier to understand," more palatable perhaps because they fit neatly into today's stereotypes of Asian Americans more so than do Kingston's surrealistic, more literary tales. I find I'm bucking the system to say so, but recently, in researching books for this list, found a wonderful a review from a Chinese-American reader in San Jose who confirms this opinion of Ms. Tan's popular novel in her April 26, 1998 review for Amazon.com of Mark Salzman's Iron and Silk:
- As a Chinese, I read Iron and Silk and am amazed at how much Mark
[Salzman] got into the soul of the ordinary Chinese people. Written in simple,
elegant language, there were so many enchanting anecdotes in the
short-story-like segments, that it moved me to find an American knowing
so much about China. As a naturalized American, now raising my
children in the U.S., I have seen books such as Joy Luck Club on the
reading lists of my children's high school English classes. It disturbs me
that Joy Luck Club really presents a pseudo, stereotypical China. I hope
high school English teachers will take a look at this book, and include
Iron And Silk in the reading lists for their students. I want my children to
read good books that tell about a real China. In my opinion this book is
much better than Joy Luck Club for high school education. The back
cover of this book tells me Mark Salzman graduated Phi Beta Kappa,
Summa Cum Laude from Yale in 1982 with a degree in Chinese
Language and Literature. This book is much more than a martial arts
book. While it is fun to read as a series of short stories on an American
martial arts student's journey in China, it really teaches so much about
how the Chinese society is. I highly recommend it for high school reading
lists.
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