Previous Literature Selections


2006 - Warriors Don't Cry
Melba Pattillo Beals

Warriors Don't Cry

"There is no putting Warriors Don't Cry down....In a plainly written story that reflects both the wisdom of the woman telling it almost 40 years after the fact and the crumbling innocence of the young woman who experienced it, Melba Beals gives us a history lesson, a civics lesson and as true a story of coming of age in America at a certain time and place as one could hope to find." -- Judith Paterson, Washington Post Book World

Background Resources

2005 - When the Emperor Was Divine
Julie Otsuka

The Emporer was Divine

Julie Otsuka's commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese internment camps unlike any we have ever seen. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination-both physical and emotional-of a generation of Japanese-Americans. In five chapters, each flawlessly executed from a different point of view-the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train ride to the camp; the son in the desert encampment; the family's return to their home; and the bitter release of the father after more than four years in captivity-she has created a small tour de force, a novel of unrelenting economy and suppressed emotion. Spare, intimate, arrestingly understated, When the Emperor Was Divine is a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times.

More information:
FAQ's about this Common Literature Experience
Supplemental Reading
Student thoughts on a visit to Topaz (power point download)
Photos of Julie Otsuka

2004 - A Hope in the Unseen
Ron Suskind

A Hope in the Unseen

The true story of an inner-city black youth, Cedric Jennings, who defies the odds and is accepted to an ivy league university. Discover themes of transition, exploration, growth, defeat, and ultimate triumph with which any college student can identify.

More pics here

More information on author and text




May Out West
May Swenson

May Out West

This collection of May Swenson's poems takes the west as its focus and field of vision. As the west was a place of inspiration to her, and of birth, the book gathers May's work about the region into a memorable and inspiring collection.