Ms. Salva's online Classroom
Diverse Fiction Reading List
This list of books all have one thing in common: the characters are diverse; this means they have stories not often told. Diversity envelops ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, lifestyle and a whole host of other identifiers. Some of these books have movie adaptations, and I encourage you watch the film AND read the book. If you have a book you'd like to see in this category, let me know! I'd love to expand my personal bookshelf. ~ Ms. S
It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
If you liked The Perks of Being a Wallflower, this book is for you. Vizzini once spent five days in the adult psychiatric ward of a hospital and wrote this book immediatley after. It's the story of Craig Gilner, an ambitious but very stressed out New York City teenager who, after wanting to commit suicide, decides to admit himself into a pschiatric hospital instead. The youth floor is undergoing renovations, so Craig has to stay with the adult patients. His new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.
The book was adapted into a film starring Keir Gilchrist as Craig, Viola Davis as Dr. Minerva, and Zach Galifinakis as Bobby.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In 1962 Jackson, Mississippi and 22-year-old Skeeter has just graduated from Ole Miss. Skeeter's mother and the rest of the neighborhood would have rather she came home with a husband instead of a journalism degree and curious mind.
Aibileen is a maid raising her 17th white child. After losing her own son, she is devoted to the little girl she looks after even though it's a tough world for both of them.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend and maid to the detestable self appointed "queen" of the neighborhood, is perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
Told from three different voices, this is a story about speaking up when others won't or can't. The film stars Emma Stone as Skeeter, Viola Davis as Aibileen, and Octavia Spencer as Minny. (Fun fact - Stockett based the charcater Minny off of her friend Spencer.)
Will Grayson, will grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Will Grayson meets Will Grayson. One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers are about to cross paths. From that moment on, their world will collide and lives intertwine.
It's not that far from Evanston to Naperville, but Chicago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions. With a push from friends new and old - including the massive, and massively fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur extraordinaire - Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history's most awesome high school musical.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Jin Wang's family moves to a new neighborhood. At his new school, he discovers he is the only Chinese-American student. Jin Wang trys to fit in, avoid the bullies and falls in love with an all-American girl.
Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Adored by his subjects, master of the arts of kung-fu, he is the most powerful monkey on earth. But the Monkey King doesn't want to be a monkey. He wants to be hailed as a god.
Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he's ruining his cousin Danny's life. Danny's a popular kid at school, but every year Chin-Kee comes to visit, and every year Danny has to transfer to a new school to escape the shame. This year, though, things quickly go from bad to worse.
These three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant and action-packed.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.
Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbor's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructive universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favourite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally.
*NOTE - This book was recently adapted into a play and won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play!
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside.
But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don't get stared at wherever they go.
Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all?
Narrated by Auggie and the people around him whose lives he touches forever, Wonder is a funny, frank, astonishingly moving debut to read in one sitting, pass on to others, and remember long after the final page.
