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Book Ideas for a Successful Book Project
1) Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to
Reunite with his Mother Sonia Nazario
The story of a mother who leaves her children behind in
her native country, Honduras, to work in the United
States. Her son, Enrique, is six when she leaves and she
promises him she will return soon.
“Soon” stretches out to years, and when Enrique is a
teenager he begins a journey of hitchhiking rides on trains
that will take him from Honduras through Mexico and
finally to Los Angeles to find his mother.
This story of a child’s quest to find his mother, a quest
filled with danger, anger, and broken hearts, appealed to all of my students.
As the book is written in a journalistic style, the present tense narration was
a perfect read for all level ESL students in my class.
2) This Voice in my Heart: A Genocide Survivor’s Story of Escape,
Faith & Forgiveness Gilbert Tuhabonye
The story of how Gilbert Tuhabonye used his incredible
survival skills, quick-wittedness and runner’s strength to
save his life during the Hutu/Tutsi conflict during the
Burundian Civil War.
Through reading this book students learned about
Burundi, African culture, genocide and hope. While the
first three topics were fairly new to many of them, the
last one was not.
Thinking of their own hopes and dreams as immigrants to
the United States made it easy for them to relate to Mr. Tuhabonye’s desire
and determination to escape the purgatory he was born into and his quest to
change the world.
3) The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur Daoud Hari
The story of a man who decided to do his part to solve
the Darfur conflict using his English skills as his weapon
instead of a gun.
Here is an excerpt of a book review by student Marco
Gonzalez:
“I am currently reading this book and so far it been
deeply sad and fascinating to me. I would say the issues
in this book about the Zaghawa tribe’s suffering and the
fact that they have been killed by Jangaweed and the
genocide are a tragedy.
As a child, Daoud Hari saw Sudanese militia groups
attacking, raping and murdering citizens and burning Darfur villages. The
book was very clearly written and Hari uses fascinating words and provides
interesting stories. The author achieved
his goal, as his intention is to take you
into this book he wrote and keep you
interested in learning about Darfur.”
We had the good fortune of participating
in a video interview with Daoud Hari after
we completed the reading of his book.
The students were able to ask
questions and Mr. Hari graciously
answered them as he went deeper
into his story of his “job” as a
translator during the war in Darfur.
4) Child of the Jungle: The True Story of a Girl Caught Between Two
Worlds Sabine Kuegler
Ms. Kuegler tells the story of how she grew up as a child
caught between two cultures and two worlds in West
Papua, Indonesia.
Her parents, who were missionaries from Germany,
brought Sabine, her older sister Judith and younger
brother Christian to live in a remote part of the jungle in
West Papua. There, her father began the lengthy process
of writing down the language of the Fayu, a West Papua
tribe who at that time had no written language.
Sabine Kuegler immersed herself into the Fayu culture and became a true
child of the jungle. When she became a teenager, her parents realized that
their daughter had little memory of her European roots and decided to send
her to a Swiss boarding school. This sudden immersion into a “foreign”
culture, which overwhelmed Ms. Kuegler, was a feeling with which most of
the students could relate.
During the reading of this book, I contacted the author’s sister, Judith
Kuegler Webster, a “main character” in the story. Ms. Webster, who lives in
North Carolina, participated in a phone interview to help me with
pronunciation of some of the tribal names and words that appear in the
book.
The students became attached
to the Kueglers through reading
the book and from the
conversations I had with Judith.
They thoroughly enjoyed their
vicarious adventure in the
jungles of Papua, New Guinea.
5) The Late Homecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir Kao Kalia Yang
The author relates the stories of three generations of
Hmong people struggling to find a place they can call
“home.” Ms. Yang has written about the lives of her
grandmother and parents in Laos during the United
States’ involvement in Southeast Asia and their lives
as refugees in Thailand after the Vietnam War.
Kao Kalia Yang was born in Thailand’s Ban Vinai
Refugee Camp and was six years old when the Yang
family was granted refugee status in the United States.
Ms.Yang continues the family story and focuses on her
struggles to learn English and adapt to American
culture in St. Paul, Minnesota. She found her voice in writing her immigrant
story, a story that resonated with the students.
As a culminating activity for this
book, two Hmong survivors of the
Vietnam War, Chao Xiong and
Pastor Tom Hang, spoke to my
students about their experiences in
Laos, Thailand and the United
States prior to, during and after
“The Secret War”.
6) Take Me With You: A Secret Search for Family in Forbidden Cuba
Carlos Frias
The story of his family’s immigration from Cuba to the
United States after Fidel Castro came into power. Mr.
Frias’s father, a businessman who opposed Castro’s
regime, spent time in jail in Cuba because of his
political beliefs. He was released from prison and
escaped from Communist Cuba to the United States as
a young man. The author, American born, grew up
hearing about Cuba, but knew that the stories his
father told him were not about the Cuba under Fidel
Castro.
Carlos Frias, a journalist, had the opportunity through
his newspaper to go to Cuba in 2006. While he was there he searched for
friends and family members that his father had told him about. He
connected with relatives he had never met and saw a part of Cuba that most
tourists never get to see. He brought back parts of his father’s Cuba that
would forever remain in his heart. This story tugged at the students’ hearts
as they thought about the countries that they left and the stories about their
families that they have told their children.
Carlos Frias was in contact with me and the students
during the semester we read his book. He answered our
questions and kept in touch on a regular basis. He even
signed the copies of our books at the end of the semester!
We made a YouTube video about this experience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nymS-iOC5Qo
7) The Distance Between Us Reyna Grande
“A brutally honest book…akin to being the Angela’s Ashes of the modern Mexican
immigrant experience” (Los Angeles Times).
This is a memoir that focuses on illegal immigration from
Mexico to the United States and the heartbreak of family
members left behind. When Reyna Grande was two
years old, her parents left Mexico and went to work in
the U.S.
The book covers Ms. Grande’s impoverished early
childhood in Mexico, her illegal entrance into the United
States, her reunion with her mother and father, her life
as an undocumented alien and her successful graduation
from college.
This was a book that most of my students identified
with, as they have struggled to become successful students and productive
workers in the United States.
Reyna Grande was involved in our book project throughout the semester.
She answered questions that the students posted on my blog:
www.sandielinn.wordpress.com
Several students had the opportunity to meet Reyna Grande when she spoke
at a book fair at City College in 2013. I was honored to introduce Reyna
Grande at the 2013 CATESOL Conference in San Diego where she was the
Keynote Speaker.
8) A Long Way Home Saroo Brierley
This is the story of a young boy living in poverty in a
small village in India and his separation from his
family. When Saroo was five years old, he and his
older brother Guddu, went to a train station in
Kwanda. Guddu left the station in search of money for
food and told Saroo to wait at the station until he
returned. After what seemed like a long time, Saroo
decided to board the train to search for his brother.
The train took him to Kolkata (then Calcutta) where
Saroo lived on the streets until he was rescued by a
teenage boy who took him to the police station. Saroo
was unable to give the police enough information to find his village.
He eventually ended up living in an orphanage and was adopted by a family
in Australia. Saroo grew up in a loving home with adoptive parents who tried
to keep his memory of India alive. Saroo never forgot the faces of his birth
family or the images of his village in India. He begins an incredible search
online, using Google Earth, to find his home and his mother. After years of
searching he is successful and makes the long journey “back home.”
I selected this book because many of my students have not been
“home” since they came to the United States. While they have
embraced the language and culture of this country, their native
language and culture remain in their hearts.
Sandie Linn, 2016