To Kill a Mockingbird Readalikes


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.	Title	Author	Description


.	1959: A Novel	Davis, Thulani	In the summer of 1959, 12-year-old Willie Tarrant's father and other adults are worried about integration in Turner, Virginia--how it will affect their children's safety and education. For Willie, it will be just another problem to deal with--like her chores. Willie and her friends are to be sent with the first wave--but then eight college students go into the Woolworth's lunch counter and change everything.
.	Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The	Alexie, Sherman	Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
.	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The	Twain, Mark	Considered the first great American novel, part of Finn's charm is the wisdom and sobering social criticism deftly lurking amongst the seemingly innocent observations of the uneducated Huck and the even-less-educated escaped slave, Jim. (Publisher's Weekly) On the College Board's list of 101 best Books for the College-Bound--you could read it just to understand why controversy surrounds the book about the American racial divide.
.	Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman	Gaines, Ernest	A novel written as an autobiography spans one hundred years of Miss Jane's remarkable life, from her childhood as a slave on a Louisiana plantation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. It is a story of courage and survival, history, bigotry, and hope as seen through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all.
.	Beloved	Morrison, Toni	Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. On the College Board's List of 101 Best Books for the College-Bound. (Note: One of Ms. Waddle's favorite books, and she recommends it often, but some students have trouble/confusion with time shifts.)
.	Book of Dead Birds, The	Brandeis, Gayle	The story of Ava Sing Lo, the daughter of a Korean woman who was forced into prostitution on a U.S. Army base. The base was segregated and Helen serviced the African American men. She becomes pregnant with Ava and manages, through deceit, an escape to California. The fact that Ava is a product of a forced sexual encounter with a stranger makes her a constant reminder of her mother’s shame. Racial prejudice makes her feel that she has no connections. In a first person narrative Ava tells the story of how she hopes to make a connection with her mother, whose pet birds she has been accidentally killing for years. (Looser connection--outsider, racial strife, doing he right thing--Local author)
.	Bottoms, The	Lansdale, Joe R.	Young Harry Crane discovers a black woman's body, mutilated and bound to a tree with barbed wire, unleashing a storm of uncontrolled fear, thinly buried racial animosities, and violence.
.	Boy in the Stripped Pajamas, The	Boyne,John	Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.
.	Breaking Rank	Randle, Kristen D.	Seventeen-year-old Casey has some of her preconceived notions challenged when she begins to tutor Baby, a member of a ganglike non-conformist society called the Clan.
.	Burning Up	Cooney, Caroline B.	About a white/black friendship and racially motivated crime
.	Children of the River	Crew, Linda	Having fled Cambodia four years earlier to escape the Khmer Rouge army, seventeen-year-old Sundara is torn between remaining faithful to her own people and enjoying life in her Oregon high school as a "regular" American.
.	Color Purple, The	Walker, Alice	Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being raped by her father, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Includes frank discussion of female sexuality. On the College Board's List of 101 Best Books for the College Bound.
.	Cry Wolf	Hoag, Tami	In the rural parishes of Louisiana's French Triangle, young women are disappearing one by one, only to turn up on the banks of the bayou, strangled and cast aside where they are sure to be found.
.	Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe	Flagg, Fannie	Cleo Threadgood and Evelyn Couch meet in the visitors lounge of an Alabama nursing home, At 48, Evelyn is falling apart: none of the middle-class values she grew up with seem to signify in today's world. On the other hand, 86-year-old Cleo is still being nurtured by memories of a lifetime spent in Whistle Stop, which flourished in the days of the Great Depression. Most of the town's life centered around its one cafe, whose owners, gentle Ruth and tomboyish Idgie, served up grits (both true and hominy) to anyone who passed by. Their love for each other and just about everyone else survived visits from the sheriff, the Ku Klux Klan, a host of hungry hoboes, a murder and the rigors of the Depression. (From Publisher's Weekly)
.	From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun	Woodson, Jacqueline	Fourteen-year-old Melanin Sun's comfortable, quiet life is shattered when his mother reveals she has fallen in love with a woman.
.	Go and Come Back	Abelove, Joan	Alicia, a young tribeswoman living in a Amazonian village in the Andes, tells about the two American women anthropologists who arrive to study the way of life of her people.
.	God's Little Acre	Caldwell, Erskine	Chronicles the final decline of a white family in rural Georgia in the early '30s through the agencies of greed, betrayal & complex sexual entanglements, which eventually lead to murder in the family
.	Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The	McCullers, Carson	Deaf-mute John Singer becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.
.	Hotel Paradise	Grimes, Martha
.	I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots	Straight, Susan	A tall, strong, and reticent black woman named Marietta. Self-conscious and restless around people, Marietta is happiest alone in the woods behind her tiny coastal community of old slave cabins in North Carolina. Even though it's the late 1950s, life there has a distinctly antebellum flavor. Marietta, only 15, takes off on her own to Charleston. Her size and blue-black skin amaze and intimidate people, but she finds work. When she becomes pregnant, she goes home to have her twins, two strapping boys, and finds work on the abandoned plantation that is being restored to attract tourists. In a distressing sort of deja vu, Marietta finds herself reenacting the lives of her ancestors as the fight for civil rights ignites across the South. (Booklist) (Local author. 'Gullah' dialect throughout.)


.	Icy Sparks	Rubio, Gwyn Hyman	A young girl growing up in Appalachia (rural Kentucky) in the 1950s develops a violent tic and uncontrollable cursing that make her an outcast.
.	If you Come Softly	Woodson, Jacqueline	After meeting at their private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people's reactions.
.	Invisible Man	Ellison, Ralph	A nameless protagonist takes a nightmare journey across the racial divide to tell truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on both victims and perpetrators. First publishe din 1952, this novel is on the College Board's "Best 101 Books for the College-Bound" (and it's one of the best books Ms. Waddle has ever read)!
.	Jim the Boy	Earley, Tony	The story of a boy growing up in a small North Carolina town during the Great Depression.
.	Jip His Story	Paterson, Katherine	While living on a Vermont poor farm during 1855 and 1856, Jip learns his identity and that of his mother and comes to understand how he arrived at this place.
.	Legend of Buddy Bush, The	Moses, Sheila P.	In 1947, twelve-year-old Pattie Mae is sustained by her dreams of escaping Rich Square, North Carolina, and moving to Harlem when her Uncle Buddy is arrested for attempted rape of a white woman and her grandfather is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.
.	Little Friend, The	Tartt, Donna	In Alexandria, Mississippi, one Mother's Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents yard. Twelve years later Robin's murder is still unsolved. Robin's sister Harriet sets out to unmask his killer. Harriet crosses her town's rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family's history of loss.
.	Lucas	Brooks, Kevin	A strange man in town is blamed for a rape
.	Maniac Magee	Spinelli, Jerry	He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. And Maniac Magee became a legend.
.	Midwives	Bohjalian, Christopher A.	During a Vermont ice storm in 1981, cut off by downed phone lines and impassable roads, midwive Sibyl Danforth attempts to save the baby of a woman she believes has died of a stroke. Later the midwife's assistant tells police that the mother was still alive when the cesarean section was performed. A gripping trial ensues.
.	Mississippi Trial, 1955	Crowe, Chris	In Mississippi in 1955, a sixteen-year-old finds himself at odds with his grandfather over issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of a fourteen-year-old African American from Chicago.
.	Montana, 1948	Watson, Larry	The events of that cataclysmic summer permanently alter twelve-year-old David's understanding of his family: his father, a small-town sheriff; his remarkably strong mother; David's uncle Frank, a war hero and respected doctor; and the Haydens' Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, whose revelations turn the family's life upside down as she relates how Frank has been molesting his female Indian patients.
.	Mother Road	Garlock, Dorothy	In 1932, Andy Connors, who owns a garage that serves Route 66, has been bitten by a rabid skunk. Fortunately, Yates, a man whose life Andy had once saved, is stopping by for gas. After driving Andy to Oklahoma City for treatments, he returns to manage the garage while Andy recovers. Yates is also there to help Leona, who is the town scandal because she's not married to Andy. Yates is soon defending her against the local residents and her brother, who's intent on punishing Leona for disgracing him. Caught in the turmoil of gossip and threats, Yates and Leona will find their love tested at every turn-especially when her brother is murdered.
.	Native Son	Wright, Richard	Native Son tells the story of a young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America. On the College Board's list of 101 Best Books for the College-Bound.
.	Nora Nora	Siddons, Anne Rivers	Nora takes a job teaching the first integrated honors class at a local high school in Lytton, Georgia. A shocking truth about Nora's past comes to light, stunning the residents of the segregated town.
.	Ordinary Wolves	Kantner, Seth	Always in Cutuk's mind are his father Abe, the legendary hunter Enuk Wolfglove, and the wolves all living out lives on the unforgiving tundra. Jeered and pummeled by native children because he is white, Cutuk becomes a marginal participant in village life, caught between cultures. After an accident for which he is responsible, he faces a decision that could radically change his life. (Looser connection--outsider, racial strife, doing the right thing)
.	Painted House, A	Grisham, John	In the long, hot summer of Luke Chandler's seventh year (1952), two groups of migrant workers and two very dangerous men came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke's world. A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion.
.	Perks of Being a Wallflower, The	Chbosky, Stephen	A tale of adolescence whose hero is Charlie, a high school freshman in Pennsylvania. The novel follows Charlie as he is introduced to love, literature and pot. (A looser connection than most of the suggestions--do you sit on the sidelines or do you engage in life?)
.	Persia Cafe	Neilson, Melany	A youmg black boy disappears from a small Mississippi River town, and the area erupts in violence.
.	River Between Us, The	Peck, Richard	At the start of the Civil War two mysterious young women get off a boat in a small town in southern Illinois, and 15-year-old Tilly Pruitt's mother takes them in. Who are they? Is the darker-complexioned woman the other woman's slave? Tilly's twin brother, Noah, falls in love with one of them--rich, stylish, worldly Delphine, who shows Tilly a world of possibilities beyond her home. When Noah runs away to war, Tilly and Delphine go after him, find him in the horror of an army tent hospital, and bring him back; but their world is changed forever. (Booklist)


.	Runaway, The	Kay, Terry	In post-WW II South, two boys--one black and one white--discover a bone that turns out to be part of the skeletal remains of one of the boys' long-missing father. The sheriff investigates, unmasking the racially motivated killer.
.	Secret Life of Bees, The	Kidd, Sue Monk	During the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina, a young girl is given a home by three black, beekeeping sisters. As she enters their mesmerizing secret world of bees and honey, she discovers a place where she can find the single thing her heart longs for most.
.	Seedfolks	Fleischman, Paul	One by one, a number of people of varying ages and backgrounds transform a trash-filled inner-city lot into a productive and beautiful garden, and in doing so, the gardeners are themselves transformed.
.	Summer of My German Soldier	Greene, Bette	Sheltering an escaped German prisoner of war is the beginning of some shattering experiences for a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Arkansas.
.	Tangerine	Bloor, Edward	Paul's eyesight was damaged in a mysterious accident when he was five, and he wears "Coke-bottle" glasses, but he has clearer vision than the rest of his family and most of the people in Lake Windsor Downs. He sees through the "nice-guy" front his brother puts on and the snobbishness of his Lake Windsor Downs neighbors, especially after he transfers to the working-class Tangerine Middle School. (School Library Journal)
.	Taps	Morris, Willie	In 1951 Fisk's landing, Mississippi, 16-year-old Swayze Barksdale plays "Taps" at the gravesides of downed Korean War casualties and grows up to understand sorrow and love.
.	Their Eyes were Watching God	Hurston, Zora Neale	Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots. This novel is on the College Board's "101" Best Novels for the College-Bound."
.	Time to Kill, A	Grisham, John	Near the rural town of Clanton, Mississippi, little Tonya Hailey is brutally raped, beaten, and left for dead by two drunken and remorseless men. The bragging rapists are caught. Days later, Tonya's father executes them in the courthouse.
.	Trouble	Schmidt, Gary	Fourteen-year-old Henry, wishing to honor his brother Franklin's dying wish, sets out to hike Maine's Mount Katahdin with his best friend and dog. But fate adds another companion--the Cambodian refugee accused of fatally injuring Franklin--and reveals troubles that predate the accident.
.	Walker's Crossing	Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds	While living on his family's ranch in Wyoming where he hopes to someday be a cowboy, Ryan faces conflicts with his older brother who becomes involved in a militia movement.
.	Whale Talk	Crutcher, Chris	Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students.
.	When Zachary Beaver Came to Town	Holt, Kimberly Willis	During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.(Looser connection--prejudice and outcast, but also learning to understand the town 'freak' about whom stories are told--I'm thinking of a connection to Boo Radley.)
.	Witness	Hess, Karen	The KKK comes to a small Vermont town in 1924
.	Yellow Line	Olsen, Sylvia	About a town separated into white and Indian populations
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