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AAUW hopes you enjoy the 2006-2007 ¡Adelante! Book Club selections, and encourages members and nonmembers to open a dialogue of women and diversity in their communities.
September (Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 15-Oct. 15)
Farmworker's Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America
by Rose Castillo Guilbault (2006)
In this memoir, Guilbault reveals what it was like to grow up as a Mexican immigrant in a farming community during the turbulent 1960s. With openness, courage, and charm, she recalls her early struggles to learn English, fit in with schoolmates with their Barbie dolls and cupcakes, win approval, and bridge the tensions between the home life and the public world to which she was drawn.
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October (Disability Awareness Month)
Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled
by Nancy Mairs (1997)
Nancy Mairs, a gifted essayist who is fierce and funny by turns, landed in a wheelchair years ago due to degenerative multiple sclerosis that has sapped much of her strength. She bends an agile mind and sharp tongue around the daily tasks of seeing eye-to-navel with a world that clearly prefers nondisabled "normals."
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November (Native American Heritage Month)
American Indian Ballerinas
by Lili Cockerville Livingstone (1999)
American Indian Ballerinas includes biographies of ballerinas Rosella Hightower, Yvonne Chouteau, Maria Tallchief, and her sister Marjorie Tallchief. All four dancers share a common ethnicity (Native American) and state of origin (Oklahoma), and all came to prominence during the 1940s-1960s. Their common heritage of dance and spirituality suffused their respective artistic careers.
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December
The Tortilla Curtain
by T.C. Boyle (1996)
Boyle establishes an obvious dichotomy by interweaving the scrapping, makeshift, in-the-present lives of illegal aliens Candido and America Rincon with the politically correct, suburban, plan-for-the-future existence of wealthy Americans Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher. This highly engaging story subtly plays on our consciences, forcing us to form, confirm, or dispute social, political, and moral viewpoints. This is a profound and tragic tale, one that exposes not only a failed American Dream, but a failing America.
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January
Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Law That Changed the Future of Girls in America
by Karen Blumenthal (2005)
A fascinating look at the birth, growth, stagnation, and final emergence of Title IX. While acknowledging the controversy surrounding this law, the author is unwaveringly supportive of its passage and implementation. Interesting and easy-to-follow chapters highlight the process of creating, revising, fighting for, and ultimately passing this legislation that gave girls and women equal access to physical-education classes, gymnasiums, universities, and graduate schools.
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February (Black History Month)
The Water Is Wide
by Pat Conroy (1987)
The island is nearly deserted, haunting, beautiful. Across a slip of ocean lies South Carolina. But for the handful of families on Yamacraw island, America is a world away. For years the people here lived proudly from the sea, but now its waters are not safe. Waste from industry threatens their very existence unless, somehow, they can learn a new life. Here is Conroy's extraordinary drama based on his own experience — the true story of a man who gave a year of his life to an island and the new life its people gave him.
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March (Women's History Month)
Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America
by Karenna Gore Schiff (2006)
Schiff, journalist, lawyer, and daughter of former vice president Al Gore, highlights the lives of nine women who have had enormous impact on the social and political history of the U.S. They are: Ida B. Wells Barnett, anti-lynching activist; Mother Jones, an advocate for coal miners; Dr. Alice Hamilton, a proponent of workers' rights in the chemical industry; Frances Perkins, who helped establish Social Security; Virginia Durr, who fought to end poll taxes; Septima Poinsette Clark, an advocate for the rights of black voters; Dolores Huera, farmworker organizer; Dr. Helen Rodrigues-Trias, a reproductive rights activist; and Gretchen Buchenholz, a child advocate.
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April
Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions, and Cash
by Liz Perle (2006)
In spite of women's supposedly massive buying power and growing presence in Fortune 500 boardrooms, many women are still old-fashioned when it comes to cash. Why do they show so little interest in managing investments? Or lie to their partners about what something costs? And what's behind that evil prescription known as "retail therapy"? Perle investigates these questions and others in this remarkable sociological study-cum-memoir.
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May (Asian Pacific American Heritage Month)
Kira-Kira (2005 Newbery Medal Book)
by Cynthia Kadohata (2004)
In Cynthia Kadohata's lively, lovely, funny and sad novel the Japanese-American Takeshima family moves from Iowa to Georgia in the 1950s when Katie, the narrator, is just in kindergarten. Though her parents endure grueling conditions and impossible hours in the non-unionized poultry plant and hatchery where they work, they somehow manage to create a loving, stable home for their three children. Small moments shine the brightest in this poignant story; told beautifully in Katie's fresh, honest voice.
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June (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month)
Beyond Acceptance: Parents of Lesbians & Gays Talk About Their Experiences
by Carolyn W. Griffin and Marian J. Wirth (1997)
Now fully revised and updated, Beyond Acceptance is a ground-breaking book that provides parents the comfort and knowledge they need to accept the gay children and build stronger family relationships. Based on the experiences of other parents, this book lets them know they are not alone and helps them through the emotional stages leading to reconciliation with their children.
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July
Smoke and Ashes: The Story of the Holocaust (Revised Edition)
by Barbara Rogasky (2002)
In this update of her 1988 work , Rogasky presents information about the Holocaust, including the ghettos, concentration and death camps, non-Jewish victims, resistance, "rescuers," the fate of the most notorious of the Nazis, and anti-Semitism and hate groups today. The book includes new facts, such the regular German army's involvement and the treatment of homosexuals. The final chapter includes new sections on hate-group use of the Internet and Holocaust denial.
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August
Through My Eyes
by Ruby Bridges (1999)
Surrounded by federal marshals, 6-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first black student at the all-white William Frantz Public School in New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 14, 1960. Her memoir, simple in language and rich in history and photographs, is a personal, deeply moving historical documentary about a staggeringly courageous little girl at the center of events that already seem unbelievable.
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