Family

Amy Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), depicts Chua’s experience raising two American daughters according to Chinese cultural standards. Chua is a Yale law professor specializing in globalization and ethnic conflict. She is also a second-generation Chinese American, and her husband is Jewish. Chua’s strict approach is influenced by the parenting methods used by her own parents, which clash with those of her husband. Chua’s memoir was a New York Times bestseller... Read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Summary

Pat Conroy’s 1995 novel Beach Music is a work of historical fiction. Set primarily in South Carolina, the novel follows a community fractured by memories of the Holocaust and the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s. Beach Music explores the nature of generational trauma and the way our pasts shape our futures. The power of forgiveness and the differences between duty and loyalty are also prominent themes. The setting and culture of the American... Read Beach Music Summary

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Bearstone, published in 1989 by author Will Hobbs, is a coming-of-age adventure story for middle-grade readers. It describes half Ute, half Navajo teenager Cloyd Attcity’s quest to escape his dull, constrained life and find purpose and meaning in the wilderness. With the help of his mentor, rancher Walter Landis, Cloyd’s search leads to a spiritual adventure in the high country and a dramatic struggle to protect a grizzly bear from a professional big-game hunter.Bearstone is... Read Bearstone Summary

Published in 2008, David Sheff’s memoir, Beautiful Boy, explores his experiences of coming to terms with his son’s addiction to methamphetamine. Sheff and his wife Vicki are overjoyed when they have their son, Nic. For the first three years, they live a happy, contented life, providing Nic with everything he needs. However, when Sheff and Vicki's marriage collapses, Nic, now aged three, is deeply affected by the change. This worsens when Sheff and Vicki move... Read Beautiful Boy Summary

Beautiful Creatures (2009) is a young adult paranormal romance novel written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. Garcia and Stohl combine their interest in Southern Gothic literature with supernatural romance. Beautiful Creatures is the first book in the four-part Caster Chronicles. The novel follows the romance between Ethan Wate and Lena Duchannes as Lena comes to terms with the supernatural powers that make her a Caster. Lena and Ethan struggle to find a way to... Read Beautiful Creatures Summary

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Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanna Barbot De Villeneuve first appeared in her collection of fairy tales La jeune américaine, et les contes marins (The Young American and Marine Tales) in 1740 and was abridged into a Christian moral tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756. As a fairy-tale classic, Beauty and the Beast has been retold around the globe and in several mediums, including books, film, theater, and opera. The most well-known adaptations... Read Beauty and the Beast Summary

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978) is author Robin McKinley’s debut novel. It’s an adaptation of the original Beauty and the Beast fairy tale written in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, with genre elements of fantasy and romance and marketed for a middle grade readership. McKinley’s version of the story maintains an 18th-century setting while modernizing thematic explorations of outer versus inner beauty, ideals of faithfulness and selflessness... Read Beauty Summary

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Because of Winn-Dixie is a middle-grade novel by Kate DiCamillo published in 2000 by Candlewick Books. It follows main character Opal as she learns to love her new home in Naomi, Florida with the help of a stray dog named Winn-Dixie. Steeped in the traditions of Southern literature, the book won a Newbery Honor distinction and a Parents’ Choice Gold Award, among other awards. DiCamillo has been a beloved children's author since publication of Because of... Read Because of Winn-Dixie Summary

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When Julia Alvarez’s Before We Were Free (2002) begins, the life of Anita de la Torre, an 11-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic, is about to change forever. The novel investigates themes of family, government corruption, superstition, and the power of the written word, all set against the backdrop of the months before and after the assassination of a brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo. This study guide uses the 2007 Laurel Leaf Reprint Edition.Plot SummaryDuring the... Read Before We Were Free Summary

A 2017 New York Times bestseller, Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours is a haunting and compelling work of historical fiction told in polyvocal form with two alternating principle voices narrating a story of complex family history. From chapter to chapter, the book goes back and forth between present day South Carolina (in settings of Southern power and prestige) and Tennessee in the late 1930s and early 1940s (in settings of squalor and abuse). In... Read Before We Were Yours Summary