Please check out the new display on the first floor of the library. As part of this year’s National Library Week theme, Libraries Transform, there is a display of multicultural books that have been turned into films. Everything on display is owned by the library and will be available for circulation after April.
For even more fun, Multicultural Affairs is hosting an evening of dinner and discussion on Monday, April 10 from 5:30-7:00 in the Multicultural Center in DeNaples, room 205G. The topic is multicultural authors, how they are represented in the curricula, and ways that more multicultural authors can be integrated into courses. Go and check out these amazing authors, then check them out from Weinberg Memorial Library!
Multicultural Books & Movies on display:
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Easton Press, 2000. PS3573.A425 C6 2000
The Color Purple. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Performances by Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Danny Glover. Warner Brothers, 2007. PN1997 .C64 2007 DVD
Originally published in 1982, The Color Purple won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award. The book is written as a series of letters and tells the highly emotional story of a black girl in rural Georgia in the 1930’s. Separated from her sister and forced into marriage, Celie faces violence and neglect as she grows into adulthood. Multiple female characters face challenges that depict the bleak set of options available to black women at that time.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Random House, 1987. PS3563.O8749 B4 1987
Beloved. Directed by Jonathon Demme. Performances by Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Thandie Newton. Harpo Productions, 1998. PN1997 .B45 DVD
Paul D. and Sethe, two former slaves from the same plantation find each other again after 18 years. Their bond stirs up vivid, upsetting memories of their time at “Sweet Home.” Paul D. moves in, creating a disturbance in the household and a strange girl arrives named Beloved. Beloved’s presence forces Sethe to address past decisions, even while trying to build a future for herself and her children as a free black woman.
Dash, Julie. Daughters of the Dust. Plume, 1997. PS3554.A823 D3 1997
Daughters of the Dust. Directed by Julie Dash. Performances by Cora Lee Day and Alva Rogers. Geechee Girls, 1991. STREAMING MEDIA
A black woman anthropologist from 1920s New York visits the Sea Islands off the coast of the Carolinas and discovers her roots. A look at the culture of the Gullah people, descendants of blacks who intermarried with Indians.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Putnam, 1989. PS3570.A48 J6 1991
The Joy Luck Club. Directed by Wayne Wang. Performances by Kieu Chin, Ming-Na Wen, and Tamlyn Tomita. Hollywood Pictures, 1993. PN1997 .J69 2002 DVD
Four mothers. Four daughters. Eight stories. The Joy Luck Club is four women in San Francisco who have played mah jong together on a weekly basis for forty some years. One of them, Suyuan, has died, and her daughter June is preparing to go to China. Auntie Lindo with daughter Waverly, Auntie Ying Ying with daughter Lena, and Auntie An Mei with daughter Rose are at the going away party. Born in China, the Joy Luck Club members came to America as young adults; their daughters are 100% American. The old days are seldom spoken about, and some things about those times have never been said aloud, but the experiences left behind color the hopes and expectations these women have for their daughters. If daughters become their mothers–no matter how much both parties desire that it not happen–daughters also become different from their mothers–despite all attempts to perpetuate the status quo.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Houghton Mifflin, 2003. PS3562.A316 N36 2003
The Namesake. Directed by Mira Nair. Performances by Kal Penn, Irffan Khan, and Tabu. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2006. PN1997 .N25
The American-born son of Indian immigrants feels pulled between his ethnic heritage and his desire to assimilate, especially after becoming involved with two very different women.
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Grove Press, 1993. PS3551.L35774 L66 2005
Smoke Signals. Directed by Chris Eyre. Performances by Adam Beach and Irene Bedard. Miramax Films, 1998. PN1997 .S568
Book: A collection of short stories with the same two characters Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire who live on the Spokane Indian Reservation. The title refers to the 1930’s radio show and 1950’s television show with the white cowboy hero “The Lone Ranger” and his Native American sidekick “Tonto.” A recurring issue in the book is the way Native Americans view themselves, as well as the way others understand them from depictions in popular culture.
Movie: Depicts two young Native Americans, Victor and Thomas, who are opposites. Thomas is a nerd, while Victor is strong and sometimes confrontational. When Thomas is an infant he is saved from a fire that takes the lives of his parents. Victor’s father saves Thomas, but leaves his own family when Victor is just a baby. When his father dies, Victor needs Thomas’s help to retrieve the remains of his father. The two set off on a journey of personal growth and reliance on each other.
Boyne, John. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. David Fickling Books, 2006. PZ7.B69677
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Directed by Mark Herman. Performances by Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis, and Rupert Friend. Miramax Films, 2008. PN1997.2 .B697 2011
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.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books, 2003. PS3608.O832 K58 2003
The Kite Runner. Directed by Marc Forster. Performances by Khalid Abdalla, Zekeria Ebrahimi, and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada. Dreamworks Pictures, 2008. PN1997 .K589
In a divided country on the verge of war, two childhood friends, Amir and Hassan, are about to be torn apart forever. It’s a glorious afternoon in Kabul and the skies are bursting with the exhilarating joy of a kite-fighting tournament. But in the aftermath of the day’s victory, one boy’s fearful act of betrayal will mark their lives forever and set in motion an epic quest for redemption. Now, after twenty years of living in America, Amir returns to a perilous Afghanistan under the Taliban’s iron-fisted rule to face the secrets that still haunt him and take one last daring chance to set things right.
Zusak, Marcus. The Book Thief. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. PZ7.Z837 Boo 2007
The Book Thief. Directed by Brian Percival. Performances by Sophie Nelisse, Geoffrey Rush, and Emily Watson. Fox 2000 Pictures, 2013. PN1997.2 .B66 2014
Death narrates this highly emotional story of a girl who transforms the lives of those around her during World War II, on the German homefront. Although Liesel is illiterate when she is adopted by a German couple, her adoptive father encourages her to learn to read. Ultimately, the power of words helps Liesel and Max, a Jew hiding in the family’s home.
