A Northern Light

A Northern Light is a story of a girl's search for identity and independence, complicated by the demands of family and financial struggle.

Mattie is faced with how to live her dreams without feeling as though she is betraying her family.
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a timeless classic as well as one of the best coming of age stories of all time.

Set in the early 1900's, the story follows the hardships as well as the achievements of the Nolan family.
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Ada, Legend of a Healer

This Book is a poignant representation of American culture in the twenty-first century, a story of compassion and the unconquerable power of the human will.

Ada has spent her life shutting people out, but now, with the power to heal the stakes are much higher. What was once a life unnoticed, has turned into a life stalked by those who want to control her. Read More

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is an incredible example of the strength of the human will but also the tenderness of the human spirit.

Jane is an orphan sentenced to the lower class of society because of her loss. She grows beyond society's judgment into a sensitive woman not afraid of life's challenges.
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Young Fu

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze is a story of unbearable pressure and struggle but also of the adaptable nature of youth and the importance of sound character. Forced away from the quiet solitude of his family's farm, Young Fu is thrust into the fast, and sometimes cut-throat, pace of city life where he'll be faced with hard choices that will eventually define the man he'll become.
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Huck Finn

Huckleberry Finn tells the story of societal conditioning and the struggle of a young boy who's determined to do what feels right in his heart.

Huck is faced with a choice, to help a good friend or turn his back on a man that society has judged a slave.
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The Giver

Jonas lives in the perfect society, no crime, no financial woes, no suffering, but at what cost? His new job, which was chosen for him by officials, will open a vault of secrets that will certainly bring into focus what he's never questioned: what's the price of a "perfect" society? Read More

The Joy Luck Club

A The Joy Luck Club is a mesmerizing story of mothers and daughters filling in the gaps of misunderstanding that built up over years of high hopes and unreasonable expectations.
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The Hobbit

A day well spent for a hobbit is good food, a cozy fire and a full pipe, all in the safe confines of home. Bilbo's comfortable existence is interrupted by a visit from a wizard who wants Bilbo to leave behind all he knows for a mysterious adventure.
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Catcher In The Rye

Everyone expects Holden Caulfield to know what he wants to do with his life, but at sixteen what Holden wants to do is the opposite of what everyone thinks he should. Heading home after being kicked out of school, Holden sets out on a downward spiral of bad choices. Will he find his way?
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The Outsiders

Ponyboy and his gang, the Greasers, have spent their whole lives silently accepting their place at the bottom of society's ladder. But, will they be able to remain silent when a gang of rich kids, the Socs, threaten to beat up any "greaser" they come across?
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Homeless Bird

Koly fears that if her husband, of a pre-arranged marriage, dies she will be unwanted and even worse cast out of society in India. She can't go back to her own family and her husband's family will only see her as a burden. Why should one person's value be based on another's?
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Time of the Doves

In Spain during the civil war, a young girl named Natalia stumbles onto her path in life, learning that despair, loss, and sorrow are, at times, the painful ingredients in self discovery. But, along this dark and troubled road is where her true character begins to bloom.
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Swann's Way

Marcel Proust beautifully captures life through the eyes of a young boy growing up in French society during the late 19th century. The narrator describes his thoughts and feelings on the parental injustices and naive confusion of coming of age.
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The Red Tent

The Red Tent is the story of Dinah, a biblical figure from The Book of Genesis. Dinah is barely mentioned in the bible, but Anita Diamant masterfully weaves a story that brings her to life along with a richly detailed vision of what life was like for women during the biblical times.
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The Lord Of The Flies

A powerfully written, but disturbing example of the wicked nature that lingers just under the surface of humanity. What would become of a group of boys stranded on an uninhabited island?
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Children of the Arbat

This book follows the lives of a circle of young friends coming of age in Russia during the reign of Stalin. Anatoli Rybakov masterfully describes the psychological destruction inflicted on a generation subjected to Stalin's oppressive governing through fear.
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Coming of Age Books

Page 4

Watch The Trailer

Title:

The Graveyard Book

Author:

Neil Gaiman

Publisher:

HarperCollins; Reprint edition

Page Count:

336

ISBN #:

0060530928

Website:

www.NeilGaiman.com

Publication Date:

September 28, 2010

Title:

The Joy Luck Club

Author:

Amy Tan

Publisher:

Penguin (Non-Classics) (September 21, 2006)

Page Count:

288

ISBN #:

0143038095

Website:

www.AmyTan.net

Publication Date:

1989

Description from back of book (Penguin):
In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club.

Thoughts:
The Joy Luck Club follows the lives of four Chinese women and their American daughters. Amy Tan masterfully depicts the clash of culture that can occur between immigrant parents and first generation offspring. Each mother saw the importance of their daughters fully immersing in the new culture, but they also tried to teach important values from the culture they grew up in. The daughters had a difficult time connecting with values from a country they had no personal vision of. The divide that developed between the mothers and daughters was purely a divide of misunderstanding. Good intentions and hope for happy futures were the passions of the mothers that turned into fear and uncertainty for the daughters. At one point Waverly accuses her mother, Lindo, of not liking her American fiancé because of secret meaning she feels is behind every word her mother says. When confronted with the accusation that everything she says has secret judgmental meaning, Lindo is shocked that her daughter could think she's such a bad person. It's these misunderstandings that create a barrier between mother and daughter.

A question that came to mind while reading The Joy Luck Club:
Are we so conditioned by our culture that we are more culture than individual?

Favorite quote:
"On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores."
--Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Read Little Women

Title:

Little Women

Author:

Louisa May Alcott

Publisher:

Oxford University Press, USA (March 15, 2009)

Page Count:

530

ISBN #:

0199538115

Website:

Publication Date:

1868,1869

Title:

My Sweet Audrina

Author:

V.C. Andrews

Publisher:

Simon Pulse (May 24, 2011)

Page Count:

464

ISBN #:

1442420189

Website:

Publication Date:

1982

Title:

The Secret Life of Bees

Author:

Sue Monk Kidd

Publisher:

Penguin

Page Count:

336

ISBN #:

0143114557

Website:

Publication Date:

2002

Read A Tale of Two Cities

Title:

A Tale of Two Cities

Author:

Charles Dickens

Publisher:

Random House UK

Page Count:

448

ISBN #:

0099511851

Website:

Publication Date:

1859

Page 5

Coming Of Age Books