The works listed will allow your students to further explore the theme of Pursuing the American Dream Against Difficult Odds and other themes related to A Raisin in the Sun:


Fiction
Arnow, Harriet. The Dollmaker. New York: Avon, 1976. This novel, about a Kentucky woman who dreams of buying her own farm, recounts her struggles when her family is uprooted and moves to Detroit. (average)

Haley, Alex. Roots: The Saga of an American Family. New York: Doubleday, 1976. This is a partially fictionalized story of Haley's family--from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom. (average)

Marshall, Paule. Brown Girl, Brownstones. New York: Feminist Press, 1981. The coming-of-age story of the daughter of immigrants from Barbados, caught between her mother's desire to buy a house and her father's desire to return to his homeland. (average)


Nonfiction
Baldwin, James. The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985. New York: St. Martin's, 1985. Baldwin's insightful collections of essays about race, literature, and other matters in one volume. (challenge)

Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land. New York: McKay, 1992. This best-selling book explores the migration of African Americans from the South to the North and the Midwest. (average)

Murray, Pauli. Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family. New York: Harper, 1978. The biography of the author's extraordinary grandparents, who helped establish schools for African-Americans in Virginia and North Carolina after the Civil War. (average)