The works listed will allow your students to further explore the theme of Self-Reliance and other themes related to So Far From the Bamboo Grove:


Fiction
Guest, Lynn. Sword of Hachimon. New York: McGraw Hill, 1981. In this historical novel set in 12th-century Japan, the younger brother of a powerful, but corrupt, military leader fights for justice. (average)

Houston, Jean Wakatsuki, and James D. Houston. Farewell to Manzanar. New York: Bantam, 1973. During World War II, a Japanese-American family endures years of internment in a "relocation camp." (average)

Mori, Kyoko. Shizuko's Daughter. New York: Ballantine, 1994. A Japanese girl, devastated after her mother's suicide and her father's remarriage, must mature quickly and find her own inner strength. (average)


Nonfiction
Choi, Sook Nool. Year of Impossible Goodbyes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. This memoir follows the struggles of a northern Korean girl at the end of World War II, when the Japanese occupation of Korea gives way to invasion by the Soviet Union. (average)

Filipovic, Zlata. Zlata's Diary. New York: Scholastic, 1994. A 13-year-old Sarajevo girl records her feelings and experiences as her life is changed forever by the war in Bosnia in the 1990s. (easy)

Hautzig, Esther Rudomin. The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. A Polish girl and her family need strength and ingenuity to cope with exile in Siberia during World War II. (average)