The works listed will allow your students to further explore the theme of Finding Your Identity and other themes related to Taking Sides:


Fiction
Soto, Gary. Baseball in April and Other Stories. 1990. The eleven short stories in this award-winning collection tell about Mexican-American boys and girls growing up in a contemporary California barrio.

Soto, Gary. Pacific Crossing. 1992. In this sequel to Taking Sides, Lincoln Mendoza and his best friend Tony travel to Japan as exchange students who share their own customs and learn to appreciate those of their hosts.

Beatty, Patricia. Lupita Manana. New York: Morrow, 1981. This book depicts the dangers and challenges of immigration for Lupita and her brother as well as their struggle to assimilate in order to survive in the United States. (average)

Brooks, Bruce. The Moves Make the Man. New York: HarperCollins, 1984. When courts order his school desegregated, 13-year-old Jerome finds himself the only African American in an all-white middle school. (challenge)

Yep, Laurence. Sea Glass. New York: HarperCollins, 1979. Searching for his own identity, 13-year-old Craig Chen has just moved from San Francisco's Chinatown to the town of Concepcion, where he doesn't quite fit in. (average)


Nonfiction
Bode, Janet. New Kids on the Block: Oral Histories of Immigrant Teens. Danbury, CT: Watts, 1989. In interviews with eleven teenagers, the author examines the many issues confronting new immigrants to the United States. (average)

Horrigan, Kevin. Right Kinds of Heroes: Coach Bob Shannon and the East St. Louis Flyers. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin, 1992. The kids come from one of the toughest, most dangerous, and poorest cities in America, but the right kind of coach teaches them values on the football field and sends dozens of them to college on scholarships. (challenge)

Uchida, Yoshiko. Invisible Thread. New York: Morrow. 1995. The author tells about her experiences growing up in Berkeley, California, as a second-generation Japanese American and of her family's experiences during World War II in internment camps. (average)