Copper Sun by Sharon Draper

1. Copper Sunby Sharon Draper Grand and sweeping in scope, detailed and penetrating, Copper Sun's unflinching and unforgettable look at the African slave trade and slavery in America will have the impact on young readers that Alex Haley's Roots had on the previous generation.

2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee • Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice. • Instantly successful, TKAM won the Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

3. William Shakespeare’sRomeo and Juliet Arguably Shakespeare's most famous play begins with a Prologue which establishes that this play will be a tragedy and that the children of two feuding families, Romeo of the Montague family and Juliet of the Capulet family, will both love and die in the course of this play...

4. A Raisin in the Sunby Lorraine Hansberry • Another Pulitzer Prize winner, Raisin tells the story of a lower-class black family's struggle to gain middle-class acceptance. A substantial insurance payment could mean either financial salvation or personal ruin for a poor black family.