The Joy Luck Club By Amy Tam (Grades 10+)

Born to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. When she returned home from her first trip to China, she learned that she had received several offers based on her submission of three short stories, which turned into The Joy Luck Club. Four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined.