"This work is based on Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, copyright © 2020 by Isabel Wilkerson. Originally published in hardcover by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC"-- In this young adult adaptation of the Oprah Book Club selection and New York Times bestselling nonfiction work, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson explores the unspoken hierarchies that divide us across lines of race and class. Revealing...

1870s India. In a tiny village where society is ruled by a caste system and women are defined solely by marriage, young Biren Roy dreams of forging a new destiny. When his mother suffers the fate of widowhood--shunned by her loved ones and forced to live in solitary penance--Biren devotes his life to effecting change. Just when his vision for the future begins to look hopeless, he meets Maya, the independent-minded daughter of a local educator, and...

A young woman starting out on her own falls hopelessly in love with two men while on a dangerous path to leadership. Promising is the riveting follow-up to Awakening by Rebel Miller. Faced with diverging loyalties -- between those she loves and her responsibility to the Realm -- Kira has to make heartrending and strategic decisions that threaten to jeopardize her future. As her connection to Tai deepens and turmoil in the Realm builds, so does Gannon's...

Roshan Mehra is living in the United States along with his Muslim mom and Hindu dad. When his ailing grandmother, Annapurna, wants to move back to Delhi to spend her last days, Roshan accompanies her. Upon arrival, they are greeted by Ali Beg who secretly loves Roshan's mom. He also gets to meet the Sharma family. He sees that lower caste Indians are still being shunned despite modern technology and the launching of satellites. When reports of a Kala...

Four lives intersect along the Ganges: a low caste boy hopelessly in love, a daughter ridden with guilt of a sexual encounter ending in a tragedy, a hapless father with fading morality, and a spirited child yearning for a family, long to escape the moral constructs of a small town.

The eldest of seven children born low-caste in rural India, Mamta is abused and rejected by a father who can see no reason to "water someone else's garden" until a husband is found for her. Seeking escape in matrimony, Mamta is soon forced to flee her village and the horrors of her arranged marriage to the bustle of a small city, where she struggles to find a precarious state of acceptance and make peace with her past.

Saroja and Kumaresan, a young married couple, return to Kumaresan's family village where they hope to build a happy life. But they have a dangerous secret: Saroja is from a different caste than Kumaresan, and if the villagers find out, they will both be in danger. Will they--and their marriage--survive?

The first volume of Osamu Tezuka's fictional biography of Siddhartha, Gautama Buddha. Introduces Chapra, a slave boy who tries to escape his fate; Chapra's slave mother, who sticks by him no matter what; Tatta, a crazed wild child pariah who communes with animals; and Naradatta, a monk attempting to decipher strange portents of the Buddha's birth.

This second volume of the fictional biography of Siddhartha, Gautama Buddha, covers his upbringing and early manhood. Unhappy with the injustice of the caste system, the prince leaves his life of luxury to find a way to fight it. He marries and fathers a child, but unable to live in his luxurious palace, he cuts off his hair and departs into the wilderness to become a monk.