OK, so I started to babble about some cool African texts in Alan's last post but I wanted to share this review from Entertainment Weekly about Say You're One of Them - I did not read it but passed the review on to one of the teachers at my school, she got the book and said it lived up to the hype and then some.
Also on a related note - I thought that this short film nominated for an Academy Award in 2006 called "Binta & The Great Idea" is extremely teachable and notable for the profound reversal that closes the short.