Regional diversity in books

I'm hosting a book club at my house tonight and we're talking about Ingrid Law's wonderful book SAVVY. One of the many things I love about it is that it's about a "regular" kid (albeit with a savvy!) who lives in a "regular" part of the US. Nothing against major media centers (my paternal grandparents were apparently diehard New Yorkers), but I confess to a longing for more books that take place in locations other than New York. 300 million Americans DON'T live in New York. Most kids have never taken a taxi, ridden a subway, lived next to 8 million people, had to wear a uniform to school, know what a "brownstone" is, let alone have seen one, etc. I think it's fun to experience other places through books, but I also think it's important to find your own reality reflected in books sometimes, too. I've noticed this a lot in picture books as I've lived in so many different states and seen kids utterly puzzled during a read-aloud about leaves turning colors and falling off in the fall (most trees in South Carolina are evergreens; they lose their green leaves in the spring as new ones come in). I've seen farm kids bewildered by pictures of kids crammed into high rise apartments. It's SO refreshing to find a map of Wisconsin in a picture book, or reference to the Michigan "hand," or photo illustrations of the postal system--as shown by a letter traveling from Utah to New Mexico. There's a lot of talk about diversity in books for this very reason, and I hope that with all the different kinds of diversity, some regional diversity creeps in. Something that will show that we all have different scenes out the window, but that there can be kids in New York and New Mexico who can still share the same kinds of feelings and inner experiences. So I wanted to highlight a few books that take place in a specific setting (as opposed to Anywhere, USA) that is maybe less represented in print yet in a place actual readers live.

1. Savvy, by Ingrid Law. Takes place on the border of Kansas and Nebraska, in basically a small town/rural area. No taxis or city buses here! When Mibs Beaumont's dad is in an accident, she and her brothers and some friends sneak onto the pink Heartland Bible bus and try to hitch a ride to Salina, where her dad is in the hospital. If Mibs is right about her newfound, 13th-birthday savvy, she'll be the only one who can wake him up. And if she's wrong...?

2. Ultraviolet, RJ Anderson. Takes place in the Sudbury basin of Canada. If you aren't Canadian already, how many books set in Canada have you read? Canada is a perfectly normal place where many readers live. (Actually, I somehow have a collection of books by people who live around this Sudbury basin--RJ Anderson, Erin Bow, and James Bow. There is something about that place that must make people more creative than normal...) The story: Alison gets sent to a mental hospital when a classmate, Tori, disappears and she confessed in a fit of crazy that she disintegrated her. But how is that possible? Alison sees numbers as colors and tastes if someone's lying, but that doesn't mean she can hurt people with her mind. A mysterious psychologist who tells her she has synesthesia believes she's innocent. But what is his own agenda?

3. Dairy Queen, Catherine Gilbert Murdock. Set on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. I love the small town feeling, the football rivalry with the next small town, and the fact that the hot guy around town is the son of someone who runs a car dealership and gets his boots at the big Walmart in town. Social status isn't absolute; it's a relative thing, and you can be king in a small town as easily as you can in New York, all things being relative. The story: DJ Swenk does all the work since her dad got hurt on the farm. A family friend sets up a deal where DJ helps train the other teams' quarterback in exchange for extra help on the farm. Only thing is, DJ signs up to play football, too--on her own, opposing team--and Schwenks don't talk about anything. Which makes that first game really awkward...

4. Al Capone Does My Shirts, Gennifer Choldenko. Setting: Alcatraz Island. Moose Flanagan moves there with his family so his dad can be a prison guard. And yes, Al Capone and the other prisoners do the laundry. Which is scary and exciting--and useful, because only someone like Al Capone can pull strings to get Moose's autistic sister Natalie into a special school. But there is a price for things like that...

5. Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. Setting: South Carolina, in an imaginary town near Charleston. Having lived in Charleston, I loved the details! Story: Ethan Waite's been dreaming about a girl, and then she shows up at school. Lena is part of a family of witches and when she turns 16, she'll turn into either a good or bad witch. Ethan's job is to save her from going bad.

6. Tangerine, Edward Bloor. Setting: Florida. Sinkholes, bad weather, oranges, etc. Paul and his family move to Florida, where Paul fights to play soccer and deals with his creepy older brother Erik. Meanwhile, houses fall into sinkholes.

7. Palace Beautiful, Sarah DeFord Williams. Setting: Salt Lake City. Sadie and her sister and their neighbor discover a journal in a hidden room in their house that details what happened during the 1917 flu epidemic. The girls search for the author to find out what happened.

8. Wolves, Boys, and Other Things That Might Kill Me, Kristen Chandler. Setting: West Yellowstone (even though it's called West End in the book). About a girl whose family works in Yellowstone, and the drama that the whole subject of wolves creates in the ranching west.

9. The Host, Stephenie Meyer. (Yeah, I know she has that other series that's set in a much rainier place...but you already know that one.) Setting: the Arizona desert. Story: when alien bodysnatchers take over the world, the few remaining humans hide out. But one body snatcher becomes friends with the human whose body she shares, and together they go in search of the human's family, and try to protect them.

10. The Revenant, Sonia Gensler. Setting: Talequah, Oklahoma. Who knew there was such a thing as Cherokee Gothic? I didn't. Spooky story about a girl who impersonates a teacher at a school (this is historical fiction) and finds a haunting and a mystery on her hands.

11. The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater. Setting: an Irish island, far from any populated center. I know, not American. But the book is all about why someone would fiercely love living in the middle of nowhere. About carnivorous (but very fast!) water horses that people train for races.

12. Vodnik, Bryce Moore. Setting: Slovakia. Okay, there are a ton of books about teens going to Europe. But they are nearly always from the point of view of rich foreign exchange student. This is just a regular American kid who moves there and really lives there. Having lived in Chile for a year and a half and Germany for four years, I loved how much realer and more accurate it felt than the 20-countries-in-14-days sort of books. Story: Tomas keeps seeing all these weird mythical creatures who want to reap his cousin. His parents moved to the States when he was five to protect him--but now that they're back in Slovakia, can he survive?

What about you? What are some of your favorite books that take place in a literarily underrepresented part of the US or world?