Recommended Reading Includes Transgender Idenity and Illegal Immigration

New list of 7,800 recommended reads includes some controversy.

The state-recommended reading list for California public school students will include the classics -- and some new titles about transgender identity and coming to America as an illegal immigrant.

The California Department of Education's newly-released list of recommended reading for kindergarten through high school students includes for the first time books recommended by the Stonewall Book Awards, which recognizes LGBT literature, according to the Los Angeles News Group.

These are not mandated reads: there are more books on the "Recommended Literature: Pre-Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve" that most people could read in several liftetimes, 7,800 books in all.

But for the first time they include tomes like "De Donde?", which examines why people come to the United States in violation of immigration laws, and "I am J," which is a book about transgender teens, the newspaper reported.

LGBT and same-sex marriage advocacy groups praised the list -- and family-values groups blasted it, according to reports.

The reading list is seen as "liberal," the newspaper reported, and "promoting alternative lifestyles."

"The reading lists are very overtly propagating a point of view that is at odds with most American parents," said Sandy Rios, who hosts a radio show on American Family Radio. "Leftist educators are advocates of everything from socialism to sexual anarchy. It's very base; it's raping the innocence of our children. "

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