Modern Refugees

  • A Step from Heaven by An Na, the 2002 Printz Award winner, is an excellent book detailing the experiences of a Korean girl in the U.S.
  • Before we were free" by Julia Alvarez is about about a family that escapes to America from the Dominican Republic
  • BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS by Edwidge Danticat (Haiti),
  • BORN CONFUSED by Tanuja Desai Hidier,
  • Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
  • CUBA 15 by Nancy Osa,
  • Every Time a Rainbow Dies by Garcia-Williams
  • FINDING MY HAT by John Son (Korea). Good reviews all around--though not necessarily accessible to English language learners
  • Finding My Voice,
  • First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung.
  • FLIGHT TO FREEDOM by Ana Veciana-Suarez is an account of a family's flight from Cuba to Miami in the late 1960's to escape oppression. The diary narration about the heroine's first experiences in school, etc. makes it very realistic and as a Miamian who has heard many first-hand accounts of this type of story, I think this would really bring it home to kids in other locales. It is part of a Scholastic series called "First Person Fiction" which (quoting the jacket here) "features authors from a variety of backgrounds writing about the experience of coming to America.”
  • Fresh Girl by Placide
  • HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS
  • In Their Own Voices: Teenage Refugees Speak Out series from Rosen,
  • Laurence Yep has written a number of books which discuss the Chinese experience.  While they are mostly historical, they are still of value.
  • Lost Soldier by Bernard Ashley. An excellent look into the bewildering war-refugee experience, though set in the UK, not the US,
  • Mud City by Deborah Ellis
  • Necessary Roughness
  • Parvana’s Journey by Deborah Ellis
  • Quilted Landscape: Conversations with Young Immigrants by Strom
  • Sook Nyul  Choi's books all cover some aspects of the Korean to America experience.
  • STONE GODDESS by Minfong Ho gives an excellent look into a young Cambodian girl's refugee experience  simultaneous coming-of-age. ;The book is part of a collection of U.S. immigrant/refugee-experience novels for young adults called ;First Person Fiction; published by Orchard Books
  • The Other Side of Truth" by Beverly Naidoo. Although it is set in London, it is an eye-opening look at the psychological side of the refugee experience from the perspective of a 13 year old girl.

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