Best Books For Kids Between Cultures

When I do school visits, I tell tales from my ancient past because I'm coming to see that this generation of young people is starved for the stories of older survivors. They've had no equivalent of the village gathering around a fire to recount fearsome accounts of fighting off lions. Most don't live near extended family, so they don't get to relax on front porches with icy glasses of lemonade to laugh with uncles or grandmothers recalling younger versions of themselves back in the day.

The film Freedom Writers beautifully depicts the power of memoir as urban teens separated by ethnic rivalries responded to Anne Frank's diary entries. That's why I want to recommend Left To Tell, Immaculee Ilibagiza's memoir of survival and devastation during the Rwandan holocaust in 1994.

The power of this starkly honest story is that it doesn't leave the reader fearful and devastated. As Immaculee's tender, tough voice recounts her suffering, teens will realize that they, too, can confront and endure evil without succumbing to it. In a culture where vengeance, violence, and suffering can devastate a high school or middle school community, and where lifestyles of self-indulgence and entitlement are flaunted and celebrated, teens need true stories of forgiveness, sacrifice, courage, and survival. Show your high schoolers the movie Hotel Rwanda. Get them a copy of Deogratias by J.P. Stassen. And let them read this story that Imaculee believes she was Left To Tell.


The Fire Escape Featured Review
	Left to Tell by Imaculee Ilibagiza	When I do school visits, I tell tales from my ancient past because I'm coming to see that this generation of young people is starved for the stories of older survivors. They've had no equivalent of the village gathering around a fire to recount fearsome accounts of fighting off lions. Most don't live near extended family, so they don't get to relax on front porches with icy glasses of lemonade to laugh with uncles or grandmothers recalling younger versions of themselves back in the day. The film Freedom Writers beautifully depicts the power of memoir as urban teens separated by ethnic rivalries responded to Anne Frank's diary entries. That's why I want to recommend Left To Tell, Immaculee Ilibagiza's memoir of survival and devastation during the Rwandan holocaust in 1994. The power of this starkly honest story is that it doesn't leave the reader fearful and devastated. As Immaculee's tender, tough voice recounts her suffering, teens will realize that they, too, can confront and endure evil without succumbing to it. In a culture where vengeance, violence, and suffering can devastate a high school or middle school community, and where lifestyles of self-indulgence and entitlement are flaunted and celebrated, teens need true stories of forgiveness, sacrifice, courage, and survival. Show your high schoolers the movie Hotel Rwanda. Get them a copy of Deogratias by J.P. Stassen. And let them read this story that Imaculee believes she was Left To Tell.
	Join Books Between Cultures to receive periodic reviews and updates of books between cultures. If you want a book reviewed, please send an e-mail describing the book to info-at-mitaliperkins.com. I will forward you an address where you can mail a review copy, and if the book merits review, I will feature it on the Fire Escape. Thanks for your interest in books about kids between cultures! Download a .pdf file of the lists below Download a .doc file of the lists below back to top Excellent Picture Books Between Cultures Here are my own lists of the BEST picture books about life between cultures. Enjoy, and if you have any favorites of your own, please let me know by sending an e-mail to info@mitaliperkins.com, and I'll consider adding them to this list. For updates on new books, join the Yahoo group, Books Between Cultures, to post and receive news, updates, and reviews on books about immigrants. Don't forget to read my latest review about a highly-recommended book between cultures. Go to a list of books about immigrants for middle readers or young adults. (Click on the titles to find out more at Amazon.com) Argueta, Jorge, Xochitl and the Flowers/Xochitl, la Niña de las Flores, Children's Book Press, 2003. In this English/Spanish bilingual story, a girl misses her friends, family and garden after she moves from El Salvador to San Francisco. Broyles. Anne, Shy Mama’s Halloween, Tilbury 2002. For Anya, Dasha, Irina, and Dimitrii, newly arrived from Russia, Halloween is their first sense of belonging in their new country. For Mama, it is a much greater step out into a new world, led by her children. Cheng, Andrea, Goldfish and Chrysanthemums, Lee and Low, 2003. A Chinese American girl puts her goldfish into a fish pond that she creates and borders with chrysanthemums in order to remind her grandmother of the fish pond she had back in China. Edmonds, Lyra, An African Princess, Candlewick, 2004. Lyra says she is an African princess, even though she lives on the tenth floor of an apartment building and her dad is white. Then she travels to the far-off savanna where Mama played as a child, and meets Taunte May. Friedman, Ina R., How My Parents Learned to Eat, Houghton Mifflin, 1984. An American sailor courts a Japanese girl and each tries in secret to learn how the other eats. Garland, Sherri, The Lotus Seed, Harcourt, 1993. A nameless Vietnamese narrator tells of her grandmother who keeps a seed with her through war and flight until one summer a grandson (the narrator's brother) steals it and plants it in a mud pool near the family's American home. Gray, Nigel, A Balloon for Grandad, Orchard Books, 1988. Unhappy when he loses his silver and red balloon, Sam is comforted by imagining it on its way to visit his grandfather Abdulla in Egypt. Gilmore, Rachna, Lights for Gita, Roses for Gita, and A Gift for Gita, Tilbury House, 1999, 2000, 2001. Gita misses India very much, but by the third book, she is feeling at home in Canada and doesn't want to move back to India even though her father is offered a job promotion there. Herald, Maggie Rudd, A Very Important Day, Morrow, 1995. 219 people from 32 countries make their way to downtown New York in a snowstorm to be sworn in as United States citizens. Herrera, Juan Felipe, Super Cilantro Girl, Children's Book Press, 2003. Esmeralda, eight, worries when her mother does not return home. Having crossed the border to Tijuana, Mama is being detained because she does not have a green card. Hoffman, Mary, The Color of Home, Dial Books for Young Readers, 2002. Hassan, a recent immigrant from Somalia, is homesick on his first day of school in America. When the teacher distributes art supplies, Hassan discovers a way to communicate. Krishnaswami, Uma, Chachaji's Cup, Children's Book Press, 2003. An Indian-American boy understands the effect of the 1947 partitioning of India and Pakistan on his grandfather's life. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Krishnaswami, Uma, Bringing Asha Home, Lee & Low, 2006. A brother waits eagerly for the arrival of his new baby sister from India. Kurtz, Jane, In the Small, Small Night, Amistad, 2005. Abena’s younger brother Kofi can't sleep, afraid that a giant mampan lizard has followed him to America and that he will forget the grandmother and cousins he left in Ghana. Abena comforts him with two Ashanti tales. Lee, Milly, Landed, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2006. Sun, 12, must prove that he’s his father's true son as he tries to immigrate to America. Detained on Angel Island, he’s interrogated for a month, and befriends two "paper sons" who have made up identities to get into the country. Levine, Ellen, I Hate English! Scholastic, 1989. When her family moves from Hong Kong to New York, Mei Mei finds it difficult to learn the alien sounds of English. Lin, Grace, The Ugly Vegetables, Charlesbridge, 1999. A little girl thinks her mother's garden is the ugliest in the neighborhood until she discovers that flowers might look and smell pretty but Chinese vegetable soup smells best of all. Mochizuki, Ken, Baseball Saved Us, Lee and Low, 1993. The narrator and his family inhabit a camp in the parched American desert, where life becomes a bit more bearable after the internees build a baseball field, and the boy gains self-worth by hitting a championship home run. Molnar-Fenton, Stephan, An Mei's Strange and Wondrous Journey, DK Ink, 1998. Six-year-old An Mei tells the story of how she was born in China and came to live in America. Nye, Naomi Shihab, Sitti’s Secrets, Simon & Schuster, 1994. When Mona travels from her home in the U.S. to visit her grandmother's small Palestinian village on the West Bank, she must rely on her father to translate at first, but soon she and Sitti are communicating perfectly. Pak, Soyung, A Place to Grow, Scholastic, 2002. A father explains to his Korean-American daughter that just as a seed must travel through the wind to find the perfect place for planting, so must a family sometimes journey across continents to find a place to call home. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Park, Frances, The Have a Good Day Café, Lee and Low, 2005. Mike loves his grandma dearly, but he's saddened by her constant yearning for her homeland of Korea. Together, they set up a food cart on a busy park corner. Pomeranc, Marion Hess, The American Wei, Whitman, 1998. When Wei Fong loses his first tooth while going to his family's naturalization ceremony, many soon-to-be Americans join in the search. Recorvits, Helen, My Name is Yoon, Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 2003. Yoon, or "Shining Wisdom," decides that her name looks much happier written in Korean than in English. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Russell, Barbara Timberlake, The Remembering Stone, FSG/Melanie Kroupa Books, 2004. Ana, a girl who dreams of traveling to visit her grandparents in Costa Rica, is nonetheless carving out a new community for herself in the neighborhood. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Say, Allen, Emma's Rug, Houghton Mifflin, 1996. A young artist finds that her creativity comes from within when the rug that she had always relied upon for inspiration is destroyed. Say, Allen, Grandfather's Journey, Houghton Mifflin, 1993. A Japanese American man recounts his grandfather's journey to America which he later also undertakes, and the feelings of being torn by a love for two different countries. Shin, Sun Yung, Cooper's Lesson, Children's Book Press, 2004. Cooper, who has a Korean mother and a white, American father, is called "half and half" by his cousin. When he goes to the Korean grocery, he can't understand Mr. Lee, the owner, and shoplifts a brush for his mother. Surat, Michele, Angel Child, Dragon Child, Raintree/Steck Vaughn, 1987. A Vietnamese girl in America lonely for her mother left behind in Vietnam makes a new friend. Thomas, Eliza, The Red Blanket, Scholastic, 2004. A Chinese infant, PanPan, is upset by the changes in her young life when she is adopted, and the dazzling red blanket is the only comfort she finds on that first day. Wahl, Jan, Candy Shop, Charlesbridge, 2004. An African-American boy reacts to an act of prejudice he witnesses at his favorite store owned by a Taiwanese woman. Wang, Jan Peng, A Song for Ba, Groundwood Books, 2004. In the 1920s, a boy's father sings for a North American Chinese opera company that falls on hard times. Wells, Rosemary, Yoko, Hyperion, 1998. It is Yoko's first day at school, so mother sends her off with healthy comfort food for lunch — a delectable package of homemade sushi. But when Yoko opens her cooler, one of her classmates announces, "Ick. It's green. It's seaweed." Zeifert, Harriet, Home for Navidad, Houghton Mifflin, 2003. Rosa, 10, hasn't seen her mother since Mama left their Mexican village to work in New York three years ago. Now Mama is saving for a one-way ticket home, and Rosa dreams the family will be together for Navidad. To submit more books to this list, please send an e-mail to bestbooks@mitaliperkins.com. For updates on new books, join Books Between Cultures. back to top Excellent Books Between Cultures for Middle Readers Here are my own lists of the BEST books for tweens about life between cultures. Enjoy, and if you have any favorites of your own, please let me know by sending an e-mail to bestbooks@mitaliperkins.com, and I'll consider adding them to this list. For updates on new books, join the Yahoo group, Books Between Cultures, to post and receive news, updates, and reviews on books about immigrants. Don't forget to read my latest review about a highly-recommended book between cultures. Go to a list of books about immigrants for picture books or young adults. (Click on the titles to find out more at Amazon.com) Baillie, Allan, Little Brother, Viking Press, 1992. Vithy is separated from his older brother as they flee from Cambodia to Thailand. He must use his own wits and resources to survive. Banerjee, Anjali, Maya Running, Wendy Lamb Books, Random House. It is 1978 in Manitoba, Canada, and 13-year-old Maya walks a fine line between wanting to fit in and being curious about her Indian heritage. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Brown, Jackie, Little Cricket, Hyperion, 2004. When North Vietnamese soldiers destroy 12-year-old Kia's peaceful Hmong farming village, Kia's father disappears, and the rest of the family makes the dangerous escape through the Laotian jungle to a refugee camp in Thailand before emigrating to America. Canales, Viola, The Tequila Worm, Random House/Wendy Lamb Books, 2005. Sofia is offered a scholarship to the elite Saint Luke’s school in Austin. Now she must convince her Mexican-American family and herself that she is up to the challenge. Cheng, Andrea, The Key Collection, Henry Holt, 2003. A ten-year-old boy in the Midwest misses his Chinese grandmother, who always lived next door until her health caused her to move. Dhami, Narinder, Bindi Babes, Random House, 2004. Three fun-loving Indian girls growing up in the U.K. grieve the loss of their mother and grapple with the consequences of having an elderly Auntie live with them. Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas, We Are Americans: Voice of the Immigrant Experience, Scholastic, 2003. Non-fiction resource that traces the immigrant experience in America. Read the Fire Escape's review! Jimenez, Francisco, The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child, University of New Mexico Press, 1997. The true story of Francisco's family and their dream to stay in the United States. Kadohata, Cynthia, Weedflower, Atheneum, 2006. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko and her family are shipped to an internment camp in the desert. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend -- if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the camp is on his tribe's land. Kadohata, Cynthia, Kira Kira, Atheneum, 2004. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's her sister who explains why people stop them on the street to stare. But when Lynn becomes ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them that there is always something glittering -- kira-kira -- in the future. Read the Fire Escape's review! Kidd, Diana, Onion Tears, Orchard, 1989. Nam-Huong, ayoung Vietnam ese refugee who has found a new home in Australia with a kindly restaurateur, is unable to laugh, cry or verbalize her feelings to others. Krishnaswami, Uma, Naming Maya, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2004. An Indian-American girl with divorced parents learns about herself and her extended family during a summer in India. Lee, Marie G, If It Hadn't Been for Yoon Jun, Avon Books, 1995. When Alice’s Korean-American father insists that she befriends Yoon Jun, a geeky-looking Korean kid who's just come to America, she gets upset. Lin, Grace, Year of the Dog, Little Brown, 2006. Grace and her two sisters are the only Taiwanese-American children at school until Melody arrives. Look, Lenore, Ruby Lu, Brave and True, Simon and Schuster, 2004. Eight-year-old Ruby musters up courage to attend Chinese school; confronts mean Christina from California; and has to share her bedroom with a cousin, Flying Duck, who is moving from China. Look, Lenore, Empress of Everything, Atheneum/Anne Schwartz Books, 2006. After Flying Duck arrives, no one speaks English at home, there's strange food on the table and only chopsticks to eat it with, and Ruby doesn't know any Chinese Sign Language. Lombard, Jenny, Drita My Homegirl, Putnam, 2006. Drita and her family come to New York as refugees from war-torn Kosovo. Even though she barely speaks English, Drita can’t wait to start school. But her new classmates don’t make it easy, and the worst is Maxie, a tough African-American girl whose sassy attitude hides a painful secret. Lord, Bette Bao, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, Cornerstone Books, 1990. In 1947, a Chinese child comes to Brooklyn where she learns to love baseball. Lupica, Mike, Heat, Philomel, 2006. Newly orphaned after his father led the family's escape from Cuba, Michael has no birth certificate and no one to watch out for him except his older brother Carlos. Until someone questions how a 12-year-old boy can possibly throw a baseball with so much heat. Marsden, Carolyn, The Gold-Threaded Dress, Candlewick, 2002. Fourth grader Oy, a Thai-American student new to a predominantly Mexican-American school, struggles to fit in with the popular clique of girls. Read the Fire Escape's review! Mead, Alice, Swimming to America, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Eighth-grader Linda Berati is drawn to Ramón, a Cuban refugee, as she explores her own mother’s escape from Albania. Mochizuki, Ken. Heroes, Lee & Low, 1995. Donnie, whose playmates insist he be the "bad guy" in their war games, calls on his reluctant father and uncle, veterans of the Korean War, to help him get away from that role. Namioka, Lensey, Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear, Little Brown, 1994. Yang, a recent immigrant from China, is musically untalented but is expected to give a violin performance to help his father get students. Nye, Naomi Shihab, Habibi, Simon & Schuster, 1997. 14-year-old Liyana's doctor father, a native Palestinian, decides to move his family back to Jerusalem from St. Louis. Park, Linda Sue, Project Mulberry, Clarion, 2005. When Julia Song moves to Plainfield, IL, where they are the only Korean family in town, she and her neighbor Patrick plan a state fair project on raising silkworms. Perkins, Mitali, The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen, Little Brown, 2005. Sunita, a California eighth-grader, finds her entire life turned upside-down when her grandparents visit for a year from India. Ryan, Pam Muñoz, Esperanza Rising, Scholastic, 2000. Pampered thirteen-year-old Esperanza and her mother are forced to flee Mexico for a California migrant-worker camp. Read the Fire Escape's review! Ryan, Pam Muñoz, Becoming Naomi León, Scholastic, 2004. Naomi, and Owen are happy at Avocado Acres Trailer Rancho until the day the children's mother arrives. With Gran and their neighbors, they head to Mexico to look for the children's biological father, a well-known wood-carver. Shea, Pegi Deitz, Tangled Threads: A Hmong Girl's Story, Clarion, 2003. Thirteen-year-old Laotian Mai Yang and her grandmother survive the war that killed Mai's parents and 10 years in a Thai camp for Hmong refugees before settling in Rhode Island. Sheth, Kashmira, Blue Jasmine, Hyperion, 2004. When 12-year-old Seema moves with her parents and younger sister from India to Iowa City, she must leave her grandparents, extended family, and, most distressingly, her cousin Raju, who has been like a brother to her. Soto, Gary, Taking Sides, Harcourt, 1991. Lincoln Mendoza leaves his Hispanic American neighborhood and moves to the suburbs. Taylor, Sidney, All-of-a-Kind-of-Family books. A Jewish family celebrates immigrant life in New York. Uchida, Yoshiko, Journey to Topaz, Jar of Dreams, Journey Home, The Best Bad Thing, The Invisible Thread. Stories about Japanese-American families during WWII. Warren, Andrea, Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy, Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 2004. Relays the true story of a boy who escapes from Vietnam to start a new life in the U.S. Williams, Mary, Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Lee and Low, 2005. Driven from his village home by the soldiers, 8-year-old Garang treks with other boys nearly 1,000 miles across the border, first to Ethiopia, later to Kenya, and then to America. To submit more books to this list, please send an e-mail to bestbooks@mitaliperkins.com. For updates on new books, join Books Between Cultures. back to top Excellent Books For Young Adults Between Cultures Here are my own lists of the BEST teen books about life between cultures. Enjoy, and if you have any favorites of your own, please let me know by sending an e-mail to bestbooks@mitaliperkins.com, and I'll consider adding them to this list. For updates on new books, join the Yahoo group, Books Between Cultures, to post and receive news, updates, and reviews on books about immigrants. Don't forget to read my latest review about a highly-recommended book between cultures. Go to a list of books about immigrants for picture books or middle readers. (Click on the titles to find out more at Amazon.com) Alvarez, Julia, Before We Were Free, Knopf, 2002. Twelve-year-old Anita isn’t aware of the growing menace in the Dominican Republic until her relatives have fled to America and a fleet of black Volkswagens brings the secret police to the family compound to search their houses. Budhos, Marina, Ask Me No Questions, Atheneum, 2006. Nadira, 14, leaves Bangladesh with her family on a tourist visa to America, and they stay long after the visa expires. Their illegal status is discovered, however, following 9/11, when immigration regulations are tightened. Carlson, Lori, American Eyes: New Asian American Short Stories for Young Adults, Econo-Clad, 1999. Ten young Asian-Americans re-create the conflicts that all young people feel living in two distinct worlds. Chambers, Veronica, Marisol and Magdelena: The Sound of Our Sisterhood, Hyperion, 2001. When Marisol's mother sends her to live in Panama with her abuela, the move puts Marisol's American values to the test, and also tests her friendship with Magdalena. Chambers, Veronica, Quinceañera Means Sweet 15, Hyperion 2002. Marisol and Magdalena are making plans for their fifteenth birthdays, but quinceañeras are expensive, and Marisol's mother doesn't know if she can afford a party. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Chen Headley, Justina, Nothing But The Truth (And A Few White Lies), Little Brown, 2006. Hapa (Half Asian and half white) Patty Ho has never felt completely at home in her skin. When a Chinese fortuneteller divines a white guy on her horizon, her mom freaks out and ships her off to math camp at Stanford. Clarke, Judith, Kalpana’s Dream, Front Street 2005. Neema, half Indian, half Australian, is dealing with a visit from her great-grandmother, Nani, who speaks only Hindi, and her unsettling feelings for a skateboarder named Gull Owens, with whom Nani has her own relationship. Crew, Linda, Children of the River, Random House, 1994. Sundara flees Cambodia with her aunt's family, leaving her own family behind for Oregon. As a Khmer, she’s not allowed to date or even be alone with a boy; her marriage will be arranged. Danticat, Edwidge, Behind the Mountains, Scholastic First Person Fiction, 2003. Leaving her home in rural Haiti, Celiane Espérance and her mother are reunited with her father in Brooklyn. Read the Fire Escape's Review! De La Cruz, Melissa, Fresh Off The Boat, HarperCollins, 2005. Vicenza Arambullo, 14, is a recent immigrant to San Francisco from Manila, where her family was wealthy. On scholarship, she now attends a private girls’ school where she is an outcast. Deng, Alphonsion, Deng, Benson, Ajak, Benjamin, Berstein, Judy, They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys From Sudan, PublicAffairs, 2005. The Deng brothers and their cousin Benjamin were not yet seven when they fled their Dinka villages for Kenya during the Sudanese civil war, and moved to American in 2001. Desai Hidier, Tanuja, Born Confused, Push/Scholastic, 2002. Dimple Lala, an aspiring 17-year-old Indian-American photographer living in New Jersey, struggles to balance two cultures at home and in the South Asian club scene without falling apart. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Gallo, Don, First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants, Candlewick, 2004. The teen immigrants featured in this short story collection come from countries like Cambodia, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Palestine, and South Korea. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Gaskins, Pearl Fuyo, What Are You? Voices of Mixed-Race Young People, Henry Holt and Co., 1999. In essay, interview, and poetry, 45 mixed-race young people between the ages of 14 and 26, from all over the U.S., speak about their growing up. Guy, Rosa, The Friends, 1973. Rejected by her classmates because she "talks funny," Phyllisia Cathy, a West Indian girl, is forced to become friends with poor, frazzled Edith, the only one who will accept her. Ho, Minfong, The Stone Goddess, Orchard, 2003. Nakri Sokha suffers under the Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia. After the Vietnamese army liberates Cambodia, Nakri returns to her mother's village, where they decide to seek refuge in America. Jen, Gish, Mona in the Promised Land, Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Mona’s Jewish Westchester classmates hardly notice what everyone else finds hard to forget: Mona may be Jewish by choice (and voice) and American by nationality, but her surname is Chang. Kadohata, Cynthia, Kira-Kira, Atheneum, 2004. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's her sister Lynn who teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering -- kira-kira -- in the future. Read the Fire Escape's Review! Laird, Elizabeth, Kiss the Dust, Puffin, 1994. Tara, a Kurdish girl, has to flee with her family, first from a northern Iraqi city to the mountains, then to an internment camp, then on to Iran, and finally to England Lee, Marie G., Necessary Roughness, HarperCollins, 1998. Chan and his sister Young move from Los Angeles to a small Minnesota town. Entering their junior year of high school, Chan must cope not only with racism on the football team but also with the tensions in his relationship with his strict father. Lee, Marie G., Finding My Voice, HarperCollins, 2001. Pressured by her strict Korean immigrant parents to get into Harvard, high school senior Ellen Sung tries to find some time for romance, friendship and fun in her small Minnesota town; but the racism she encounters becomes impossible to ignore. Min, Katherine, Secondhand World, Knopf, 2006. Isa repudiates her Korean parents’ values and runs away with an albino boy, Hero. At the same time, she suspects that despite her mother’s strict adherence to Korean traditional values, she is involved with another man, and Isa determines to make the affair known. What begins as a child’s unthinking fury at her mother soon leads to more deadly consequences. Miró, Asha, Daughter of the Ganges: A Memoir, Atria 2006. When Asha was six, a Catalan family was in the process of adopting twins but one of the children suddenly fell ill and died, leading the family to adopt Asha instead. Twenty-one years later, Asha takes a heart-wrenching trip back to India to uncover her native roots. Mosher, Richard, Zazoo, Clarion, 2001. 13-year-old Zazoo lives with her loving adoptive grandfather, who brought her from Vietnam to his French village when she was just 2 years old. A meeting with a Parisian boy incites her to learn more about the Nazi invasion of France. Na, An, A Step from Heaven, Front Street, 2002. Young Ju grows from a toddler in Korea to a high-school graduate in California, desperately trying to be a 'true' American while her immigrant parents try to make her stay close to her Korean heritage. Namioka, Lensey, Mismatch, Delacorte, 2006. When Suzanne Hua, a Chinese American, and Andy Suzuki, a Japanese American, meet in their high-school orchestra, their white classmates see them as a good match. But Suzanne's beloved grandmother can't forget the brutality of the Japanese who invaded China, and Andy's father talks about the "dirty, backward" Chinese. Osa, Nancy, Cuba 15, Random House/Delacorte, 2003. Violet unleashes conflicted feelings within her family when she explores her Cuban roots. Perkins, Mitali, Monsoon Summer, Random House, 2004. Fifteen-year-old biracial Jasmine ("Jazz") is conflicted about spending the summer in Pune, India, where her mother has received a grant to work at the orphanage where she had lived as a child. Placide, Jaira, Fresh Girl, Random House/Wendy Lamb Books, 2002. 14-year-old Mardi isn’t allowed to stray from her Brooklyn apartment but harbors a terrible secret about what she suffered in Haiti during the 1991 coup. Santiago, Esmeralda, When I Was A Puerto Rican, Perseus Books, 1993. Santiago and her ten siblings lived in a corrugated metal shack in Puerto Rico. When they head to New York, where her grandmother lives, she must rely on her intelligence and talents to help her survive. Soto, Gary, Help Wanted: Stories, Harcourt, 2005. Ten original short stories about Mexican-American teens in central California, tied together by a theme of “needing help.” Stine, Catherine, Refugees, Delacorte, 2005. Dawn is a runaway from California with a foster mother who is a doctor helping in a refugee camp near Pakistan. Johar, 15, lives in Afghanistan. His aunt, a teacher, has disappeared, the Taliban has taken his brother, and Johar is left to care for his three-year-old cousin. Son, John, First Person Fiction: Finding My Hat, Scholastic, 2003. Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jin-Han grows from a Korean 2-year-old into an American teen whose mother dies. Tan, Amy, The Joy Luck Club, 1990. Chinese American daughters find conflict, love and connection with their mothers, who are haunted by their early lives in China. Veciana-Suarez, Ana, The Flight To Freedom, Scholastic First Person Fiction, 2003. Yara Garcia and her family are forced to flee from Cuba to Miami, Florida. Tension develops between her parents, as Mami grows more independent and Papi joins a militant anti-Castro organization. Williams-Garcia, Rita, No Laughter Here, Harper Collins, 2004. Akilah can't wait to start fifth grade with her best friend, Victoria, who has been in Nigeria for the summer. But Victoria has survived female circumcision, and Akilah is furious but sworn to secrecy. Yang, Gene, American Born Chinese, First Second Books, 2006. A series of three linked tales in graphic novel form about Jin Wang, a teen who meets with ridicule and social isolation when his family moves from San Francisco's Chinatown to an exclusively white suburb, Danny, a popular blond, blue-eyed high school jock whose social status is jeopardized when his goofy, embarrassing Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee, enrolls at his high school, and the Monkey King who, unsatisfied with his current sovereign, desperately longs to be elevated to the status of a god. Yoo, David, Girls For Breakfast, Delacorte, 2005. Nick Park, a Korean American, describes himself as “the only non-Anglo-Saxon student in suburban Connecticut,” and blames his Korean looks for his lack of popularity and girlfriends. Zephaniah, Benjamin, Refugee Boy, Bloomsbury, 2001. Alem's father is Ethiopian and his mother Eritrean. With both countries at war, he is welcome in neither place, so Alem begins a new life in the United Kingdom. To submit more books to this list, please send an e-mail to bestbooks@mitaliperkins.com. For updates on new books, join Books Between Cultures. back to top Links to Other Lists Other places on the web have extensive lists of good books for kids between cultures, including immigrant, biracial, and internationally adopted kids. Here are a few: The Arab World and Arab-Americans (from Book Links November 1999 issue) and Arab-American Children's Books: An Update (.pdf file from Book Links January 2006 issue) www.cythialeitichsmith.com comeunity: adoption book reviews Internet School Library Media Center South Asian Books for Kids (Compiled by Pooja Makhijani) Coming to America: Bloomfield Library's Book Lists Coming To America: Ann Arbor Library's Book Lists Seattle Library's Multicultural Book Lists Paper Tigers Essential Reading Lists New York Public Library's Recommended Reads Hennepin County Library's List of Books Between Cultures UCLA's Annotated Bibliography of Latino Kid Lit Asian Reporter Book Reviews