Refugees & Immigration
Recommended titles for an inclusive collection
Imagine a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book. --We Need Diverse Books
This past summer, the Library Services Collection Development team created equity carts for elementary, middle and high schools of highly recommended, inclusive titles. It is our goal to immerse students in books that cultivate empathy and reflect all students' unique identities and experiences.
You can view our selections here.
LOWER ELEMENTARY READS
A DIFFERENT POND BY BAO PHI
Available in Sora.
As a young boy, Bao and his father awoke early, hours before his father's long workday began, to fish on the shores of a small pond in Minneapolis. Unlike many other anglers, Bao and his father fished for food, not recreation. A successful catch meant a fed family. Between hope-filled casts, Bao's father told him about a different pond in their homeland of Vietnam. --Publisher
DREAMERS BY YUYI MORALES
In 1994, Yuyi Morales left her home in Xalapa, Mexico and came to the US with her infant son. She left behind nearly everything she owned, but she didn't come empty-handed.
She brought her strength, her work, her passion, her hopes and dreams...and her stories. Dreamers is about making a home in a new place. Yuyi and her son Kelly's passage was not easy, and Yuyi spoke no English whatsoever at the time. But together, they found an unexpected, unbelievable place: the public library. There, book by book, they untangled the language of this strange new land, and learned to make their home within it. --Publisher
ALL ARE WELCOME BY ALEXANDRA PENFOLD
Available in Sora.
Follow a group of children through a day in their school, where everyone is welcomed with open arms. A school where kids in patkas, hijabs, and yarmulkes play side-by-side with friends in baseball caps. A school where students grow and learn from each other's traditions and the whole community gathers to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
All Are Welcome lets young children know that no matter what, they have a place, they have a space, they are welcome in their school. --Publisher
UPPER ELEMENTARY READS
NIGHT DIARY BY VEERA HIRANANDANI
Available in Sora.
Shy twelve-year-old Nisha, forced to flee her home with her Hindu family during the 1947 partition of India, tries to find her voice and make sense of the world falling apart around her by writing to her deceased Muslim mother in the pages of her diary. --Publisher
A PLACE TO BELONG BY CYNTHIA KADOHATA
Available in Sora.
World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken.
Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn't mean it can't be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi--fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers. --Publisher
MY FAMILY DIVIDED BY DIANE GUERRERO
Available in Sora.
The star of Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, Diane Guerrero presents her personal story in this middle grade memoir about her parents' deportation and the nightmarish struggles of undocumented immigrants and their American children. --Publisher
MIDDLE SCHOOL READS
ORANGE FOR THE SUNSETS BY TINA ATHAIDE
Available in Sora.
Asha and her best friend, Yesofu, never cared about the differences between them: Indian. African. Girl. Boy. Short. Tall.
But when Idi Amin announces that Indians have ninety days to leave the country, suddenly those differences are the only things that people in Entebbe can see--not the shared after-school samosas or Asha cheering for Yesofu at every cricket game.
Tensions between Indians and Africans intensify and the deadline to leave is fast approaching. Could the bravest thing of all be to let each other go? --Publisher
THEY CALL ME GUERO: A BORDER KID'S POEMS
Available in Sora.
Twelve-year-old Guero is Mexican American, at home with Spanish or English and on both sides of the river. He's starting 7th grade with a woke English teacher who knows how to make poetry cool.
In Spanish, "Guero" is a nickname for guys with pale skin, Latino or Anglo. But make no mistake: our red-headed, freckled hero is puro mexicano, like Canelo Alvarez, the Mexican boxer. Guero is also a nerd--reader, gamer, musician--who runs with a squad of misfits like him, Los Bobbys. Sure, they get in trouble like anybody else, and like other middle-school boys, they discover girls. Watch out for Joanna! She's tough as nails.
But trusting in his family's traditions, his accordion and his bookworm squad, he faces seventh grade with book smarts and a big heart. Life is tough for a border kid, but Guero has figured out how to cope.
He writes poetry. --Publisher
IT AIN'T SO AWFUL, FALAFEL BY FIROOZEH DUMAS
Available in Sora.
Zomorod (Cindy) Yousefzadeh is the new kid on the block . . . for the fourth time. California's Newport Beach is her family's latest perch, and she's determined to shuck her brainy loner persona and start afresh with a new Brady Bunch name--Cindy. It's the late 1970s, and fitting in becomes more difficult as Iran makes U.S. headlines with protests, revolution, and finally the taking of American hostages. Even puka shell necklaces, pool parties, and flying fish can't distract Cindy from the anti-Iran sentiments that creep way too close to home. --Publisher
HIGH SCHOOL READS
THE GRIEF KEEPER BY ALEXANDRA VILLASANTE
Available in Sora.
Seventeen-year-old Marisol has always dreamed of being American, learning what Americans and the US are like from television and Mrs. Rosen, an elderly expat who had employed Marisol's mother as a maid. When she pictured an American life for herself, she dreamed of a life like Aimee and Amber's, the title characters of her favorite American TV show. She never pictured fleeing her home in El Salvador under threat of death and stealing across the US border as "an illegal", but after her brother is murdered and her younger sister, Gabi's, life is also placed in equal jeopardy, she has no choice, especially because she knows everything is her fault. If she had never fallen for the charms of a beautiful girl named Liliana, Pablo might still be alive, her mother wouldn't be in hiding and she and Gabi wouldn't have been caught crossing the border.
The Grief Keeper is a tender tale that explores the heartbreak and consequences of when both love and human beings are branded illegal. --Publisher
A LAND OF PERMANENT GOODBYES BY ATIA ABAWI
Available in Sora.
Tareq lives in Syria with his warm and loving family, until the bombs strike. He, his father, and his younger sister are the only survivors, and they have no choice but to go to Raqqa, where they have extended family. But Raqqa is a stronghold for Daesh, the militant group claiming to follow the tennets of Islam, yet who really exist only to enable violence and intolerance. Tareq's family leave quickly, and Tareq heads to Istanbul with his cousin. From there, reunited with his younger sister, they flee successfully to Greece. --Publisher
LET'S GO SWIMMING ON DOOMSDAY BY NATALIE C. ANDERSON
Available in Sora.
Forced to become a child soldier, a sixteen-year-old Somali refugee must confront his painful past in this haunting, thrilling tale of loss and redemption by the bestselling author of City of Saints & Thieves. Now in paperback.
When Abdi's family is kidnapped, he's forced to do the unthinkable: become a child soldier in the ruthless jihadi group Al Shabaab. To save the lives of those he loves and earn their freedom, Abdi agrees to be embedded as a spy within the jihadi group's ranks, sending dispatches on their plans to the Americans. But it's a dangerous role and if Abdi's duplicity is discovered, he will be killed. For weeks, Abdi trains with the jihadi group, witnessing atrocity after atrocity. But after being forced into a suicide bomber's vest, Abdi finally escapes to Sangui City, Kenya. Homeless and shell-shocked, Abdi is picked up for a petty theft, setting into motion a chain reaction that forces him to reckon with a past he's desperate to forget. --Publisher
Need more resources for finding inclusive children's and YA literature related to refugees and immigration/emigration?
DPS Affordable Counseling. Children and their families in DPS are eligible for short-term therapy services for only $5 per session. For more information click here.
Library Services Sora's IB Global Literature
Library Services Sora's Newcomer Stories
Denver Public Schools Library Services
Email: library_helpdesk@dpsk12.org
Website: https://lion.dpsk12.org
Location: 1617 S Acoma St., Denver CO
Phone: 7204231842