We can learn about other countries,

cultures, races, and religions, by reading

 Holocaust

Afghanistan Korea

Native- Pakistan
American Middle Japan
African- China
East
American

Africa
India Thailand
Hispanic
Esperanza Rising
By Pam Muñoz Ryan

Esperanza and her mother

are forced to leave their life
of wealth and privilege in
Mexico to go work in the
labor camps of Southern
California, where they must
adapt to the harsh
circumstances facing
Mexican farm workers on the
eve of the Great Depression.
 Cuba 15
By Nancy Osa

Violet Paz has just turned

15, a pivotal birthday in
the eyes of her Cuban
grandmother. Fifteen is
the age when a girl enters
womanhood, traditionally
celebrating the occasion
with a quinceañero. But
while Violet is half Cuban,
she’s also half Polish, and
more importantly, she
feels 100% American.
In the Shade of the Nispero Tree
By Carmen T. Bernier-Grand

Because her mother

wants her to be part
of the world of high
society in their native
Puerto Rico, nine-
year-old Teresa
attends a private
school but loses her
best friend.
 The House on Mango Street
By Sandra Cisneros

A young girl living in

a Hispanic
neighborhood in
Chicago ponders
the advantages and
disadvantages of
her environment
and evaluates her
relationships with
family and friends.
 A Girl Named Disaster
By Nancy Farmer

While journeying to Zimbabwe,

eleven-year-old Nhamo struggles
to escape drowning and
starvation and in so doing comes
close to the mysterious world of
the African spirits.
Second Daughter: The Story of a Slave Girl
By Mildred Pitts Walter

In late eighteenth-century
Massachusetts, Aissa, the
fictional younger sister of
Elizabeth Freeman,
relates how her sister
gains freedom for herself
and her family by bringing
a suit against their owner
in court.
Numbering All the Bones
By Ann Rinaldi

Thirteen-year-old Eulinda, a
house slave on a Georgia
plantation in 1864, turns to Clara
Barton, the eventual founder of
the American Red Cross, for
help in finding her brother
Neddy who ran away to join the
Northern war effort and is
rumored to be at Andersonville
Prison.
Lizzie Bright and the
Buckminster Boy
By Gary D. Schmidt

In 1911, Turner Buckminster

hates his new home in
Maine, but things improve
when he meets Lizzie Bright
Griffin, a girl from a poor,
nearby island community
founded by former slaves
that Turner’s dad and other
town leaders want to change
into a tourist spot.
 Chains
By Laurie Halse Anderson

After being sold to a

cruel couple in New York
City, a slave named
Isabel spies for the
rebels during the
Revolutionary War.
 Born Confused Dimple's parents are from
India, and she has spent
By Tanuja Desai Hidier
years rebelling against
their customs. Now
everything from India is
hip--even her best friend
wears a bindi dot as an
accessory. She also
resents her parents
setting her up with a
"suitable" boy. Their first
meeting is a disaster. But
when they meet again in a
club where he's the DJ,
Dimple suddenly finds him
suitable because of his
sheer unsuitability.
 Shiva’s Fire
By Suzanne Fisher
Staples

In India, a talented
dancer sacrifices
friends and family
for her art.
Lowji Discovers America
By Candace Fleming

“To be honest, I am more

than a little sad,” says nine-
year-old Lowji after he
moves with his parents from
Bombay to an apartment in
tiny Hamlet, Illinois. It's
summer, the local kids are
hard to meet, and Lowji
longs for a pet to keep him
company.
 Homeless Bird
By Gloria Whelan

When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into a bad arranged

marriage, she must either suffer a destiny dictated by
India's tradition or find the courage to oppose it.
The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen
By Mitali Perkins

When her grandparents

come for a visit from
India to California,
thirteen-year-old Sunita
finds herself resenting
her Indian heritage and
embarrassed by the
differences she feels
between herself and
her friends.
Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind
By Suzanne Fisher Staples

Eleven-year old
Shabanu,the daughter of
a nomad in Pakistan, is
pledged to marry an
older man for money and
must either accept the
decision or risk the
consequences of defying
her father's wishes.
 Three Cups of Tea
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Adapted for Young Readers by Sarah Thomson

Adapted for young

readers, Greg Mortenson's
novel in which he recounts
the experiences he had
while trying to help
impoverished villages in
Pakistan's Karakoram
Himalaya building schools
for their children.
The Breadwinner
By Deborah Ellis

Because the Taliban

rulers of Kabul,
Afghanistan impose
strict limitations on
women's freedom and
behavior, eleven-year-
old Parvana must
disguise herself as a
boy so that her family
can survive after her
father's arrest.
 The Shadows of
Ghadames
By Joëlle Stolz

At the end of the nineteenth

century in Libya, eleven-
year-old Malika both enjoys
and feels held back by the
narrow world of women, but
an injured stranger enters
her home and disrupts the
traditional order of things.
 Kiss the Dust
By Elizabeth Laird

Her father’s involvement with the Kurdish resistance

movement in Iraq forces thirteen-year-old Tara to flee with
her family over the border into Iran, where they face an
unknown future.
The Beduins’ Gazelle
By Frances Temple

In 1302, two
cousins of the
nomadic Beni
Khalid tribe who
are engaged
become separated
by political
intrigue between
warring tribes.
 Number the Stars
By Lois Lowry

In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark,

ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and
courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend
from the Nazis.
 The Island on Bird Street
By Uri Olev

During World War II, a

Jewish boy is left on his
own for months in a ruined
house in the Warsaw
Ghetto, where he must
learn all the tricks of
survival under constantly
life-threatening conditions.
Shadow of the Wall
By Christa Laird

Living with his mother

and two sisters in the
Warsaw Ghetto, Misha
is befriended by the
director of the
orphanage, Dr.
Korczak, and finds a
purpose to his life
when he joins a
resistance
organization.
The Ransom of Mercy Carter
By Caroline B. Cooney

In 1704, in the English

settlement of Deerfield,
Massachusetts, eleven-year-
old Mercy and her family and
neighbors are captured by
Mohawk Indians and their
French friends, and forced to
march through bitter cold to
French Canada, where some
adapt to new lives and some
still hope to be ransomed.
 The Sign of the Beaver
By Elizabeth George Speare

Left alone to guard the family's

wilderness home in eighteenth-
century Maine, a boy is hard-
pressed to survive until local
Indians teach him their skills.
 Julie of the Wolves
By Jean Craighead George

While running away from home and an unwanted

marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost
on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a
wolf pack.
Island of the Blue Dolphins
By Scott O’Dell

Left alone on a beautiful

but isolated island off the
coast of California, a
young Indian girl spends
eighteen years, not only
surviving through her
enormous courage and
self-reliance, but also
finding a measure of
happiness in her solitary
life.
 Sees Behind Trees
By Michael Dorris

A Native American boy with a special gift to "see"

beyond his poor eyesight journeys with an old warrior to
a land of mystery and beauty.
 Hidden Roots
By Joseph Bruchac

Although he is uncertain why

his father is so angry and
what secret his mother is
keeping from him, eleven-
year-old Sonny knows that
he is different from his
classmates in their small
New York town.
Chu Ju’s House
By Gloria Whelan

In order to save her baby

sister, fourteen-year-old
Chu Ju leaves her rural
home in modern China and
earns food and shelter by
working on a sampan,
tending silk worms, and
planting rice seedlings,
while wondering if she will
ever see her family again.
 The Kite Rider
By Geraldine McCaughren

In thirteenth-century China,
after trying to save his
widowed mother from a
horrendous second
marriage, twelve-year-old
Haoyou has life-changing
adventures when he takes
to the sky as a circus kite
rider and ends up meeting
the great Mongol ruler
Kublai Khan.
Dragon’s Gate
By Laurence Yep

Otter has always dreamed

of joining his father and
his uncle in America
building the
transcontinental railroad.
When he joins the crew
and experiences the
hardships, his hopes are
crushed and he must
discover a way to
recapture his dreams for a
better life.
 Bound
By Donna Jo Napoli

In a novel based on Chinese

Cinderella tales, fourteen-
year-old stepchild Xing-Xing
endures a life of neglect
and servitude, as her
stepmother cruelly
mutilates her own child's
feet so that she alone might
marry well.
The House of Sixty Fathers
By Meindert DeJong

Alone in a sampan with

his pig and three
ducklings, a little Chinese
boy is whirled down a
raging river back to the
town from which he and
his parents had escaped
from the invading
Japanese, and spends
long and frightening days
regaining his family and
new home.
A Single Shard
By Linda Sue Park

Tree-ear, a thirteen-
year-old orphan in
medieval Korea, lives
under a bridge in a
potters' village and
longs to learn how to
throw the delicate
celadon ceramics
himself.
 When My Name Was Keoko
By Linda Sue Park

With national pride and

occasional fear, a brother
and sister face the
increasingly oppressive
occupation of Korea by
Japan during World War II,
which threatens to
suppress Korean culture
entirely.
 F Is For Fabuloso
By Marie G. Lee

Seventh grader Jin-Ha finds her adjustment to life in

America complicated by her mother's difficulty in
learning to speak English.
The Long Season of Rain
By Helen Kim

When an orphan
boy comes to live
with her family,
eleven-year-old
Junehee begins to
realize that the
demands placed
on Korean women
can destroy their
lives.
 Kira-Kira
By Cynthia Kadohata

Chronicles the close

friendship between two
Japanese-American sisters
growing up in rural Georgia
during the late 1950s and
early 1960s, and the
despair when one sister
becomes terminally ill.
 1001 Cranes
By Naomi Hirahara

With her parents on the verge

of separating, a devastated
twelve-year-old Japanese
American girl spends the
summer in Los Angeles with
her grandparents, where she
folds paper cranes into
wedding displays, becomes
involved with a young
skateboarder, and learns how
complicated relationships can
be.
 Blue Fingers: A Ninja’s Tale
By Cheryl Aylward Whitesel

Having failed apprenticeship as a

dye maker, Koji is captured and
forced to train as a ninja, where
he remains disloyal until he
discovers samurai have burned
his former village.
The Journal of Ben Uchida:
Citizen 13559 Mirror Lake
Internment Camp
By Barry Dennenberg

Twelve-year-old Ben
Uchida keeps a journal
of his experiences as
a prisoner in a
Japanese internment
camp in Apple Valley,
California, during
World War II.
 Rice Without Rain
By Minfong Ho

After social rebels convince the headman of a small village

in northern Thailand to resist the land rent, his seventeen-
year-old daughter Jinda finds herself caught up in the
student uprising in Bangkok.
 Silk Umbrellas
By Carolyn Marsden

Eleven-year-old Noi
worries that she will
have to stop painting the
silk umbrellas her family
sells at the market near
their Thai village and be
forced to join her older
sister in difficult work at
a local factory instead.
Tangled Threads: A Hmong Girl’s Story
By Pegi Deitz Shea

After ten years in a refugee

camp in Thailand, thirteen-
year-old Mai Yang travels to
Providence, Rhode Island,
where her Americanized
cousins introduce her to
pizza, shopping, and beer,
while her grandmother and
new friends keep her
connected to her Hmong
heritage.
 Ask Me No Questions
By Marina Budhos

Fourteen-year-old
Nadira, her sister, and
their parents leave
Bangladesh for New
York City, but the
expiration of their visas
and the events of
September 11, 2001,
bring frustration, sorrow,
and terror for the whole
family.
 Children of the River
By Linda Crew

Having fled Cambodia four

years earlier to escape the
Khmer Rouge army,
seventeen-year-old
Sundara is torn between
remaining faithful to her
own people and enjoying
life in her Oregon high
school as a "regular"
American.
Elephant Run
By Roland Smith
Nick endures servitude,
beatings, and more after his
British father's plantation in
Burma is invaded by the
Japanese in 1941, and when
his father and others are
taken prisoner and Nick is
stranded with his friend Mya,
they plan a daring escape on
elephants, risking their lives
to save Nick's father and
Mya's brother from a
Japanese prisoner of war
camp.
 Camel Rider
By Prue Mason

Two expatriates living in a

Middle Eastern country,
twelve-year-old Adam from
Australia and Walid from
Bangladesh, must rely on one
another when war breaks out
and they find themselves in the
desert, both trying to reach the
same city with no water, little
food, and no common
language.
How can you find a multicultural book
in our library?
Search our OPAC!
Check the Jericho Public Library

Use the online catalog for Nassau

County libraries:

http://www.alisweb.org