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These books are available at the Sacramento Public Library. Ask a librarian for more great titles for teens! (Links to Sacramento Public Library Catalog open in a new window).

Fiction

Before we were free by Julia Alvarez
J fic J Alvarez
In the early 1960s in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo.

The house on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
fic Cisneros
Esperanza Cordero is a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago with all its hard realities of life. She captures her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories in order to rise above the hopelessness and create a space for herself.

Balzac and the little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
fic Dai
In 1971, two teenage boys are sent from their homes in the city to a remote mountain village for “reeducation” as part of China’s Cultural Revolution.

Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida by Victor Martinez
YA fic Martinez
Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone's struggle.

Shizuko’s Daughter by Kyoko Mori
YA fic Mori
After her mother's suicide when she is twelve years old, Yuki spends years living with her distant father and his resentful new wife, cut off from her mother's family, and relying on her own inner strength to cope with the tragedy.

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Monster by Walter Dean Myers
YA fic Myers
Steve Harmon is sixteen, African-American, and on trial for murder. He records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

A Step From Heaven by An Na
YA fic NA
A young Korean girl and her family find it difficult to learn English and adjust to life in America.

The Journey to Jo’burg: A South African Story
J fic J Naidoo
Separated from their mother by the harsh social and economic conditions among Blacks in South Africa, thirteen-year-old Naledi and her younger brother make a journey of over 300 kilometers to find her in Johannesburg.

The Other Side of Truth by Beverley Naidoo
YA fic Naidoo
Smuggled out of Nigeria after their mother's murder, Sade and her younger brother are abandoned in London when their uncle fails to meet them at the airport and they are fearful of their new surroundings and of what may have happened to their journalist father back in Nigeria.

When My Name was Keoko by Linda Sue Park
YA fic 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.

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Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples
YA fic Staples
When eleven-year old Shabanu, the daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her father's wishes.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson
YA fic Woodson
After meeting at their private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people's reactions.

Nonfiction

Everything You Need to Know if You and Your Parents Are New Americans by Edward J. Santos. YA304.873 S237 2002 Advice on fitting in and getting by for teens who’ve come to the United States from another country and their families.