Book List

Author: Tricia Elam Walker

Regional Focus: Africa

It is Grandparents Day at Zura's elementary school, and the students are excited to introduce their grandparents and share what makes them special. But Zura's Nana, who is her favorite person in the world, looks a little different from other grandmas. With a quilt of traditional African symbols and a bit of face paint, Nana Akua is able to explain what makes her special, and to make all of Zura's classmates feel special, too.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/nana-akua-goes-to-school/9780525581130

Author: Saadia Faruqi

Regional Focus: South Asia

Yasmin Ahmad is a spirited second-grader who's always on the lookout for those "aha" moments to help her solve life's little problems. A creative thinker and curious explorer, Yasmin and her multi-generational Pakistani American family will delight and inspire readers.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/meet-yasmin/9781684360222

Author: Pam Muñoz Ryan

Regional Focus: Latin America

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/esperanza-rising/9780439120425

Author: Gene Luen Yang

Regional Focus: East Asia

In two volumes, Boxers & Saints tells two parallel stories. The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. Little Bao joins a violent uprising against the Western interlopers. In the second volume, a girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/boxers-saints-boxed-set-9781596439245/9781596439245

Author: Ryan Calejo

Regional Focus: Latin America

Charlie Hernández has always been proud of his Latin American heritage. But when Charlie begins to experience freaky bodily manifestations—ones all too similar to those described by his grandma in his favorite legend—he is suddenly swept up in a world where the mythical beings he’s spent his entire life hearing about seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Hispanic folklore and into his life.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/charlie-hernandez-the-league-of-shadows-volume-1/9781534426597

Author: Katherine Marsh

Regional Focus: Europe & The Middle East

Newly arrived in Brussels, Belgium, Ahmed fled a life of uncertainty and suffering in Syria, only to lose his father on the perilous journey to the shores of Europe. Then he meets Max, a thirteen-year-old American boy. With one startling discovery, Max and Ahmed's lives collide, banding the boys together to help Ahmed survive.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/nowhere-boy/9781250211453

Author: Julia Alvarez

Regional Focus: The Carribean

Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, three young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/in-the-time-of-the-butterflies-9780613023894/9781565129764

Author: Amor Towles

Regional Focus: Europe

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/a-gentleman-in-moscow-9780735288546/9780143110439

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Regional Focus: Africa

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.

Buy At: https://bookshop.org/books/americanah/9780307455925