PBK
F
ADI
Purple Hibiscus
Narrator Kambili Achike is a 15-year-old Nigerian girl growing up in sheltered privilege in a country ravaged by political strife and personal struggle, the dutiful and self-effacing daughter of a rich man, a religious fanatic and domestic tyrant whose public image is of a politically courageous newspaper publisher and philanthropist. (2003)
958.104
AKB
AKB
Akbar Said Hyder
Come back to Afghanistan
The author describes his experiences as he traveled to Afghanistan with his father, who was the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai and then became the governor of Kunar. ( 2005)
F
ANT
ANT
Broken Moon
When her little brother is kidnapped and taken from Pakistan to race camels in the desert, eighteen-year-old Nadira overcomes her own past abuse and, dressed as a boy, determines to find and rescue him. (2007)
B
ASGEDON
ASGEDON
Of Beetles and Angels
This is an autobiobraphy of a young boy, who arrived in this country at the age of seven, having fled the Eritrean and Ethiopian conflict; ultimately, his journey which began in a refugee camp takes him to an Ivy League campus, in fulfillment of the American Dream. (2001)
B
BARAKAT
Tasting the sky
This beautifully written memoir of the author's childhood on the Israeli-occupied West Bank unfolds against a harsh backdrop of war and cultural displacement. The family endures poverty, separations and frequent relocation. Yet life goes on, by turns surprising, funny, heartbreaking and rich with possibility. (2007)
B
BEAH
BEAH
A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived. In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story in his own words. (2007)
Turkey
(Armenia)
F
BAG
BAG
Forgotten Fire
Based on true stories, this is the story of one boy’s survival, set during the Turkish massacre of the Armenians in 1915. (2000)
914.604
BEN
Men of Salt, Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold
A seasoned travel writer and veteran outdoorsman, Benanav siezes the opportunity to take part in a journey-through the brutal Tanezrouft region of the Sahara. This is his journey from Timbuktu, Mali, across an area four times the size of England, referred to alternately as "The Land of Thirst" and "The Land of Terror." (2006)
F
BON
BON
The Killer's Tears
A young boy, Paolo, and the man who murdered his parents, Angel, gradually become like father and son as they live and work together on the remote Chilean farm where Paolo was born. (2006)
F
BUC
The Good Earth
Nobel Prize-winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life in this great modern classic depicting life in China before the vast political and social upheavals that transformed an essentially agrarian country into a world power--its terrors, its passions, its ambitions, and rewards. (1931)
F
CAM
CAM
Colibri
Kidnapped when she was very young by an unscrupulous man who has forced her to lie and beg to get money, a twelve-year-old Guatemalan girl endures an abusive life, always wishing she could return to the parents she can hardly remember. (2003)
F
CLI
CLI
A Stone in my Hand
Set in a Palestinian community in Gaza City during the intifada of 1988 and 1989, the author has created a moving story of courage, loss, personal growth, and familial love. (2002)
F
COM
COM
Revolution is not a Dinner Party
Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois," and people of laughter. (2007)
Yugoslavia
F
DOR
DOR
Under the Sun
Chronicles the harrowing journey of Ehmet, a thirteen-year-old boy from Sarajevo who gets caught up in the ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. (2004)
F
FAR
FAR
Child, Victim, Soldier: the loss of innocence in Uganda
Discusses the stories of various children who were kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group in northern Uganda, trained to be killers, and forced to commit savage acts as soldiers (2008)
F
DOR
DOR
The Breadwinner
Eleven-year-old Parvana, masquerading as a boy, struggles to support her family in Afghanistan, while her father is imprisoned under the Taliban.
(2001)
F
DOR
DOR
I am a taxi
In order to make more money for his family, twelve-year-old Diego, who lives with his imprisoned mother in the San Sebasti�n Women's Prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia, leaves his job as an errand boy and begins working as part of an illegal cocaine operation. (2006)
F
FAR
FAR
A Girl Named Disaster
While journeying to Zimbabwe, eleven year old Nhamo struggles to escape drowning and starvation, and in so doing comes close to the luminous world of the African Spirits. (1996)
F
JAN
JAN
Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You
Jeanne, the only member of her family not murdered in the Rwandan genocide, struggles to start a new life without her family while coping with the violent memories that haunt her. (2006)
F
JOL
JOL
Jolin, Paula
In the name of God
Determined to follow the laws set down in the Qur'an, seventeen-year-old Nadia becomes involved in a violent revolutionary movement aimed at supporting Muslim rule in Syria. (2007)
B
KAMARA
KAMARA
The bite of the mango
Describes the life of Mariatu Kamara, focusing on her experiences as a child during the civil war in Sierra Leone where she was raped, tortured, and had her hands cut off by juvenile rebel soldiers; and discusses her experiences after the war. (2008)
B
LEKUTON
LEKUTON
Facing the Lion: Growing up Massai on the African Savanna
A member of the Masai people describes his life as he grew up in a northern Kenya village, before finally traveling to America to attend college. (2003)
B
LU
LU
Double Luck: Memoirs of a Chinese orphan
Tells the story of the author's struggles after being orphaned at the age of three and how he held on to his dream of coming to the United States as he passed from one relative to another and was even sold to a Communist couple. (2001)
Nepal
& India
F
MCC
MCC
McCormick,
Patricia
Sold
When
the monsoons destroy the crops on her family's Nepal farm, her stepfather
arranges for her to leave their village to become a maid for a rich
lady in the city. Instead Lakshmi is sold into a Calcutta brothel, facing
unspeakable cruelty and horror, her memories of home all she has to
help her endure. (2006)
277.761
MCD
MCD
McDonnell, Faith J. H. and Grace Akallo
Girl Soldier
Recounts the experiences of Grace Akallo, who was forced to enter into the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda when she was only fifteen year old and endured savagery, starvation, and abuse with only her faith to help her. (2007)
PBK
F
MAR
Nectar in a Sieve
The story of a peasant woman in India, married as a child bride to a tenant farmer, working with her husband to wrest a living from land ravaged by droughts, monsoons, and insects. (1955)
PBK
371.8
MOR
Mortenson,
Greg
Three
Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a
Time
In 1993 Greg Mortenson , survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2,
was rescued and taken in by the people of an
impoverished Pakistani villag. He promised to return one day
and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of
the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time—a one-man mission
to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout
the breeding ground of the Taliban. (2006)
F
MOO
MOO
The Voices of Silence
Thirteen-year-old Flora Popescu and her family find themselves caught up in events leading to the overthrow of the repressive regime of Nicholae Ceausescu in Romania in 1989. (1997)
B
NAFIZI
NAFIZI
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. (2003)
B
NAI
NAI
Burn my heart
While the Mau Mau rebellion threatens the British settlers living in Kenya during the 1950s, Mathew and Mugo maintain their friendship, despite their different races, but during these tense times, a single act of betrayal could alter everything. (2007)
B
NAI
NAI
Child of Dandelions
WIn Uganda in 1972, fifteen-year-old Sabine and her family, wealthy citizens of Indian descent, try to preserve their normal life during the ninety days allowed by President Idi Amin for all foreign Indians to leave the country, while soldiers and others terrorize them and people disappear. (2008)
Jerusalem/
West Bank
811
NYE
NYE
19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East
A collection of sixty poems in which the Arab-American author examines life in the Middle East. (2002)
F
PAR
PAR
When my Name was Keoko
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. (2002)
F
PAR
PAR
Secret Keeper
In 1974 when her father leaves New Delhi, India, to seek a job in New York, Ashi, a tomboy at the advanced age of sixteen, feels thwarted in the home of her extended family in Calcutta where she, her mother, and sister must stay, and when her father dies before he can send for them, they must remain with their relatives and observe the old-fashioned traditions that Ashi hates. (2009)
F
QAR
QAR
Beneath my mother's feet
When her father is injured, fourteen-year-old Nazia is pulled away from school, her friends, and her preparations for an arranged marriage, to help her mother clean houses in a wealthy part of Karachi, Pakistan, where she finally rebels against the destiny that is planned for her. (2008)
951.05
SAL
Iron and Silk
This is a lively, funny, and moving account of a young Yale graduate's experiences teaching English, and learning everything else, in China. (1986)
F
SAT
SAT
Persepolis
In powerful black-and-white graphic novel, Satrapi autobiography tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. (2003)
F
SEE
SEE
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Set in 19th-century China, See's national bestseller tells a story of two young women who find solace with each other, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. (2006)
PBK
F
STA
Shabanu
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. (1989)
F
STA
Shiva's Fire
The story of a dancer who sacrifices her friends and family for her art. (2001)
Afghanistan
& Pakistan
F
STA
STA
Under the Persimmon Tree
During the 2001 Afghan War, the lives of Najmal, a young refugee from Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Nusrat, an American-Muslim teacher who is awaiting her huband's return from Mazar-i-Sharif, intersect at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. (2005)
915.8
STE
STE
The Places in Between
Just after the fall of the Taliban, a doughty Scot walks across Afghanistan from Herat to Kabul, observing, studying, starving, freezing, encountering poverty, cruelty, ignorance, generosity, warmth and terror. (2004)
Africa
F
STR
STR
Chanda's Secrets
When 16-year-old Chanda's baby sister dies, the middle siblings are told that she went "on a trip." Lies and secrets obscure death and suppress every hint of AIDS, which is running rampant through this small city. (2004)
F
TEM
TEM
Temple, Frances
Taste of salt : a story of modern Haiti
In the hospital after being beaten by Macoutes, seventeen-year-old Djo
tells the story of his impoverished life to a young woman who, like
him, has been working with the social reformer Father Aristide to fight
the repression in Haiti. (1992)
F
UNG
UNG
First they killed my father : a daughter of Cambodia remembers
Loung Ung, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official in Phnom Penh, tells of her experiences after her family was forced to flee from Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army, discussing her training as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, and telling of how her surviving siblings were eventually reunited. (2000)
F
VEN
VEN
Climbing the stairs
In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with her father's extended family and become accustomed to a totally different way of life. (2008)
B
ZENATTI
ZENATTI
When I was a Soldier
In this compelling memoir, Zenatti, first among her group of friends to be called for compulsory military service, chronicles two years of growing up in the Israeli army between 1988 and 1990.