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Multcolib Hollywood picks: Refugee experience in teen literature

The refugee experience is on a lot of our minds these days. Here is a list of teen books that explore a variety of conflicts and the harrowing journeys that refugees have faced in hopes of a safer and more stable life.

User from Multnomah County Library

17 items

  • When she was a young child, Tina fled with her mother to Sangui City, Kenya from Congo. Now in her teens, five years after her mother’s murder, Tina is determined to get revenge on her mother’s murderer. With her friend Boyboy, and her former best…
    Book, 2017New York, NY : G.P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, [2017] — y ANDERSON 2017
  • Michael, who attends anti-immigration rallies with his parents, starts to question his family's politics when he create a friendship with a Muslim refugee from Afghanistan.
    Book, 2017New York : Scholastic Press, 2017. — y ABDELFATT 2017
  • A novel about the illicit human and drug trade at the US-Mexican border.
    Book, 2017New York : Roaring Brook Press, 2017. — y SEDGWICK 2017
  • Based on true events, this World War II novel set in East Prussia during the winter of 1945 follows the plight of refugees as Germany tries to evacuate soldiers and civilians. Four teens, from different backgrounds, and each with a dark secret,…
    Book, 2016New York : Philomel Books, [2016] — y SEPETYS 2016
  • Explores the evolution and history of governmental policy around immigration and how it is often driven by popular responses to feelings on race and ethnicity, economic conditions, and fear of foreign political concerns.
    Book, 2016New York, NY : Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2016. — j 304.80973 O816t 2016
  • In this adaptation of her memoir, award-winning author Grande chronicles her life, from living in Guerrero, Mexico, as a child to attending college in the United States.
    Book, 2016New York ; London ; Toronto : Aladdin, [2016] — y BIO 973.04687 GRANDE 2016
  • An Olympic Dream

    the Story of Samia Yusuf Omar

    Kleist, Reinhard, 1970-
    After Samia Yusuf Omar competed in running at the 2008 Beijing Olympics representing Somalia, she was determined to compete again at the 2012 London games. When the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab harassed and threatened to kill her, she fled through…
    Graphic Novel, 2016London : SelfMadeHero, 2016. — GN 796.42 OMAR 2016
  • After the local gang kills his beloved cousin, Jaime and his cousin Ángela are targeted as the next recruits. Their families quickly put together the funds to send them north to try to make a crossing to the United States where Jaime’s older brother…
    Book, 2016New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2016] — j DIAZ 2016
  • Based on true events in Chile during the 1970s, Celeste is sent to America after Chile, is taken over by a militaristic, sadistic government. There she worries over her parents who have disappeared into hiding, and tries to adapt to her new life…
    Book, 2014New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2014] — j AGOSIN 2014
  • This free-verse novel follows Viola a Sudanese refugee’s journey from her home in ravaged Sudan to Cairo and finally to the Sudanese community in Maine. She is forever haunted by harrowing memories of she’s lost as she tries to build a new life.
    Book, 2012Las Vegas, Nev. : Amazon Children's Pub., ©2012. — y FARISH 2012
  • After Deo's Zimbabwe village is ravaged by soldiers, he must flee with his older brother, Innocent, who is mentally disabled. With no shoes and very little money, the two set out on a journey where they face constant prejudice against refugees and a…
    Unknown, 2011New York : Little, Brown, 2011. — y WILLIAMS 2011
  • Based on a true story about Sudanese civil war, follows both young Salva, who becomes separated from his family after his village is attacked in 1985. Salva’s faces a harrowing journey walking across the southern region of Sudan to Kenya, as he…
    Book, 2010Boston : Clarion Books, 2010. — y PARK 2010
  • Set in the early 1990s in the war-torn Republic of Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Seven-year-old Koumaïl and his guardian, Gloria, flee violent unrest and begin a five-year arduous journey across the Caucasus toward France. In…
    Unknown, 2010New York : Delacorte Press, ©2010 (Printed in the United States of America) — y BONDOUX 2010
  • Children of War

    Voices of Iraqi Refugees

    Ellis, Deborah, 1960-
    Through interviews with displaced Iraqi kids and teens between the ages 8 and 19 they discuss how the Iraq war has affected their lives.
    Book, 2009Toronto ; Berkeley : Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, [2009] — y 305.23086914 E47c 2009
  • Set during the war in Kosovo during the 1990s this follows Meli, an Albanian Muslim girl, and her family as they flee the violence escalating in their small town. They embark on a terrible two year journey from their uncle’s farm to a crowded…
    Book, 2009Boston : Clarion Books, 2009. — j PATERSON 2009
  • The sense of displacement and awe are explored of what it feels like to be an immigrant in a new world in this wordless graphic novel.
    Graphic Novel, 2007New York, NY : Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2007. — ygn TAN
  • After their mother is shot and killed by assassins' bullets meant for their outspoken journalist father, Sade Solaja and younger brother, Femi, are hastily smuggled out of Nigeria and taken to London and abandoned after their uncle fails to meet…
    Book, 2001New York : HarperCollins, 2001. — j NAIDOO