No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis (Groundwood Books, 2011). Valli has always been afraid of the people with leprosy living on the other side of the train tracks in the coal town of Jharia, India, so …
Middle Grade Readers
Same Sun Here
Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani (Candlewick Press, 2012). A twelve-year-old Indian immigrant in New York City and a Kentucky coal miner’s son become pen pals, and eventually best friends, through a series …
Chained
Chained by Lynne Kelly (Farrar Straus Giroux, Margaret Ferguson Books, 2012). To work off a family debt, ten-year-old Hastin leaves his desert village in India to work as a circus elephant keeper but many challenges await …
Mother Teresa: Angel of the Slums
Mother Teresa: Angel of the Slums by Lewis Helfand, art by Sachin Nagar (Campfire, an imprint of Kalyani Navyug Media, 2013). Mother Teresa knew from a young age that she wanted to become a nun. …
The Garden of My Imaan
The Garden of My Imaan by Farhana Zia (Peachtree, 2013). The arrival of a new student, Marwa, a fellow fifth-grader who is a strict Muslim, helps Aliya come to terms with her own lukewarm practice …
A Maiden’s Prayer: A Family Story Set in 1970s Sri Lanka
This spellbinding novel narrated by a witty and keenly observant aspiring writer, teenager Tamara de Silva, unravels family and community secrets while detailing the role of astrology, match matchers, and scheming Aunties’ efforts to marry off her eligible bachelor uncle, all amid the cultural and political atmosphere of the times.
Strong as Fire, Fierce as Flame
In 1857, twelve-year old Meera has become a widow before she even moves into her husband’s house. Desperate to escape her husband’s funeral pyre, Meera joins the household of a British commander as a maid and is drawn into a burgeoning soldiers’ rebellion against the British Raj.
Samira Surfs
This novel in verse transports middle grade readers to the sandy beaches of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh where twelve-year-old Rohingya refugee, Samira, discovers a passion for surfing following her family’s perilous escape from war torn Myanmar.