A Project of the South Asia National Outreach Consortium
The story chronicles the lives of Noor and Salahudin, close high school friends who share their Pakistani-American heritage. Their familial challenges unfold as Noor confronts an antagonistic uncle while Salahudin navigates his mother's illness and father's alcohol dependency. The novel thoughtfully delves into themes of family ties, trauma, grief, abuse, alcoholism, racism, kindness, forgiveness, and hope. (Grades 9-12)
A story about love and family that spans two generations - a connection that brings Ayesha as a visiting graduate student to the US, and Mira, adopted and raised by her moms in the US, to face each other. The narratives reveal how complexities in South Asian cultures about teen relationships, out-of-wedlock pregnancies become more fraught across differences in social class. (Grades 9-12)
The People of the Indus is a unique, well-researched approach to the history of a region. The authors transform a historical period into an engaging graphic novel. The reader will willingly visualize their way through this history. (Grades 7-9)
On her first journey away from home, sixteen-year-old Hira experiences many unfamiliar situations, including the threat of tuberculosis. Through it all, Hira faces her own misconceptions about America while dealing with Islamophobia from her new friends and host family in Oregon. (Grades 10-12)
Young Asiyah learns her family history through her grandmother’s chest of richly patterned katha quilts, hand-stitched from layers of repurposed, memory-laden, sari fabric. Asiyah’s tale is accompanied by wordless story panels that reveal their Bengali cultural history. These panels resemble a family photo album, reminiscent of Pattachitra, cloth-based narrative scroll paintings. (Preschool-Grade 3)
A young girl named Paro comes from a family of Bharatanatyam dancers, and feels out of place at her first ballet class. The other students seem more skilled and knowledgeable, and her background in Bharatnatyam seems like an obstacle to becoming a beautiful ballerina. With help from the dance teacher and her mother, Paro and her classmates all come to appreciate and celebrate Bharatanatyam. Beautifully illustrated and rich with historical connections, this book provides representation to South Asians in a space where they are not typically seen or encouraged. (Grades 1-2)
In 1947, Azra and her family took an unforgettable train ride from Dehradun to Lahore, leaving her home and her beloved doll behind. Throughout her journey, Azra draws hope and resilience as she sees the same moon each night amidst the ever changing landscape. (Grades PK-4)
Zulaikha, a thirteen-year-old girl in Afghanistan, faces a series of frightening but exhilarating changes in her life as she defies her father and secretly meets with an old woman who teaches her to read, her older sister gets married, and American troops offer her surgery to fix her disfiguring cleft lip. (Grade 6 & up)
Meet Mulla Nasruddin, a legendary character whose adventures and misadventures are enjoyed across the Islamic world. (Grade 5 & under)
Written in free verse poems in a diary format, this novel straddles two countries and the clash of Indian cultures in the tale of 15-year-old Maya. (Grade 6 & up)
