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Book Reviews

Bento Box in the Heartland

Author: Linda Furiya

Bento Box in the Heartland is the coming-of-age story of a young girl's struggle to assimilate as the only Asian student in her Indiana school. Each day, as she takes out her lunch, Linda feels self-conscious about her parents' insistence on sending their native Japanese cuisine in her lunch box. Looking around, she realizes that her lunches are always different from those of her peers. Yet at the same time, the rice balls that her mother packs bring much comfort and delight to her. Each chapter closes with a recipe of one of the author's most treasured meals. But Bento Box in the Heartland is more than a story about food. More importantly, it is the story of a young woman trying to find herself as the only Asian student in a Midwestern community during the 1960's. In addition, it is the story of growing up with immigrant parents, trying to figure out who she is, and growing to understand her parents' connection to Japan better. Beautifully written, Bento Box in the Heartland is a fantastic collection of stories, recipes, and self-discovery.

Year Released: 2006

Grade 6-12

What is the What: The Diary of Valentino Achek Deng

Author: Dave Eggers

This fictionalized autobiography, closely based on the oral history of a Sudanese "Lost Boy," is experimental, ambitious and most suitable for advanced high school, college and adult readers. Tracking back and forth chronologically between the narrator's present day travails in Atlanta and his memories of displacement and refugee camp life in the Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, What is the What presents a fascinating web of experience. Far from simply offering one more reiteration of the fairly well-known "Lost Boy" narrative, Eggers' account raises several new and unsettling questions. Does trauma really end when a refugee is resettled in the "first world," or does trauma perhaps increase upon resettlement? What is the fate of a cause celebre after the attention of the media and donors moves on and when sympathy for a given refugee community wears thin? How and why do transnational communities become burdensome and destructive rather than resourceful and resilient for forced migrants? Conversely, what opportunities for education, love, friendship and creativity become possible in the constrained environs of a refugee camp? Eggers account is a valuable reminder of the moral ambiguities and experiential complexities of the Sudanese "Lost Boy" story.

Year Released: 2006

Grade 12- Adult

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Soldier Boy

Author: Ishmael Beah

Ishmael Beah leads a typical pre-teen life in Sierra Leone: hanging out with friends, going to school and performing American hip-hop songs. But when the civil war reaches his village in 1992, he becomes separated from family and friends and sets off on a harrowing journey of survival through a country ravaged by war and atrocities. Captured by government troops when he is thirteen, this gentle boy is traumatized, hooked on drugs and trained to kill. Beah's beautifully written memoir tells a riveting story of fear, loss, violence, friendship and redemption. The themes of this book are relevant to adolescents today and would spark fascinating class discussions.

Year Released: 2006

Grades 7-12

Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard

Author: Mawi Asedom

Of Beetles & Angels is an autobiographical memoir of a young man's journey to success. When he was four years old, Asgedom's family left their war-ravaged home in Ethiopia and spent three years in a Sudanese refugee camp before coming to the U.S. in 1983. He later earned a full scholarship to Harvard, where in 1999 he delivered the commencement address. Told from Mawi's point of view as a teenager, he describes the conditions in Ethiopia, the family's escape to a Sudanese refugee camp, and finally their emigration to America. Once in the United States, things don't immediately fall into place. Mawi is faced with many trials and tribulations, hardships and pain. Nonetheless, he follows his fathers advice to, "Treat all people-even the most unsightly beetles-as though they were angels sent from heaven".  Mawi overcomes racial prejudice, language barriers and financial disadvantage, eventually realizing his dream. This is both an inspirational and positive immigration story highly recommended for teens and young adult's grades 6-high school.

Year Released: 2002

Grades 6-12

West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story

Author: Tamim Ansary

West of Kabul, East of New York is an autobiographical memoir about a man entrenched in two cultures, seemingly stuck between his Afghan roots and his experience as an American immigrant. Tamin Ansary recalls his boyhood life in Afghanistan, describes his venture into the San Francisco hippie scene of the '70s and his travels throughout the Middle Eastern world of Islam in an effort to define his own spirituality. Ansary's impassioned email, written the day after the 9/11 attacks, reached millions of Americans and the author's own story is an effort to bridge the ever-widening gap between his heritage and his adopted home. Tamim's story is fascinating, at times frightening, and always informative.

Year Released: 2003

Grades 9-12

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent

Author: Julia Alvarez

This novel is both a family saga and a coming-of-age story. Each of the four Garcia sisters tells her own story of the family's flight from the Dominican Republic and their subsequent adjustment to life in the United States. The novel is largely set in the 1960's, a time of political upheaval in the country the Garcia family left and of great social change in the country they adopted. The novel deals with many themes common to the immigrant experience-intergenerational conflict, bonds to home country and culture, and cross-cultural misunderstanding-as well as themes that are more particular to the experience of political refugees. Because this novel contains some mature material, it is recommended for high school students.

Year Released: 1992

Grades 9-12

The Other Side of the Sky

Author: Farah Ahmedi with Tamim Ansary

Farah Ahmedi was seven years old when she stepped on a landmine in her neighborhood in Kabul, Afghanistan and lost her left leg. A few years later, most of her family was killed in a Taliban rocket attack and Farah was forced to flee, with her ailing mother, across the border to Pakistan. There, Farah and her mother trekked precariously from city to city and finally managed to secure admission into the U.S. as refugees-only to find that the struggle to survive, adapt and prosper was far from over. The Other Side of the Sky paints a vivid picture of the bewildering and even terrifying experiences refugees undergo in the apparent safety of American suburbs and public high schools. Throughout the memoir, however, Farah's faith, resilience and intellectual curiosity lead her from one inspirational triumph to the next. For all of Farah's suffering at the hands of others, her account persistently underlines that, "Strangers have been kind when it mattered most." The Other Side of the Sky is a refreshingly hopeful, at times humorous, and deeply moving story of a powerful young woman's improbable success.

Year Released: 2005

Grades 9-12

American Born Chinese

Author: Gene Luen Yan

American Born Chinese is a graphic novel that cleverly takes readers through a journey combining three storylines and three characters into one idea. The stories merge into a single narrative that looks at the themes of stereotype, immigration, and assimilation. The graphic novel interweaves Chinese mythology with ideas from the American Dream. Students are sure to enjoy the images and text through the quick-moving stories. Teachers will find the book surprisingly useful as a springboard for discussions about discrimination, tolerance, stereotyping and immigration.

Year Released: 2006

Grades 6-12

The Orphan of Ellis Island

Author: Elvira Woodruff

A class field trip turns into the adventure of a lifetime when young Dominic Cantori, an orphan, visits Ellis Island. Uncomfortable with all of the discussion about ancestry during the field trip, Dominic wanders off from the group, falls asleep in a utility closet, and soon finds himself swept away to another time and place. This time travel trip takes Dominic to Italy in 1908 where he befriends three orphaned brothers. He discovers the harsh conditions that compelled people to leave their homes and seek refuge in the United States. Dominic joins the brothers as they leave Italy and experiences first-hand what it felt like to travel as a steerage passenger aboard a ship to America. Upon entering New York Harbor he is elated to see the Statue of Liberty and soon discovers the challenges immigrants faced at Ellis Island. When Dominic returns to the present he has developed a deeper appreciation of the struggles of those long-ago immigrants and welcomes the opportunity to be placed with a foster family that is eager to adopt a child like him.

Year Released: 1997

Grade 4-6

Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan

Author: Mary Williams

As the result of renewed fighting in Sudan in the mid 1980's, thirty thousand orphaned, homeless boys were forced to walk almost one thousand miles through eastern Africa in search of refuge. Based on true accounts as told to her by some of these "Lost Boys", Mary Williams' story describes the experiences of eight-year-old Garang, as he seeks safety after his village is destroyed by war. Unable to find his family, Garang wanders down the road where he joins thousands of other boys, who like him, were spared because they were tending their family animals when the war came upon their villages. Organizing themselves into groups, the boys travel east to Ethiopia, hunting for food, caring for younger ones, and avoiding soldiers along the way. After finding safety in an Ethiopian refugee camp, the boys are forced to flee again, this time to Kenya, when war erupts in Ethiopia. Eventually, some find safety in the United States. This inspirational story of courage and survival provides students a starting point for a deeper study of the effects of war on civilian populations, especially on children. In her Author's Note and Afterword, Mary Williams describes her experiences with these children that inspired her to write their story and create a foundation to support their adjustment to life in America.

Year Released: 2005

Grades 3-6