List

The Immigrant Experience: Books for Middle Grades

By Skokie Staff Youth Services

These great books highlight the experiences of immigrants and refugees.

Finding Home: The Journey of Immigrants and Refugees
2021 by Lee, Jen Sookfong
This nonfiction book seeks to answer the question–what drives people to search for new homes? Discover how human migration has shaped our world and explore current issues facing immigrants and refugees today.

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Finally Seen
2023 by Yang, Kelly
Ten-year-old Lina hasn’t seen her parents or little sister in five years. When she finally travels from China to Los Angeles she’s excited to be reunited and begin a fabulous new life in America. But things aren’t exactly how they seemed in the postcards.

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Land of the Cranes
2020 by Salazar, Aida
Nine-year-old Betita and her parents fled Mexico seeking political asylum in Los Angeles. But the safety and peace they hoped for is upended when Betita's father is arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are detained and forced to survive in a family detention center.

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Parachute Kids
2023 by Tang, Betty C.
Feng-Li is having the best family vacation in America, that is, until she and her older siblings find out their parents are returning to Taiwan and leaving them behind. This funny and heartrending graphic novel follows the three siblings as they struggle to fend for themselves, balancing some hilarious moments with the stress of a new school, new home, new country, and separation from their parents.

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Other Words for Home
2019 by Warga, Jasmine
An award-winning novel in verse about a young girl who flees Syria to live with relatives in Cincinnati. Jude worries about the family members she left behind and struggles to find herself and her place in her new home.

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World in Between: Based on a True Refugee Story
2021 by Trebinčević, Kenan
Kenan is like any other kid. He loves to draw and play soccer with his friends, and he dreams of being a famous athlete. But when war in Bosnia threatens him and his family, they must fight to survive and make their way to the United States, where they hope to find safety and a place to call home.

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Cuba in My Pocket
2021 by Cuevas, Adrianna
This middle grade historical novel is based on the author’s family history. Twelve-year-old Cumba must leave his family in Cuba and immigrate to the U.S. alone when Castro takes over Cuba in 1961. Separated from his family, Cumba struggles to remember the sights and sounds of his homeland while navigating his new home in the U.S. and the challenges that come with a new language, new city, new school, and totally new life.

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Inside Out & Back Again
2011 by Lai, Thanhha
A coming-of-age novel in verse inspired by the author’s childhood experience as a refugee. Hà and her family are forced to leave Vietnam and resetlle in Alabama when the war reaches her home in Saigon.

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Isla to Island
2022 by Castellanos, Alexis
A beautifully illustrated wordless graphic novel set in the 1960s. Twelve-year-old Marisol is sent from Cuba to live in New York to escape Castro’s regime. Marisol not only misses her colorful island home but struggles to find her place in cold, gray Brooklyn.

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The Year I Flew Away
2021 by Arnold, Marie
In this magical book, 10-year-old Gabrielle is excited to move from Haiti to America but finds it difficult to adjust to life in Brooklyn. Then she meets a witch who offers her the chance to be the perfect English-speaking American Gabrielle thinks she wants to be.

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Santiago's Road Home
2020 by Diaz, Alexandra
Twelve-year-old Santiago flees abusive relatives and extreme poverty in Mexico only to be trapped in an ICE detention center after he’s detained at the border crossing into the United States.

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Letters from Cuba
2020 by Behar, Ruth
Eleven-year-old Esther escapes Poland and joins her father in Cuba, leaving behind her beloved sister. Esther promises to write down everything that happens, the good and the bad, until they are reunited. She writes about finding community in Cuba while also dealing with the continued threat of Nazism and fighting to rescue the rest of her Jewish family from persecution in Poland.

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