Language Barriers

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Mustafa

Marie-Loise Gay

After leaving his war-torn country with his family, Mustafa visits a park near his new home and finds beautiful flowers, lady bugs, fall leaves, and finally, a friend.
My First-Generation Family

Claudia Harrington

My First-Generation Family is the story of a normal day in Manny's life. When classmate Lenny visits his home, he discovers Manny's family moved here from Mexico. Who picks up Manny from school in a taxi? Papa! Who brings home dinner from her restaurant job? Mama! Who reads Manny's bedtime story? Mama and Papa! Lenny realizes love makes a family.
My Name Is Sangoel

Karen Williams and Khadra Mohammed

Sangoel is a refugee. Leaving behind his homeland of Sudan, where his father died in the war, he has little to call his own other than his name, a Dinka name handed down proudly from his father and grandfather before him.
One Green Apple

Eve Bunting

While on a school field trip to an orchard to make cider, a young immigrant named Farah gains self-confidence when the green apple she picks perfectly complements the other students' red apples.
Picture Us In The Light

Kelly Loy Gilbert

Daniel, a Chinese-American teen, must grapple with his plans for the future, his feelings for his best friend Harry, and his discovery of a family secret that could shatter everything.
Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything

Lenore Look

After Ruby Lu's deaf cousin, Flying Duck, and her parents come from China to live with her, Ruby finds life challenging as she adjusts to her new family, tries to mend her rocky relationship with her friend Emma, and faces various adventures in summer school.
Shanghai Messenger

Andrea Cheng

A free-verse novel about eleven-year-old Xiao Mei's visit with her extended family in China, where the Chinese-American girl finds many differences but also the similarities that bind a family together.
Shy Mama's Halloween

Anne Broyles

For Anya, Dasha, Irina, and Dimitrii, newly arrived to this country, Halloween seems a wonderfully strange and exciting holiday. They enlist Mrs. Rumanski and her midnight-blue Singer sewing machine in the apartment downstairs to help with their costumes, and Papa agrees to take them out trick-or-treating. But Papa comes home sick that evening, and it looks as though the children will be watching the trick or treating from the upstairs window. Mama, who is frightened by so much in this new country, especially the thought of ghosts and goblins on the streets, surprises them all when she rises to the occasion and takes her young princess, witch, devil, and clown down the stairs and out into the night. As they go from house to house, they find that everyone along the street is friendly. No one seems to care that their "Thank yous" are said with an accent, or that Mama, in her babushka, can speak only a few words of English. For Anya, Dasha, Irina, and Dimitrii, it is their first sense of belonging in their new country, of savoring the fun and magic of Halloween and the generosity of strangers. For Mama, it is a much greater step out into a new world, led by her children.
Silent Movie

Avi .

In the early years of the twentieth century, a Swedish family encounters separation and other hardships upon immigrating to New York City until the son is cast in a silent movie, in a picture book that evokes an actual silent movie.
Sisters

Judith Caseley

Kika has just been adopted -- and she's worried. There's so much that's new to her: a different language, new friends to make, and something she's never had before -- a family. Melissa has a new sister -- and she's excited. There's so much to share with Kika: trips to the playground, afternoons at the library, and birthday parties. Through each new experience, Kika and Melissa discover that sisterhood can be fun, challenging, and sometimes unpredictable, but always rewarding. Best of all, a sister is a friend for life.
The American Wei

Marion Hess Pomeranc

When Wei Fong loses his first tooth while going to his family's naturalization ceremony, many soon-to-be Americans join in the search.
The Astonishing Color of After

Emily X.R. Pan

After her mother's suicide, grief-stricken Leigh Sanders travels to Taiwan to stay with grandparents she never met, determined to find her mother who she believes turned into a bird.
The Poet X

Elizabeth Acevedo

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers--especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. Mami is determined to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, and Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. When she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, she can't stop thinking about performing her poems.
The Quiet Place

Sarah Stewart

When Isabel and her family move to the United States, Isabel misses all the things she left behind in Mexico, especially her aunt Lupita and hearing people speak Spanish. But she also experiences some wonderful new things -- her first snow storm and a teacher who does not speak Spanish but has a big smile. Even better, Papa and her brother Chavo help her turn a big box into her own quiet place, where she keeps her books and toys and writes letters to Aunt Lupita. As she decorates and adds more and more on to her quiet place, it is here that Isabel feels the most at home in her new country while she learns to adjust to the changes in her life.
Under the Mesquite

Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Throughout her high school years, as her mother battles cancer, Lupita takes on more responsibility for her house and seven younger siblings, while finding refuge in acting and writing poetry.
What is Sign Language?

Deborah Kent

Explains the history of American Sign Language (ASL) and shares the story of Beanca, a girl who was born deaf and uses ASL to communicate.
When Christmas Feels Like Home

Gretchen Griffith

When his family moves from a small Mexican village to North Carolina, Eduardo asks how soon he will feel at home, and slowly his Tio Miguel's seemingly impossible replies come true until, at last, he can put out the Nativity scene he carved with his grandfather.
When This World Was New

D. H. Figueredo

When his father leads him on a magical trip of discovery through new fallen snow, a young boy who emigrated from his warm island home overcomes fears about living in New York.
When This World Was New

D. H. Figueredo

When his father leads him on a magical trip of discovery through new fallen snow, a young boy who emigrated from his warm island home overcomes fears about living in New York.
Without Words

Beti Rozen and Peter Hays

Luiz has just arrived in the United States from Brazil which he misses terribly. But the immigrant has a talent for drawing. Encouraged at school, Luiz creates many images, but soon he idealizes his former life. Later, he will discover that Brazil wasn't always so wonderful. Through art, he learns to adapt to his new life.