Presents profiles of fourteen teenagers from countries around the world, revealing their struggles to fit into American society and their personal triumphs.
Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and their parents leave Bangladesh for New York City, but the expiration of their visas and the events of September 11, 2001, bring frustration, sorrow, and terror for the whole family.
Three immigrant girls from different parts of the world meet and become close friends in a small New Jersey town where their mothers have found domestic work, but their relationships are tested when one girl's mother is accused of stealing a precious heirloom.
A Muslim immigrant teen struggles to hold her family together in the wake of 9/11 in this poignant novel from acclaimed author Marina Budhos. You forget. You forget you don’t really exist here, that this isn’t your home. Since emigrating from Bangladesh, fourteen-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal US citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous, a suspected terrorist. When Nadira’s father is arrested and detained at the US-Canada border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don’t ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart. Nothing matters to her anymore—not even college. It’s up to Nadira to be the strong one and bring her family back together again.
An extraordinary and timely novel, a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book, examines what it’s like to grow up under surveillance in America. Be careful what you say and who you say it to. Anyone might be a watcher. Naeem is a Bangledeshi teenager living in Queens who thinks he can charm his way through anything. But then mistakes catch up with him. So do the cops, who offer him an impossible choice: spy on his Muslim neighbors and report back to them on shady goings-on, or face a police record. Naeem wants to be a hero—a protector. He wants his parents to be proud of him. But as time goes on, the line between informing and entrapping blurs. Is he saving or betraying his community? Inspired by actual surveillance practices in New York City and elsewhere, Marina Budhos’s extraordinary and timely novel examines what it’s like to grow up with Big Brother always watching. Naeem’s riveting story is as vivid and involving as today’s headlines. Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book, We Need Diverse Books Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Book YALSA Best YA Fiction for Young Adults “A fast-moving, gripping tale.” —SLJ, Starred
In the tumult of 1970s New York City, kids are expected to figure out issues of race that adults haven't when seventh graders are bused from their neighborhood in Queens to integrate a new school in South Jamaica. Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are three mixed-race girls who have always felt like outsiders in their mostly white neighborhood in Queens, but at least they have each other. Now it's seventh grade, and they're part of an experiment where kids will go on a long bus ride to integrate a new school in a black neighborhood. Maybe there the three girls can finally fit in. But Francesca's parents put her in private school. And Jamila and Josie discover that they're not even in the same classes. How do they find their place in a school divided between black and white? And what about the boys wanting to be friends--and maybe more? Can kids come together when grown-ups stay apart? In this tender story of friendship and family love, award-winning author Marina Budhos captures what it's like to tip from twelve to thirteen and to try to carry the dreams of adults.
When a teenage girl’s single mom is taken by ICE, everything changes—all of her hopes and dreams for the future turn into survival. Seventeen-year-old Rania is shaken awake in her family's apartment in Brooklyn. ICE is at the door, taking her mother away. But Ammi has done everything right, hasn’t she? Their asylum case is fine. This was supposed to be Rania’s greatest summer: hanging out with her best friend, Fatima, and getting ready for college in the fall. But now, none of that is certain. Now, along with her younger brother, Kamal, and a new friend, Carlos, Rania must figure out how to survive. In this vivid exploration of what happens when the country you have put your hopes into is fast shutting down, award-winning author Marina Budhos shows us how one girl bursting with dreams navigates secrets, love, and the lure of the open road.
Jaya is from Trinidad, Maria is from Mexico, and Lola is from Slovakia. The girls couldn’t be more different, except for two things: They’re all the daughters of maids and nannies in their prosperous suburban town of Meadowbrook, and they all long to fit in and succeed among their more privileged peers. But when Jaya’s mother is accused of stealing some valuable jewelry from her employer, the seemingly liberal town of Meadowbrook becomes a place of ugly tensions and racism, and the girls’ friendship threatens to buckle under the strain. Once again, Marina Budhos has written a thoughtful and ambitious novel about class and the cultural differences that can both divide and unite.
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