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Refugee Reads
These books can give you a window into the refugee experience for those with personal or family experience, or anyone hoping to understand.
“Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.”
― Carlos Fuentes
The story of the refugee is as old as the most ancient myth, and as current as the most recent social media post. People do not take on this role lightly, nor by choice. The list offered below includes some well-known accounts, and some that may be new to you.
Digital book (DB, DBC, DBF, DBG), braille (BR), large print (LT), and audio described videos (DVD) copies of these titles are available from the Perkins Library or the Worcester Talking Book Library. Please contact the library to order any of these books.
Prepared by James Gleason
Deputy Director/Special Services Librarian
Perkins Library
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
DB 77188, DBG17313 (French), DBG18008 (Spanish), LT 19816, Available as BARD Download
After studying in the United States for thirteen years, Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who blogs about race, returns home to Lagos. She has endured enough cultural issues and misses her first love. But the Nigerians label her an “Americanah.” Some strong language. 2013
The Beekeeper of Aleppo
by Christy Lefteri
DB 96236, BR 22818, LT 27456, Available as BARD Download
Beekeeper Nuri cares for his artist wife Afra, who has been blinded. He has hopes to be reunited with his cousin Mustafa who runs an apiary in England. As he and Afra negotiate the fraught journey of Syrian war refugees, they must also reconnect with each other. Some violence. 2019
Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior
by Ric Prado
DB 107409, LT 31185, DB available as BARD Download
A CIA officer reflects on his difficult childhood and eventual career with the CIA that ended with his retirement as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. He discusses some of the missions he served on, his efforts to develop assets, and his team’s role in the War on Terror. Bestseller. 2022
The Boy at the Back of the Class
by Onjali Q. Raúf
DB 97207, Available as BARD Download
When quiet Ahmet arrives in their classroom, a group of kids fail to draw him out. But they don’t give up and try a new plan after learning he is a Syrian refugee. For grades 3-6. 2018
City of Thorns: Nine Lives In the World’s Largest Refugee Camp
by Ben Rawlence
DB 85749, BR 21709, LT 20452, Available as BARD Download
A portrayal of the lives of nine occupants of the Dadaab refugee camp in the inhospitable deserts of northern Kenya, where only thorn bushes grow. Those profiled include a former child soldier, a schoolgirl, and a man who scrapes together a living by pushing a wheelbarrow. Some violence. 2016
Contra El Viento: Una Narración Muy Personal
by Juan Suárez
DB 43986, Available as BARD Download
The author tells of his life as an ordinary man of humble origins who, through his love of God, country, and family, overcame hardship and adversity. He portrays his beloved native Cuba as a land he saw corrupted by the Castro regime. He also describes how his family sustained him in his search for success and happiness. Spanish language. 1998
The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of An American Life
by Lauren Markham
DB 89393, DB 96880 (youth adaptation), Available as BARD Download
Journalist follows the journey of seventeen-year-old twins Ernesto and Raul Flores as they fled gang violence in El Salvador, eventually being placed in the care of an estranged brother residing in California. Recounts the boys’ adjustment to life as American teenagers and provides a portrait of their experiences as migrants. 2017
Fiddler on the Roof
by Jerry Bock
DB 54654, Available as BARD Download
Script of the musical play based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem about a Jewish family living in a Russian village in the early years of the twentieth century. Despite hard times and five daughters, the father, Tevye, manages to keep a sense of humor. 1964
The Gift
by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
DB 11938, DBF04340 (Russian), Available as BARD Download
Centers on a young poet living in a colony of intellectual exiles in Berlin who fled the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and his love affair with a proud young woman. 1938
A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival
by Melissa Fleming
DB 87867, BR 21957, LT 21704, Available as BARD Download
The author shares the story of young Syrian refugee Doaa Al Zamel. She recounts how Doaa and her family left war-torn Syria for Egypt, her relationship with a former Free Syrian Army fighter named Bassem, and Doaa and Bassem’s harrowing flight from Egypt across the Mediterranean Sea. 2017
Download A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea, DB 87867
Download Braille, A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea, BR 21957
Letters from Cuba
by Ruth Behar
DB 100506, DB 108076 (Spanish), LT 30172, Available as BARD Download
In 1938, young Esther joins her father in tropical, multicultural Cuba, where they toil together to rescue the rest of their Jewish family from persecution in Poland. For grades 3-6. 2021.
The Other Side of Truth
by Beverley Naidoo
DB 54378, JL 497, Available as BARD Download
Nigeria, 1995. When Sade’s journalist father becomes a political target and her mother is murdered, Sade and her younger brother, Femi, are smuggled to London for safety. they become stranded there, alone and without a family, desperately worried about their father’s situation. Some violence. For grades 5-8. Carnegie Medal. 2000
The Refugees
by Viet Thanh Nguyen
DB 88948, BR 21968, LT 22279, Available as BARD Download
Collection of eight short stories from Pulitzer Prize winner. Set in both Vietnam and America, the stories explore immigration and the resulting issues with identity, loyalties, romantic relationships, and family. In “Black-Eyed Women,” a writer deals with ghosts of all sorts. Some violence and some descriptions of sex. Bestseller. 2017
Download The Refugees, DB 88948
Download Braille, The Refugees, BR 21968
A Stranger and You Welcomed Me: A Call to Mercy and Solidarity With Migrants and Refugees
by Pope Francis
DB 93520, BR 22561, Available as BARD Download
Leader of the Roman Catholic Church and author of The Name of God Is Mercy (DB 83513, BR 21491) presents a collection of writings on welcoming and caring for refugees of conflicts. Includes addresses, homilies, prayers, and annual messages given between 2014 and 2018 for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. 2018
The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father
by Kao Kalia Yang
DBC02876, Available as BARD Download
The Hmong tradition is that the stories of the culture are kept alive by song poet. Author Kao Kalia Yang’s father, Bee Yang, was one of these. Bee’s song started when he was orphaned and went from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other. His song started in Laos, moved through the jungle and a Thai refugee camp, and ended in a St. Paul housing project. 2017.
Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories
by Sholem Aleichem
DB 102096, Available as BARD Download
A collection of short stories examining human nature and modernity from the perspective of villagers riding trains from shtetl to shtetl. Also includes material focused on Tevye, a compassionate, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka. Translated from the original Yiddish publication. Strong language. 1987
Download Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories , DB 102096
Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds: A Refugee’s Search For Home
by Mondiant Dogon
DB 106093, LT 31108, Available as BARD Download
The author, a Bagogwe Tutsi born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, recounts his experiences after being forced to flee his home for Rwanda when he was a child. He details life in the UN tent cities, his time as a child soldier, and his struggle to forge a better life. 2021
Victim 2117
by Jussi Adler-Olsen
DB 98723, BR 23138, LT 28178, Available as BARD Download
The newspaper refers to the body only as Victim 2117–the two-thousand-one-hundred-and-seventeenth refugee to die in the Mediterranean Sea. But the death sets off a chain of events that throws Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold cases division led by Detective Carl Mørck, into a deeply dangerous–and deeply personal–case. Translated from Danish. 2020
Download Victim 2117, DB 98723
Download Braille, Victim 2117, BR 23138
We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories From Refugee Girls Around the World
by Malala Yousafzai
DB 93853, LT 25280, Available as BARD Download
Nobel Peace Prize winner explores her own experience as a displaced person, and shares the personal stories of the incredible girls she has met on her journeys–girls who have lost their community, relatives, and often the only world they’ve ever known. For senior high and older readers. 2019
What Strange Paradise
by Omar El Akkad
DB 105739, LT 30241, Available as BARD Download
Bodies wash up on the shores of a small island after another dilapidated ship sinks under the weight of its passengers. Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians–all desperate to escape untenable lives in their homelands. But miraculously, nine-year-old Amir has survived the passage and is rescued by local teen Vänna. 2021
