Courage, Strength, & Determination: E-Books to Honor World Refugee Day by Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, Outreach ManagerJune 18, 2020

The smiling faces of Polish children in the camp in Teheran.
The smiling faces of Polish children in the camp in Teheran. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 58128

On June 20 the world will observe the annual United Nations' World Refugee Day (#WithRefugees). The American Library Association describes it as a day that "honors the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict, and violence." The chosen theme for 2020 is: Every Action Counts. It's a reminder that everyone can and should be a part of creating a more just society, inclusive communities, and equal opportunities in the world—a sentiment and call to action we need now more than ever.

Below you will find a selection of recent titles the Library has available online as told by different voices from different places; these stories are important reads throughout the year. Can you recommend any other titles to read? Leave your suggestion in the comments.

Above Us the Milky Way: An Illuminated Alphabet by Fowzia Karimi (2020). Fiction

A debut novel about a young family forced to flee their war-ravaged homeland, forced to leave behind everything and everyone beloved and familiar. Old family photographs and the author's own lush watercolor paintings inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts interweave with remembrances, ghost stories, stories of the war dead, and fairy tales to conjure a story of war, of emigration and immigration, the remarkable human capacity to experience love and wonder amidst destruction and loss, and how to create beauty out of horror.

Exile Music by Jennifer Steil (2020). Fiction

An atmospheric and meditative novel based on an unexplored slice of World War II history, following a young Jewish girl whose family flees refined and urbane Vienna for safe harbor in the mountains of Bolivia. As a young girl growing up in Vienna in the 1930s. In lyrical and atmospheric prose, Exile Music illuminates one girl's coming of age in a family separated and defined by war, whose hope takes root on an unfamiliar shore.

This is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman by Ilhan Omar (2020). Nonfiction

An intimate and rousing memoir by progressive trailblazer Ilhan Omar—the first African refugee, the first Somali-American, and one of the first Muslim women, elected to Congress.

Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes by Adam Hochschild (2020). Nonfiction

The astonishing but forgotten story of an immigrant sweatshop worker who married an heir to a great American fortune and became one of the most charismatic radical leaders of her time.

Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity by Porochista Khakpour (2020). Nonfiction

Brown Album is a stirring collection of essays, at times humorous and at times profound. Altogether, it reveals the tolls that immigrant life in this country can take on a person and the joys that life can give.

 The Plateau by Margaret Paxson (2019). Nonfiction

In a remote pocket of Nazi-held France, ordinary people risked their lives to rescue many hundreds of strangers, mostly Jewish children. Was this a fluke of history, or something more? Anthropologist Maggie Paxson arrives on the Plateau to explore this phenomenon: What are the traits that make a group choose selflessness?

What They Meant for Evil: How a Lost Girl of Sudan Found Healing, Peace, and Purpose in the Midst of Suffering by Rebecca Deng (2019). Nonfiction

 

Shares the author's story of how she fled Sudan in 2000 and came to the United States as an unaccompanied refugee child, including how she survived gunfire, human and animal predators, hunger, and illness.

Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey by Mikhal Dekel (2019). Nonfiction

Fleeing East from Nazi terror, over a million Polish Jews traversed the Soviet Union, many finding refuge in Muslim lands. Their story—the extraordinary saga of two-thirds of Polish Jewish survivors—has never been fully told.

The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri (2019). Nonfiction

In her first work of nonfiction, Dina Nayeri defies stereotypes and raises surprising questions about the immigrant experience. Here are the real human stories of what it is like to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh.

Cold White Sun by Sue Farrell Holler (2019). YA Fiction

A teenage boy stands outside the Calgary bus station, alone, on a frigid night. He has no winter clothes, no identification, and he speaks little English. His name is Hakim, but who is he, and where did he come from?

The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives (2018). Nonfiction

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers from around the world to explore and illuminate their experiences. Poignant and insightful, this collection of essays reveals moments of uncertainty, resilience in the face of trauma, and a reimagining of identity. The Displaced is a powerful look at what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of refuge.

The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar (2018). Fiction

The story of two girls living 800 years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker—places today's headlines in the sweep of history, where the pain of exile and the triumph of courage echo again and again.

Kingdom of Twilight by Steven Uhly (2018). Fiction

After killing an SS officer, a young Polish Jew, Margarita Ejzenstain, flees with her newborn baby creating an intermingled series of destinies that leave those involved dealing with geographical and psychological ramifications for years.

Hara Hotel: A Tale of Syrian Refugees in Greece by Teresa Thornhill (2018). Nonfiction

A firsthand account of a Greek refugee camp and the stories of the refugees staying in them. Hara Hotel chronicles everyday life in a makeshift refugee camp on the forecourt of a petrol station in northern Greece... a vivid picture of the lives of the people trapped between civil war and Europe's borders.
 
Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!
 
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.
View all posts by Adriana Blancarte-Hayward