• Compiled by Mrs Downs

• School Librarian

‘DIVERSITY’ SELECTIVE MULTI-CULTURAL

BOOKLIST

Herschel Grammar School

Ruta Sepetys Between shades of gray One night fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother and young brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia

Jasmine Skies Sita Brachmachari

Mira Levenson is bursting with excitement as she flies to India to stay with her aunt and cousin for the first time. As soon as she lands Mira is hurled into the sweltering heat and a place full of new sights, sounds, and deeply buried family secrets

Artichoke Hearts Sita Brachmachari Mira is drawn to mysterious Jide, a boy who is clearly hiding a troubled past and has grown hardened layers - like those of an artichoke - around his heart

* More suitable for older readers

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POETRY

821 ZEP Benjamin Zephaniah, Talking turkeys

This collection of rap poetry covers subjects such as politics, racism, green is-sues and others.

821 AGA John Agard Half-caste and other poems

The tensions brought about by differences of race and culture are at the heart of this collection of poetry

MYTHS & FOLKLORE 398.2 Petronella Breinburg Stories from the Caribbean

This collection of stories from the Caribbean range from creation myths, hero stories, ghost stories, to traditional tales and traditional stories retold in a mod-ern setting all of which aim to reflect the history and culture of the Caribbean region.

398.2 Madhur Jaffrey Seasons of splendour / Tales, myths and legends of India India is a land steeped in folklore and tradition and in this collection of short sto-ries, the author draws on India's tales, myths and legends and also shares memories of her childhood in India. The stories are full of gods, goddesses, princes and demons.

Alan Gibbons Act of Love Explores the consequences of the war on terror on two young lives

Blackman, Malorie Noughts and crosses

Racism and prejudice in a world set in an alternate historical reality. The novel looks at a society deeply divided between a black ruling class of Crosses and a white underclass of Noughts. 1st in a quartet: Checkmate; Knife Edge; Double Cross

Candy Gourlay Tall Story As she waits anxiously for her half-brother, Bernardo to arrive from the Philippines, Andi hopes he'll turn out to be tall and just as mad as she is about basketball

Tom Avery Too much trouble

‘Get out, Emmanuel! ‘growled my uncle. "Take your brother and go." But where can two boys go when they're on their own, on the run, with little money or food?

GAVIN,Jamila The Wheel of Surya, A brother and sister’s epic journey to independence spans India and England in war and peace. Together they escape across India even though they face a daily fight for survival. Also by Jamila Gavin: The eye of the horse, I want to be an angel, Coram boy, Track of the wind, Eye of the horse, The Singing Bowls and others

Andy Mulligan Trash Three friends. Raphael, Gardo and Rat. Living on a heap of trash, a lifetime of sifting rubbish. One day they find something extraordinary - a deadly secret. From that moment they are hunted without mercy

920 CHA Chang, Jung Wild swans / Three daughters of China*

Through the lives of three generations of women, this book tells the story of 20th-century China. The book begins with the author's grandmother in 1924, contin-ues with the experiences of the mother and finishes with the daughter who grew up during the Cultural Revolution.

920 FRA Anne Frank

The diary of a young girl In 1942

Anne Frank and her family fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, hid in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse. Over the next two years, Anne describes in her diary her frustrations at being confined, hungry, bored and the threat of discov-ery. Her diary ends when they are discovered in 1944 920 YOU Malala Yousafzai I Am Malala

The inspiring story of a schoolgirl who was determined not to be intimidated by extremists, and faced the Taliban with immense courage.

Kathryn Stockett The Help* Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver... BIOGRAPHIES 920 MAH Adeline Yen Mah Chinese Cinderella

Set in 1930's China, Jung-ling's family considers her bad luck because her mother died giving birth to her. They discriminate against her and make her feel unwanted 920 FIL Zlata Filipovic, Zlata's diary / A child's life in Sarajevo

When she starts her diary in January 1992, Zlata tells of her normal, happy life with her family and friends in Sarajevo. But soon they are fighting to survive. Zlata's very personal account is a vivid portrait of an innocent child caught up in a terrible war.

Frank Cottrell Boyce Unforgotten coat

Two refugee brothers from Mongolia are determined to fit in with their Liverpool schoolmates, but bring so much of Mongolia to Bootle that their new friend and guide, Julie, is hard-pressed to know truth from fantasy as she recollects a wonderful friendship that was abruptly ended when Chingis and his family were forced to return to Mongolia Tanya Landman Apache: Girl Warrior

Siki is an orphan of the Black Mountain Apache. Her mother was killed by Mexicans three years ago and her father lost in an ambush the winter before that. When Siki witnesses the brutal murder of her little brother Tazhi, she vows to become an Apache warrior and avenge her brother's death. Deborah Ellis The breadwinner

Starvation or survival - a girl's life under Taliban rule Read also Parvana’s Journey and Mud City

Elizabeth Laird Oranges in No Man’s Land Since her father left Lebanon to find work and her mother tragically died in a shell attack, ten-year-old Ayesha has been living in the bomb-ravaged city of Beirut with her grandmother and her two younger brothers Tish Farrell Stone Robbers

Rico's dad is dead, after a long fight to preserve his Mayan heritage. Now Rico hates everything to do with it

Linzi Glass Ruby Red*

Ruby’s opulent Johannesburg neighbourhood is a far cry from the streets of Soweto where anger and hatred simmer under the surface .

Ali Lewis Everybody jam Danny Dawson lives in the middle of the Australian outback. His older brother Jonny was killed in an accident last year but no-one ever talks about it Troon Harrison The Horse Road Kallisto loves her horses. One day she is returning from racing her horses when she sees from a mountain pass that the Chinese army is approaching her city - clearly planning to steal their horses! . Monica Ali Brick Lane*

Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an ar-ranged marriage with a disappointed man who is twenty years older. Away from the mud and heat of her Bangladeshi village, home is now a cramped flat in a high-rise block in London's East End.

Laurie Halse Anderson Chains

Isabel and her sister, Ruth, are slaves. Sold from one owner to the next, they arrive in New York as the Americans are fighting for their independence, and the English are struggling to maintain control Randa Abdel-Farrah Ten things I hate about me*

The world of Jamie, an Australian teenager of Lebanese Muslim descent, who struggles with peer pressure and racism at school See also Does My Head Look Big in This?

Elizabeth Laird Lost Riders

Taken from their home in Pakistan to work in the Persian Gulf, eight-year-old Rashid and his little brother Shari cling to each other. Then they are separat-ed and forced to become jockeys in the lucrative camel-racing business

Morpurgo, Michael Kensuke's kingdom When Michael is washed up on an island in the Pacific after falling from his parents’ yacht, he struggles to survive on his own Journey to Jo'burg / A South African story Naidoo, Beverley

Frightened that their baby sister will die, 13-year-old Naledi and her younger brother Tiro run away from their grandmother to Johannesburg to find their mother. On their journey they encounter the realities of apartheid - the pass laws, Bantusans, racism and the breakdown of family life.

Khaled Hosseini Kite Runner*

Winter, 1975: Afghanistan, a country on the verge of an internal coup. 12 year old Amir is desperate to win the approval of his father, one of the richest mer-chants in Kabul. He's failed to do so up yo now, but maybe he can do so in the annual kite fighting tournament. See also A Thousand Splendid Suns; And the Mountains Echoed

Vikas Swarup Slumdog Millionaire*

Jamal Malik is an 18-year-old street kid from the slums of Mumbai. So what is he doing appearing on the Indian version of 'Who Wants to Be a Million-aire'? Morris Gleitzman Boy Overboard

Jamal and Bibi want to lead Australia to victory in the World Cup, but this entails leaving their homeland, Afghanistan where their family has upset the authorities

Sarah Crossan The Weight of Water

Kasienka comes to England from Gdansk in Poland with her mother, a suitcase and a laundry bag full of clothers, desperate to search for her fa-ther. Told in poetry form.

Rachel Campbell-Johnston The Child’s Elephant

When a baby elephant is abandoned on the African savannah, a young boy named Bat takes her back to his village and cares for her. But Bat's grandmother explains that Meya cannot stay with them for ever - the call of the wild will always be sounding in her soul

Benjamin Zephaniah Refugee boy

Alem, the product of an Ethiopean father and Eritrean mother, is left alone in London, his fate resting in the hands of the Refugee Council and the British justice system. This story charts Alem's fate as he is moved from children's home to foster family, and in and out of court hearings.

Bali Rai (Un)arranged marriage*

A look at a young man's fight to free himself from family expectations and an arranged marriage he doesn't want See also Rani and Sukh, and others