Refugee Week 2025 - Young Adult perspectives

Updated May 22, 2025
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A land of permanent goodbyes
Abawi, Atia
Paper Book
A powerful novel of refugees escaping from war-torn Syria, masterfully told by a journalist who witnessed the crisis firsthand. In a country ripped apart by war, Tareq lives with his big and loving family . . . until the bombs strike. His city is in ruins. His life is destroyed....
Songs of a war boy
Adut, Deng Thiak
Paper Book
'A reminder that every childhood is different, and some are jaw-droppingly, mind-bendingly, heart-wrenchingly different.' - Morris Gleitzman, Australian Children's Laureate Deng Adut was six years old when war came to his village in South Sudan. Taken from his mother, he...
City of saints & thieves
Anderson, Natalie C.
Paper Book
The Hunger Games meets The Thief Lord in this enthralling murder mystery set in Kenya. In the shadows of Sangui City, a street-thief called Tina patiently plots her revenge. Her mother has been shot dead at the home of one of Kenya's richest businessmen, and Tina is sure she...
Let's go swimming on doomsday
Anderson, Natalie C.
Paper Book
Forced to become a child soldier, a sixteen-year-old Somali refugee must confront his painful past in this haunting, thrilling tale of loss and redemption for fans of A Long Way Gone and What is the What When Abdi's family is kidnapped, he's forced to do the...
The power of welcome : real-life refugee and migrant journeys
Bamyani, Marie
Paper Book
  A powerful graphic novel exploring the struggle for survival of displaced people. With true storiesfrom Ukraine, Somalia, Bosnia, Syria and Afghanistan, this moving book collects important tales about the real journeys of people forced from their homesby conflict. ...
Detention
Bancks, Tristan
Paper Book
"Australian author Tristan Bancks has created a fictional but thoroughly researched, fast paced, suspenseful and ultimately hopeful story." Better Reading Sima and her family are pressed to the rough, cold ground among fifty others. They lie next to the tall fence designed to keep...
Seven Million Sunflowers
Duffy, Malcolm.
Paper Book
Escaping war is only half the battle as the Kovalenko family swap Ukrainian dangers for life with a British family. 15-year-old Kateryno and her family live in Kharkiv. Their lives are shattered when on February 24th 2022 the Russian army invades. Their apartment block is...
A hope more powerful than the sea : one teen refugee's incredible story of love, loss, and survival
Fleming, Melissa
Paper Book
The extraordinary true story of one teen refugee's quest to find a new life--now adapted for young readers A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea tells the story of Doaa Al-Zamel, a Syrian girl whose life was upended in 2011 by her country's brutal civil war. She and her...
The bone sparrow
Fraillon, Zana
Paper Book
Winner of the CILIP Amnesty Honour 2017. Shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017. Perfect for fans of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS. This is a beautiful, vivid and deeply moving story about a refugee boy who has...
Things we leave behind, the
Furniss, Clare
Paper Book
* Winner of the Southern Schools Book Awards 2025, shortlisted for the UKLA Books Prize 2025 and the Carnegie Medal 2025.  How I Live Now meets Exodus - a startling YA dystopia that imagines London as the epicentre of the refugee crisis, from critically...
Nubia: the Awakening
Haynes, Clarence A.
Paper Book
From beloved actor and producer Omar Epps and writer Clarence A. Haynes comes the biggest epic fantasy of the year. A powerful saga of three teens, the children of refugees from a fallen African utopia, who must navigate their newfound powers in a climate-ravaged New York City. Perfect for fans...
My father, the panda killer
Hoang, Jamie Jo
Paper Book
A poignant coming-of-age story told in two alternating voices: a California teenager railing against the Vietnamese culture, juxtaposed with her father as an eleven-year-old boat person on a harrowing and traumatic refugee journey from Vietnam to the United States. "A profoundly...
In search of safety : voices of refugees
Kuklin, Susan
Paper Book
Five refugees recount their courageous journeys to America -- and the unimaginable struggles that led them to flee their homelands -- in a powerful work from the author of Beyond Magenta and We Are Here to Stay. "From 1984, when I was born, until July 16, 2017,...
Butterfly yellow
Lai, Thanhha
Paper Book
Hang doesn't believe in adventures. There are steps that must be done, and once done, another step awaits. The last step, after six years of minute planning by her grandmother, is a bus ride away. In A-ma-ri-lo her baby brother has to be waiting. In her imaginings, he is always...
When clouds touch us
Lai, Thanhha
Paper Book
I ache to know how much longer until clouds touch us, ending refugee living. It's been two years since H and her family arrived in Alabama as refugees from the Việt Nam War. They've worked hard to make a life for themselves in America,...
From Here
Mufleh, Luma
Paper Book
In her coming-of-age memoir, refugee advocate Luma Mufleh writes of her tumultuous journey to reconcile her identity as a gay Muslim woman and a proud Arab-turned-American refugee. With no word for "gay" in Arabic, Luma may not have known what to call the feelings she had...
Me, in between
Rabinowich, Julya
Paper Book
Madina's family have fled war to seek asylum in Europe and begin a hopeful new life. An ordinary world of fitting in at school, learning the language and forging friendships lies before Madina. Yet she finds herself caught between her new life and her traumatic memories of the past. With the...
Finding refuge : real-life immigration stories from young people
Rouse, Victorya
Paper Book
When you read about war in your history book or hear about it in the news, do you ever wonder what happens to the families and children in the places experiencing war? Many families in these situations decide that they must leave their homes to stay alive. What happens to them? ...
The next new Syrian girl
Shukairy, Ream
Paper Book
A Syrian American and Syrian refugee who are at odds must chase a haunting secret that leads them all the way to Jordan in this sharp-witted novel perfect for fans of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.  Khadija Shami is a Syrian American high school...
Ink knows no borders : poems of the immigrant and refugee experience
Vecchione, Patrice
Paper Book
Contributors to Ink Knows No Borders- ELIZABETH ACEVEDO | SAMIRA AHMED | KAVEH AKBAR | EAVAN BOLAND | CHEN CHEN | SAFIA ELHILLO | MART N ESPADA | CARLOS ANDR S G MEZ | JOSEPH O. LEGASPI | ADA LIM N | EMTITHAL MAHMOUD | BAO PHI | ALBERTO R OS | ERIKA L. S NCHEZ | GARY SOTO |...
Unaccompanied : stories of brave teenagers seeking asylum
White, Tracy
Paper Book
One of the 2024 Best Graphic Novels for Teens by the American Library Association Life at home is so unbearable that these kids will risk their lives and face colossal challenges to escape to the United States and find safety.  This book tells the...

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