Afghanistan
Ellis, Deborah.  The Breadwinner.  Y FIC Ellis
Parvana, age 11, lives in Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban.  Sequels are Parvana's Journey and Mud City.

Africa
Dickinson, Peter.  A Bone from a Dry Sea. Y FIC Dickinson  // Y PB D
In two parallel stories, an intelligent female member of a prehistoric tribe becomes instrumental in advancing the lot of her people, and the daughter of a paleontologist is visiting him on a dig in Africa when important fossil remains are discovered.

Farmer, Nancy. A Girl Named Disaster. Y FIC Farmer
While journeying to Zimbabwe, eleven-year-old Nhamo struggles to escape drowning and starvation and in so doing comes close to the luminous world of the African spirits.

Kurtz, Jane.  The Storyteller's Beads.  Y FIC Kurtz
During the political strife and famine of the 1980's, two Ethiopian girls, one Christian and the other Jewish and blind, struggle to overcome many difficulties, including their prejudices about each other, as they make the dangerous journey out of Ethiopia.

Quintana, Anton. The Baboon King.  Y FIC Quintana
Son of a Kikuyu mother and a Masai herdsman father, Morengáru the hunter lives on the edges of tribal society until an actual banishment forces him to make a life for himself among a troop of baboons.

Sacks, Margaret. Beyond Safe Boundaries.  Y FIC Sacks
Elizabeth comes of age in 1960s South Africa as her older sister joins a secret group opposed to the country's racial policies.

Silver, Norman.  No Tigers in Africa.   Y FIC Silver
Newly arrived in England from South Africa, a fifteen-year-old's family deteriorates, as the effects of living under apartheid take a toll on every aspect of the family members' lives.

Zemser, Amy Bronwen.  Beyond the Mango Tree.   Y FIC Zemser
While living in Liberia with her possessive, diabetic mother and often-absent father, twelve-year-old Sarina longs for a friend with whom to experience the world beyond her yard.

Antarctica
L'Engle, Madeleine. Troubling a Star. Y FIC L'Engle
As she tries to stay alive after being left on an iceberg in the Antarctic, sixteen-year-old Vicky recalls the series of events that brought her to the bottom of the world and involved her in a dangerous mystery.

Argentina
Ellis, Ella Thorp.  Swimming with the Whales.   Y FIC Ellis
When it is proposed that he attend school in the United States, a fourteen-year-old boy struggles with his parents' dissolving marriage and his desire to remain near the whales that annually migrate to the waters near his Patagonian home.

Australia
Clarke, Judith.  The Heroic Life of Al Capsella.   Y FIC Clarke
Fourteen-year-old Al Capsella, desperately trying to be normal and blend in with the rest of the crowd, is constantly embarrassed by his highly unconventional parents.

Collins, Alan.  Jacob's Ladder.  Y FIC Collins
The world of Jacob and his younger brother Solly falls apart when they are orphaned and pitched into a Sydney children's home, where other refugee Jewish children are gathering as Hitler rises to power in Europe.

Crew, Gary  Angel's Gate.  Y FIC Crew
Kimmy encounters two wild children who have grown up in the hills of Australia and tries to protect them from the unknown person who murdered their father.

Disher, Garry.  The Bamboo Flute. Y FIC Disher
In a rural Australian community in 1932, twelve-year-old Paul has his predictable life brightened when a drifter helps him make a flute and teaches him how to play it.

Hathorn, Elizabeth.  Thunderwith.  Y FIC Hathorn
After she moves to the Australian outback following her mother's death, fifteen-year-old Laura's friendship with a strange and beautiful dog helps her adjust to a new life with an unfamiliar father and unfriendly stepfamily.

Klein, Robin. The Sky in Silver Lace.  Y Fic Klein
Recounts the growing up of three sisters in a city in Australia around the 1940's.

Marsden, John.  So Much to Tell You.  Y FIC Marsden
Sent to a hospital by her mother, Marina, a disfigured Australian girl who refuses to speak, reveals her thoughts and feelings in a diary.

Zindel, Paul.  Reef of Death.  Y FIC Zindel
While helping a beautiful Aboriginal girl search for her people's missing treasure near the Great Barrier Reef, seventeen-year-old PC finds himself fighting an evil scientist and a deadly underwater monster.

Austria
Orgel, Doris. The Devil in Vienna.  Y FIC Orgel
A Jewish girl and the daughter of a Nazi have been best friends since they started school, but in 1938 the thirteen-year-olds find their close relationship difficult to maintain.

Bangladesh
Perkins, Mitali.   Rickshaw girl. J Fic Perkins
In her Bangladesh village, ten-year-old Naimi excels at painting designs called alpanas, but to help her impoverished family financially she would have to be a boy--or disguise herself as one.

Canada
Brooks, Martha.  Two Moons in August.  Y FIC Brooks
Kieran, a new boy visiting a small town for the summer, helps Sidonie and her family come together again following the death of Sidonie's mother.

Heneghan, James.  Wish Me Luck. Y FIC Heneghan
While on an ocean voyage to Canada to escape the air raids in his Liverpool home, twelve-year-old Jaimie Monaghan faces another kind of life-threatening situation.

Little, Jean.  His Banner over Me.  Y FIC Little
Flora Gauld faces the challenges of taking care of her younger brother, William, and living with her aunt and uncle in Canada, while her parents return to Taiwan as missionaries.

Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. Y FIC Paulsen/ Y PB P
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.

Taylor, Theodore.  The Hostage. Y FIC Tayor
Fourteen-year-old Jamie has second thoughts about harboring a killer whale that his father and he captured off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia and plan to sell to a sea amusement park.

Wynne-Jones, Tim. The Maestro. Y FIC Wynne-Jones
Fleeing from his brutal father, fourteen-year-old Burl arrives at the remote cabin of an eccentric genius who in just one day changes the young man's life forever.

China
Bell, William. Forbidden City. Y FIC Bell
Thrilled when his cameraman father invites him along on an assignment in China, seventeen-year-old Alex Jackson does not suspect that they will become part of the great historical events sweeping China in the spring of 1989.

Bosse, Malcolm. The Examination. Y FIC Bosse
Fifteen-year-old Hong and his older brother Chen face famine, flood, pirates, and jealous rivals on their journey through fifteenth century China as Chen pursues his calling as a scholar and Hong becomes involved with a secret society known as the White Lotus.

Namioka, Lensey. Ties That Bind, Ties That Break : A Novel. Y FIC Namioka
Ailin's life takes a different turn when she defies the traditions of upper class Chinese society by refusing to have her feet bound.

Neville, Emily Cheney. The China Year.  Y FIC Neville
Henrietta Rich, a New York City teenager, spends a year in China when her father accepts a teaching position in Beijing.

Paterson, Katherine.  Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom.  Y FIC Paterson
Abducted from his home by bandits, fifteen-year-old Wang Lee is rescued from slavery by a mysterious girl who introduces him to the Taiping Tienkuo, a secret society partly based on Christian principles and dedicated to the overthrow of the Manchu government.
 

Czechoslovakia
Isaacs, Anne.  Torn Thread.  Y FIC Isaacs
In an attempt to save his daughter's life, Eva's father sends her from Poland to a labor camp in Czechoslovakia where she and her sister survive the war.

Denmark
Benchley, Nathaniel. Bright Candles.  Y FIC Benchley
The experiences of a sixteen-year-old Danish boy during the German occupation of his country in World War II.

Levin, Jane Whitbread.  Star of Danger.  Y FIC Levin
A fourteen-year-old German Jew escapes Nazi persecution by fleeing to Denmark but lives with the knowledge that he is still not out of danger.

Reuter, Bjarne B.  The Boys from St. Petri.  Y FIC Reuter/ Y PB R
In 1942, a group of young men begin a series of increasingly dangerous protests against the German invaders of their Danish homeland.

Dominican Republic
Alvarez, Julia.  Before We Were Free.  Y FIC Alvarez
In the early 1960s in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo.

Egypt
Carter, Dorothy Sharp.  His Majesty, Queen Hatshepsut.  Y FIC Carter
A fictionalized account of the life of Hatshepsut, a queen in ancient Egypt who declared herself king and ruled as such for more than twenty years.

England
Anderson, Rachel.  The Bus People.  Y FIC Anderson
The lives of the passengers on Bertram's "fruit-cake bus" are shaped by the experiences and problems each has faced because of different disabilities.

Bawden, Nina.  The Outside Child.  J FIC Bawden
Thirteen-year-old Jane tries to learn more about her half brother and sister after discovering that her seafaring father remarried ten years ago.

Branford, Henrietta.  Fire, Bed, & Bone.   Y FIC Branford
In 1381 in England, a hunting dog recounts what happens to his beloved master Rufus and his family when they are arrested on suspicion of being part of the peasants' rebellion led by Wat Tyler and the preacher John Ball.

Cross, Gillian.  Wolf.  Y FIC Cross
Cassy is forced to stay with her mother in a squatter's settlement of artists, where she joins the group in producing an educational program about wolves and inadvertently learns that her missing father is a notorious terrorist.

Cushman, Karen.  Matilda Bone. Y FIC Cushman
Fourteen-year-old Matilda, an apprentice bonesetter and practitioner of medicine in a village in medieval England, tries to reconcile the various aspects of her life, both spiritual and practical.

    (London)
Cooney, Caroline B.  The Terrorist.  Y FIC Cooney
Sixteen-year-old Laura, an American living in London, tries to find the person responsible for the death of her younger brother Billy, who has been killed by a terrorist bomb.

Cooper, Susan.  King of Shadows.  Y FIC Cooper
While in London as part of an all-boy acting company preparing to perform in a replica of the famous Globe Theatre, Nat Field suddenly finds himself transported back to 1599 and performing in the original theater under the tutelage of  Shakespeare himself.

Danziger, Paula. Thames Doesn’t Rhyme with James. Y FIC Danziger
While spending Christmas in London with her family, her boyfriend, and his family, fifteen-year-old Kendra finds herself roaming the city in another scavenger hunt, like the one in New York the previous summer.

Lawrence, Iain.  The Smugglers.  Y FIC Lawrence
In eighteenth-century England, after his father buys a schooner called the Dragon, sixteen-year-old John sets out to sail it from Kent to London and becomes involved in a dangerous smuggling scheme.

Pullman, Philip.  The Ruby in the Smoke.  YPB P
In nineteenth-century London, sixteen-year-old Sally, a recent orphan, becomes involved in a deadly search for a mysterious ruby.

Sturtevant, Katherine.  At the Sign of the Star.   Y FIC Sturtevant
In seventeenth-century London, Meg, who has little interest in cooking, needlework, or other homemaking skills, dreams of becoming a bookseller and someday inheriting her widowed father's book store.

Ure, Jean.  Plague.  Y FIC Ure
Three teenagers attempt to survive on their own when a devastating plague sweeps London.

Van Kirk, Eileen.  A Promise to Keep.  Y FIC Van Kirk
While  spending the summer of 1940 on a farm in the English countryside to escape wartime London, fourteen-year-old Ellie falls in love with a handsome Austrian refugee and faces a conflict of loyalties when he reveals that he is sympathetic to the German enemy.

White, Ellen Emerson. Voyage on the Great Titanic : The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, R.M.S. Titanic, 1912. Y FIC White. In her diary in 1912, thirteen-year-old Margaret Ann describes how she leaves her lonely life in a London orphanage to become a companion to a wealthy American woman, sails on the Titanic, and experiences its sinking.

France
Lisle, Janet Taylor.  Sirens and Spies.  Y FIC Lisle
No one agrees on the truth about the mysterious violin teacher, Renee Fitch, until she herself tells her own story and brings together all the different views people have of her.

Germany
Carter, Peter.  Bury the Dead.  Y FIC Carter
Just as fifteen-year-old East Berliner Erika Nordern is preparing for an important track competition, sinister police inquiries and the apperance of a relative believed to be dead indicate that her family has not yet escaped the shadow of long-ago Nazi crimes.

Holub, Josef.  The Robber and Me. Y FIC Holub
Because he knows that the man accused of robbery is innocent, an eleven-year-old orphan struggles to find the courage to reveal the truth to his uncle in their small German village in 1867.

Lingard, Joan.   Tug of War.   Y FIC Lingard
Follows the ordeal of fourteen-year-old twins Astra and Hugo Petersons, as they and their family flee their native Latvia before the advancing Russian armies in late 1944 and find themselves homeless refugees in a war-torn Germany.

Lutzeier, Elizabeth.  The Wall.  Y FIC Lutzeier
After her mother is killed while trying to escape across the Berlin Wall in April 1989, Hannah and her father become caught up in the movement to change the repressive regime in East Germany.

Sevela, Efraim.  We Were Not Like Other People.  Y FIC Sevela
Separated from his family when the Germans invade Russia during World War II, a young boy learns to fend for himself and earn a living whenever and however he can.

Greece
Bawden, Nina. The Real Plato Jones. Y FIC Bawden
Thirteen-year-old Plato Jones tries to come to terms with his mixed heritage while visiting Greece, as he finds out more about his Welsh grandfather, a World War II hero, and his Greek grandfather, a supposed traitor.

Harrison, Barbara.   Theo.  Y FIC Harrison
A twelve-year-old puppeteer performs bravely on and off the stage after joining the Greek resistance movement during World War II.

Haiti
Temple, Frances.  Tonight, by Sea.  Y FIC Temple
As governmental brutality and poverty become unbearable, Paulie joins with others in her small Haitian village to help her uncle secretly build a boat they will use to try to escape to the United States.

India
Staples, Suzanne Fisher.  Shiva's Fire.  Y FIC Staples
In India, a talented dancer sacrifices friends and family for her art.

Whelan, Gloria.  Homeless Bird.  Y FIC Whelan
When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage, she must either suffer a destiny dictated by India's tradition or find the courage to oppose it.

Iran//Iraq
Laird, Elizabeth.  Kiss the Dust.  Y FIC Laird
Her father's involvement with the Kurdish resistance movement in Iraq forces thirteen-year-old Tara to flee with her family over the border into Iran, where they face an unknown future.

Ireland
Giff, Patricia Reilly.   Nory Ryan's Song.  Y FIC Giff
When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive.

Lutzeier, Elizabeth. The Coldest Winter. Y FIC Lutzeier
When the potato blight ruins the food crop in 1846 and English soldiers start turning people out of their homes, Eamonn and his family struggle to survive through the coldest winter Ireland has ever known.

Schmidt, Gary D.  Anson's Way.   Y FIC Schmidt
While serving as a British Fencible to maintain the peace in Ireland, Anson finds that his sympathy for a hedge master places him in conflict with the law of King George II.

Israel
Banks, Lynne Reid. Broken Bridge. Y FIC Banks
The murder of fourteen-year-old Glen Shelby, soon after his arrival in Israel to visit his father's family, has a dramatic effect on the lives of his relatives, the other members of their kibbutz, and the Arabs responsible for his death.

Levitin, Sonia. The Singing Mountain. Y PB L
While traveling in Israel for the summer, seventeen-year-old Mitch decides to stay and pursue a life of Jewish orthodoxy, forcing him to make some important decisions about the family and life he is leaving in southern California.

Nye, Naomi Shihab. Habibi. Y FIC Nye
When fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud, her younger brother, and her parents move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.

Italy
Avi. Midnight Magic.  Y FIC Avi
In Italy in 1491, Mangus the magician and his apprentice are summoned to the castle of Duke Claudio to determine if his daughter is indeed being haunted by a ghost.

Napoli, Donna Jo.  Stones in Water.  Y FIC Napoli
After being taken by German soldiers from a local movie theater along with other Italian boys including his Jewish friend, Roberto is forced to work in Germany, escapes into the Ukrainian winter, before desperately trying to make his way back home to Venice.

Japan
Hoobler, Dorothy.  The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn. Y FIC Hoobler
While attempting to solve the mystery of a stolen jewel, Seikei, a merchant's son who longs to be a samurai, joins a group of kabuki actors in eighteenth-century Japan.

Klass, David. Breakaway Run. Y FIC Klass
Seventeen-year-old Tony, a soccer player whose parents are divorcing, goes to Atami, Japan, to spend four-and-a-half months with a Japanese family.

Mori, Kyoko. One Bird.  Y FIC Mori
After her mother abandons them, fifteen-year-old Megumi tries to understand her father's need for his mistress while dealing with her own aching isolation.

Paterson, Katherine.  The Sign of the Chrysanthemum.  Y FIC Paterson
A teen-ager comes to know himself through contacts with social ills and political unrest while searching for his father in Japan's capital, centuries ago.

Soto, Gary. Pacific Crossing. Y FIC Soto
Fourteen-year-old Mexican American Lincoln Mendoza spends a summer with a host family in Japan, encountering new experiences and making new friends.

Watkins, Yoko Kawashima.   So Far from the Bamboo Grove.  Y FIC Watkins
A fictionalized autobiography in which eleven-year-old Yoko escapes from Korea to Japan with her mother and sister at the end of World War II.

Yumoto, Kazumi. The Friends.  Y FIC Yumoto
Curious about death, three sixth-grade boys decide to spy on an old man waiting for him to die, but they end up becoming his friends.

Korea
Kim, Helen S. The Long Season of Rain. Y FIC Kim
When an orphan boy comes to live with her family, eleven-year-old Junehee begins to realize that the demands placed on Korean women can destroy their lives.

Liberia
Zemser, Amy Bronwen. Beyond the Mango Tree. Y FIC Zemser
While living in Liberia with her possessive, diabetic mother and often-absent father, twelve-year-old Sarina longs for a friend with whom to experience the world beyond her yard.

Mexico
Paulsen, Gary. The Crossing. Y PB P
Thirteen-year-old Manny, a street kid fighting for survival in a Mexican border town, develops a strange friendship with an emotionally disturbed American soldier who decides to help him get across the border.

Peck, Richard. Unfinished Portrait of Jessica. Y FIC Peck
A trip to Mexico to visit the divorced vagabond father whom she idolizes cures fourteen-year-old Jessica of certain illusions and helps her reconstruct her relationship with her mother.

Resau, Laura.  What the Moon Saw : a novel. Y FIC Resau
Fourteen-year-old Clara Luna spends the summer with her grandparents in the tiny, remote village of Yucuyoo, Mexico, learning about her grandmother's life as a healer, her father's decision to leave home for the United States, and her own place in the world.

Talbert, Marc.  Small Change.  Y FIC Talbert
When a band of armed men creates a disruption in the small Mexican town where Tom and his younger sister Philippa are vacationing with their parents, they flee into the hills with their new friend Ignacio.

Treviño, Elizabeth Borton de.  Leona, a Love Story.  Y FIC Trevino
In early nineteenth-century Mexico, sixteen-year-old Leona Vicario, loyal to Spain and engaged to a wealthy widower, struggles to come to terms with her growing revolt against Spain's harsh treatment of Mexicans and her love for a young revolutionary lawyer.
 

Pakistan
Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Shabanu. Y PB S
When eleven-year old Shabanu, the daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her father's wishes.

Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Shiva’s Fire. Y FIC Staples
In India, a talented dancer sacrifices friends and family for her art.

Russia
Baklanov, Grigorii IAkovlevich. Forever Nineteen.  Y FIC Baklanov
The experiences of a nineteen-year-old Soviet lieutenant on the front during World War II as he defends his Russian homeland from the Nazis.

Bergman, Tamar. Along the Tracks.  Y FIC Bergman
Recounts the adventures of a young Jewish boy who is driven from his home by the German invasion, becomes a refugee in the Soviet Union, is separated from his family, and undegoes many hardships before enjoying a normal home again.

Heyman, Anita.  Exit from Home.   Y FIC Heyman
A Jewish youth, training to become a rabbi in oppressive turn-of-the century Russia, becomes exposed to "worldly" ideas which change his attitude towards his religion and his country.

Matas, Carol. Sworn Enemies.  Y FIC Matas
In nineteenth-century Russia, betrayed by a fellow Jew, sixteen-year-old Aaron is taken by officers of the Czar and forced into military service.

Meyer, Carolyn. Anastasia, the Last Grand Duchess.  Y FIC Meyer
A novel in diary form in which the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II describes the privileged life her family led up until the time of World War I and the tragic events that befell them.

Schur, Maxine.  The Circlemaker.  Y PB S/ Y FIC Schur
In mid-nineteenth century Russia, Mendel Cholinsky, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy tries to escape to America to avoid being taken into the Czar's army for twenty-five years of military service.

Segal, Jerry. The Place Where Nobody Stopped.  Y FIC Segal
A Jewish man plants himself in a lonely Russian baker's house and establishes a family while waiting for permission to go to America.

Scotland
Hunter, Mollie.  The King's  Swift Rider.  Y FIC Hunter
Unwilling to fight but feeling a sense of duty, sixteen-year-old Martin joins Scotland's rebel army as a swift rider and master of espionage for the leader, Robert the Bruce.

Yolen, Jane. The Queen's Own Fool.   Y FIC Yolen
When twelve-year-old Nicola leaves Troupe Brufort and serves as the fool for Mary, Queen of Scots, she experiences the political and religious upheavals in both France and Scotland.

South Africa
Sacks, Margaret.  Beyond Safe Boundaries.  Y FIC Sacks
Elizabeth comes of age in 1960s South Africa as her older sister joins a secret group opposed to the country's racial policies.

Silver, Norman. No Tigers in Africa : A Novel. Y FIC Silver
Newly arrived in England from South Africa, a fifteen-year-old's family deteriorates, as the effects of living under apartheid take a toll on every aspect of the family members' lives.

Spain
Meyer, Carolyn. Isabel.  Y FIC Meyer
While waiting anxiously for others to choose a husband for her, Isabella, the future Queen of Spain, keeps a diary account of her life as a member of the royal family.

Switzerland
Hiçyilmaz, Gaye. Frozen Waterfall. Y FIC Hicyilmaz
When she finally joins her father and brothers in their new home in Switzerland, a twelve-year-old Turkish girl encounters the tremendous difficulty of living in a foreign country without knowing the language and customs.

Wersba, Barbara. The Best Place to Live Is the Ceiling. Y FIC Wersba
A lonely teenager from Queens impulsively flies off to Switzerland on another man's passport and finds his life turning into a James Bond adventure.
 

Thailand
Sleator, William. The Spirit House. Y FIC Sleator
Fifteen-year-old Julie investigates the suspicious behavior of the Thai exchange student staying with her family and comes to believe in the wish-granting power of a spirit that appears to have followed him across the ocean.

Venezuela
L'Engle, Madeleine. Dragons in the Waters. Y FIC L'Engle
A thirteen-year-old boy's trip to Venezuela with his cousin culminates in murder and the discovery of an unexpected bond with an Indian tribe, dating from the days of Simón Bolívar.

Yugoslavia
Mead, Alice.  Adem's Cross.  YPB M
Seeing his sister being shot to death for reading a poem at a demonstration against Serbian control of largely Albanian Kosovo changes forever the life of thirteen-year-old Adem.

4/07