Multicultural Stories

Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses; a beautiful home filled with servants in the bountiful region of Aguascalientes...

Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice....

When Amos Fortune was only 15 years old, he was captured by slave traders and brought to Massachusetts, where he was sold at auction....

Island of the Blue Dolphins is the remarkable story of a strange and beautiful Indian girl who lives a serene and courageous life as the solitary survivor on a rocky island off the California coast...

Hit the road with Bud in this Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning classic about a boy on a journey to find his father....

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, 10-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Her parents hide immigrants. The mean motel owner can't find out....

It all started with a birthday present that Omri didn't want: a small plastic Indian that was no use to him at all. But an old wooden cupboard and a special key brought his unusual toy to life...

In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales....

Elaine Harlowe has manipulated her way into becoming prime minister, using her mind control ability to force the Bureau to take up her vicious grudge against magiciankind.

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Newbery and Coretta Scott King Honoree about an unforgettable family on a road-trip during one of the most important times in the civil rights movement....

Two boys - one white, one Indian American - gain strength from each other from afar as they struggle to navigate middle school, family, and friendships....

When ten-year-old Lina Gao steps off the plane in Los Angeles, it’s her first time in America and the first time seeing her parents and her little sister in five years! She’s been waiting for this moment every day while she lived with her grandmother in Beijing....

She was named Omakakiins, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop. Omakakiins and her family live on an island in Lake Superior. Though there are growing numbers of white people encroaching on their land, life continues much as it always has....

A lost dog helps a lonely girl find a way home to her family . . . only for them to find family in each other along the way.

Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team....

An ode to the girl with scrapes on her knees and flowers in her hair, and every girl in between, this exquisite treasury will appeal to fans of Dear Girl and I Am Enough and have kids listening through it to find a poem that's just for them....

After finding her brother and saving the entire supernatural world, Amari Peters is convinced her first full summer as a Junior Agent will be a breeze....

Under the cover of night, 12-year-old Homer flees Southerland Plantation with his little sister Ada, unwillingly leaving their beloved mother behind. Much as he adores her and fears for her life, Homer knows there’s no turning back....

The bestselling Vanderbeeker family finds love and hope in hard times as they face the challenge of a serious illness with the support of their Harlem community....

Internationally bestselling superstar author Angie Thomas makes her middle grade debut with the launch of an inventive, hilarious, and suspenseful new contemporary fantasy trilogy inspired by African American history and folklore....

This heartfelt coming-of-age novel in verse tells the powerful story of a seventh grade Syrian-American boy and his struggles, big and small, as he navigates middle-school....

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space....

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Kwame Mbalia's epic fantasy, a middle grade American Gods set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods....

This powerful and hopeful book—inspired by the historic election of Vice President Kamala Harris—celebrates brown and Black girls.

J.D. has a big problem - it's the night before the start of third grade and his mom has just given him his first and worst home haircut....

Montgomery, Alabama 1955. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin is tired. Tired of white people thinking they’re better than her. Tired of going to separate schools and separate bathrooms. Most of all, she’s tired of having to give up her seat on the bus whenever a white person tells her to. She wants freedom NOW! But what can one teenager do? On a bus ride home from school one day, young Claudette takes a stand for justice and refuses to get up from her seat—nine months before Rosa Parks will become famous for doing the same.

Two thousand years ago, a ship sailed east, alone on an endless sea. The people onboard were fleeing the same war that the Maccabees fought in the ancient land of Israel. They took with them their faith and their traditions, knowing they would sail for more than a year. When a great storm crushed their boat on the shores of India, only a few survived. Some say the prophet Elijah plucked them from the sea. But they were welcomed by the people of the new land. They survived and adapted, with new spices for their food and new clothing and culture to borrow, but never strayed from their faith.

Twelve-year-old Theo Tatterly’s ability to see ghosts is a useful skill in a house full of dead relatives, but it makes him a loner at school and everywhere else, where ghosts eternally pester him for help. For Theo, life is easier on the periphery. When his first failed exorcism portends an end to the Tatterly line, Theo must bring together his entire family—living and dead—to save the home they’ve lived in for generations . . . and maybe the world.

Despite a lifetime of breaking the rules, twelve-year-old Issa Igwe never expected to land in witch prison. At least that’s what she calls The Siren School outside of its hallowed halls. It’s actually the country’s most prestigious boarding school for magically gifted girls, and Issa’s parents insist that she attend . . . even though the school’s creepy history is the stuff of legend.

Anya is meeting her Dadima—or grandmother—for the first time! To make it to India, she must go on a long journey to make it Dadima’s village. Along the way, she gets to learn about India and her family’s culture.

Sissy’s younger brother, Chooch, isn’t a baby anymore. They just celebrated his second birthday after all. But no matter what Chooch does—even if he’s messing something up, which is basically all the time!—their parents just say he’s “helping." Sissy feels that Chooch can get away with anything! When Elisi paints a mural, Chooch helps. When Edutsi makes grape dumplings, Chooch helps. When oginalii gigs for crawdads, Chooch helps. When Sissy tries to make a clay pot, Chooch helps.

On the same day Faye’s brother comes home with a black eye, a package arrives from a relative they’ve never met. It’s a slab of clay: some weird kind of bar mitzvah present? The strange gift turns out to be an invitation to learn a craft that’s been in their family for centuries. And it’s not pottery. Faye and Shiloh are driven to New York City by their grandfather for a spring break filled with magical instruction. But at night they find themselves transported to a strange parallel world, where groups of innocent people are facing appalling hatred and violence.

A young girl named Annushka is helping her Mommika Grandma make plum dumplings when she finds an incomplete set of Hungarian nesting dolls. The set of three dolls were a gift to Annushka’s mother from her great-grandmother. Where could the other two dolls be?

Keegan knows there’s something off about Happy Town. The isolated, high-tech company town is too perfect—with a dome keeping out bad weather and self-driving vehicles rumbling throughout the town delivering residents to work and school. Still, Keegan is excited to grow his art skills at Happy Town’s ultra-modern middle school, even if he has less time to see his mom and stepdad because of their new jobs.

Pearl has always dreamed of hunting whales, just like her father. Of taking to the sea in their eight-man canoe, standing at the prow with a harpoon, and waiting for a whale to lift its barnacle-speckled head as it offers its life for the life of the tribe. But now that can never be. Pearl's father was lost on the last hunt, and the whales hide from the great steam-powered ships carrying harpoon cannons, which harvest not one but dozens of whales from the ocean.

Skye Nickson’s world changed forever when her dad went on the run with her brother, Finn. It’s been four years without Finn’s jokes, four years without her father’s old soul music, and four years of Skye filling in as Rent-a-Finn on his MIA birthdays for their mom. Finn’s birthday is always difficult, but at least Skye has her best friends, Reece and Jax, to lean on, even if Reece has started acting too cool for them. But this year is different because after Finn’s birthday, they get a call that he’s finally been found.

Who were Pocahontas and the Powhatan Indians? They were the Native Americans living in Virginia who met the English settlers when they arrived in 1607. Learn about their culture and how they celebrated their harvest every year!

Welcome to the Entrada, home to these everyday Americans, including the new kid on the block, who is both homesick and curious; a Popsicle-bridge builder, a ghost hunter, and a lion dancer; and their families, friends, and neighbors from all around the world! Published in partnership with We Need Diverse Books, this uplifting anthology features award-winning authors Tracey Baptiste, David Bowles, Adrianna Cuevas, Sayantani DasGupta, Debbi Michiko Florence, Adam Gidwitz, Erin Entrada Kelly, Minh Lê, Ellen Oh, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Andrea Wang, and Jasmine Warga.

Fourteen-year-old Clara Luna's name means "clear moon" in Spanish. But lately, her life has felt anything but clear. A letter has arrived from her grandparents in Mexico inviting her to stay with them for the summer. But Clara has never met her father's parents. All she knows is that he snuck over the border from Mexico as a teenager. When she arrives, she's stunned by how different her grandparents' life is from her own in the United States. They live in simple shacks in the mountains of southern Mexico, where most people speak not only Spanish, but an indigenous language, Mixteco.

Miri will miss the Chinese lions in front of her apartment building. What will happen to her now that it's moving day? Fortunately Zayde, her Jewish grandfather, and Yeh Yeh, her Chinese grandfather, have some surprises to help her feel at home in her new apartment.