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Biography and Memoir December 2018
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| The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi BuiWhat it's about: Faced with a life of poverty and constant surveillance in postwar Vietnam, author Thi Bui's family immigrated to America in 1976. In present day New York City, Bui, now a mother herself, reflects on her parents' complicated reasons for leaving their homeland.
Art alert: Subtle colors and expressively-drawn characters offer depth and clarity to complement the intimate and poetic narrative.
Book buzz: Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer) calls The Best We Could Do "a book to break your heart and heal it." |
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Vietnamerica : a family's journey
by G. B. Tran
What it's about: A graphic memoir about the author’s experiences as the son of Vietnamese immigrants who fled to America during the fall of Saigon describes how he learned his tragic ancestral history and the impact of the Vietnam War on his family while visiting their homeland years later.
Author note: A first book.
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Human cargo : a journey among refugees
by Caroline Moorehead
What it's about: A portrait of the lives of today's refugees cites an alarming percentage of the world's population that has been forced to abandon home and family in order to survive, sharing the personal stories of people struggling to make lives for themselves in such areas as Cairo, Lebanon, and Australia.
Author note: By the author of Gellhorn, and other titles.
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A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss...
by Melissa Fleming
What's in it: After civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, eventually driving millions from their homes, 19-year-old Doaa Al Zamel and her family fled to Egypt. As the political situation there deteriorated, she and her new husband undertook a risky sea crossing to Europe, but their boat wrecked and many passengers drowned. Al Zamel's story was widely reported after she rescued a young child from the water, but in A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea we read more complete details of her "inspiring and illuminating" (Publishers Weekly) story.
For additional accounts of the risks and dangers that Middle Eastern refugees are facing, check out Patrick Kingsley's The New Odyssey.
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Tears of Salt: A Doctor's Story
by Pietro Bartolo
What it's about: Physician Pietro Bartolo, head of the only medical clinic on the Italian island of Lampedusa, describes 25 years of caring for the thousands of desperate Middle Eastern and African refugees who have arrived on the island in hopes of a better life.
Why you might like it: Through moving and poignant vignettes, Bartolo recounts the moments of life, hope, illness, and death that are at the heart of the European migrant crisis. Media buzz: Author Bartolo is featured in the 2016 Academy Award-nominated film Fire at Sea.
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The newcomers : finding refuge, friendship, and hope in an American classroom
by Helen Thorpe
What it's about: The author of Soldier Girls traces the lives of 22 immigrant teens throughout the course of a year at Denver's South High School who attended a specially created English Language Acquisition class and who were helped to adapt through strategic introductions to American culture.
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The girl who escaped ISIS : this is my story
by Farida Khalaf
What's in it: A first-hand account of bravery and resilience by an everyday Yazidi teen reveals the terror and torture being inflicted on young Iraqi Yazidi women by ISIS terrorists who invaded her mountain village and sold her into sexual slavery.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Central Mississippi Regional Library System
100 Tamberline Street
Brandon, Mississippi 39042
601-825-0100
http://www.cmrls.lib.ms.us
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