Below you will find print and digital titles about racial injustice issues in our SHS Learning Commons collection and the Libby collection from the Scott County Library.
I Must Betray You by
In 1989, Romanian teenager Cristian Florescu dreams of being a writer but lives within the confines of a tightly controlled communist regime. When he's blackmailed by security forces to become an informant spying on his mother's client, an American diplomat and their family, he wagers how to use his newfound position against those in authority and joins the ranks of political dissenters within the country to an uncertain future.
In the Time of the Butterflies by
It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—the Butterflies.
Flowers in the Gutter by
Looks at a specific group of working-class German youth who actively resisted the Nazi war effort during WWII and called themselves the Edelweiss Pirates. While some stopped at anti-Nazi graffiti and protest literature, others joined resistance movements and even partisan sabotage units. Despite heavy-handed punishment, the Edelweiss Pirates persisted.
Daughter of Moloka'i by
Rachel Kalama gives birth at the leprosy settlement in Kalaupapa and is forced to give the child up for adoption a the Kapi'olani Home for Girls in Honolulu. The girl, Ruth, is adopted by a Japanese family in California, and after two decades on the strawberry and grape farm, Ruth marries. As World War II arrives, Ruth and her husband are interned at Manzanar Relocation Camp when Ruth gets a letter from Rachel. This sparks a relationship where Ruth can connect with a heritage she knew nothing about.
83 Days in Mariupol: a War Diary by
This graphic novel traces the eighty-three-day siege of Mariupol by Russian forces in February 2022. Describes the experiences of the people who stayed and the devastation and hardships they faced, including the deaths of over 20,000 people, freezing temperatures, little to no food, and the destruction of ninety percent of the city.
As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by
Salama Kassab was studying as a pharmacy student when revolution broke out in Syria, and now she volunteers at a hospital in Homs, tending to the wounded that come in each day. She is desperate to get out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth, but she is consumed by fear. Salama is so traumatized that her fear has manifested into a physical embodiment in the form of her imagined companion, Khawf, who haunts her every move. Khawf pressures her to leave, but just as she is deciding to leave, she meets Kenan, and everything changes.
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by
Teenager Tareq enjoyed a humble but peaceful life with his family in Syria until a bomb strike destroyed their happiness with one fatal blast. Their only hope of survival becomes to escape their homeland, but their new lives as refugees force them to face danger at every turn.
We Are Not Free by
Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.
Butterfly Yellow by
At the end of the Vietnam War, hundreds of children were airlifted out and taken to America as refugees. Hang and her three-year-old brother Linh were to be two of those children, but Hang was deemed too old and denied a spot on the helicopter. Linh, however, was torn away from her and taken to family in Texas. Now eighteen, Hang travels to Texas to find her brother but is devastated to learn that he does not remember her or Vietnam, and has no interest in either. Along with an aspiring cowboy named LeeRoy, Hang gets a job at a ranch and tries to reconnect with her brother with LeeRoy's help.
How Dare the Sun Rise by
Memoir of Sandra Uwiringiyimana, who was ten years old when rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo killer her mother and sister. Sandra managed to escape and found refuge in the United States through a refugee program. However, in middle school in New York she found an ethnic disconnect to overcome and give voice to her people.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by
Presents a fictionalized true story about Lale, a Slovakian Jew, who is sent to Auschwitz where he is put to work as a tattooist because of his knowledge of languages. For two-and-a-half years, he inks numbers on the arms of other Jews and witnesses brutality as well as bravery. Then he meets Gita, a young woman waiting to be tattooed, and falls in love. The couple vow to survive the concentration camp so they can be together.
The Wind Knows My Name by
In Vienna, 1938, young Jewish boy Samuel Adler loses his father in the infamous Kristallnacht, after which his mother desperately places him on the Kindertransport train from Austria to England--leaving Samuel alone with nothing but his clothes and violin to survive. Eight decades later, in Arizona, Anita Díaz is separated from her mother after they arrived in the United States. As Anita escapes reality in her imaginary world of Azabahar, a young social worker worker enlists the help of a lawyer to find her mother, and, strangely, Anita's and Samuel's lives intertwine.
Butterfly Yellow by
At the end of the Vietnam War, hundreds of children were airlifted out and taken to America as refugees. Hang and her three-year-old brother Linh were to be two of those children, but Hang was deemed too old and denied a spot on the helicopter. Linh, however, was torn away from her and taken to family in Texas. Now eighteen, Hang travels to Texas to find her brother but is devastated to learn that he does not remember her or Vietnam, and has no interest in either. Along with an aspiring cowboy named LeeRoy, Hang gets a job at a ranch and tries to reconnect with her brother with LeeRoy's help.
Apple by
Indian artist and author Eric Gansworth tells the story of his life, his family, and his search for identity. Gansworth discusses the legacy of government boarding schools, the ramifications of his family being Onondaga among the Tuscarora, and the issues he has faced while trying to become an artist.
Everything Sad Is Untrue by
As Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of his Oklahoma middle school classmates, he tries to tell them his story from the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan to the terrifying journey out of Iran steps ahead of the secret police to the refugee camps of Italy.
Displacement by
While on vacation in San Francisco, sixteen-year-old Kiku finds herself displaced to the Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother was forcibly relocated to during World War II. After finding herself "stuck" in the 1940s, Kiku adjusts to the harsh life of the camp and experiences how the internees managed to create a community and commit small acts of resistance in order to survive.
Sisters of the War: Life, Loss, and Hope in Syria (Scholastic Focus) by
Presents the stories of Sunni Muslim Ruha and her sister Alaa and Alawite sisters Hanin and Jawa, two pairs of sisters on the opposite sides of the Syrian civil war, and highlights the living conditions in the rebel-controlled territory and the police state of regime-held Syria.
