5 Immigrant & Refugee Stories For Kids

In this beautiful picture book, two children ask Mamá to tell them a story, and she tells them about their Papá, who moved from a place not far from here where he lived in a casa with their abuelitos and spoke a different language. Learning English was hard, and being away from family was hard, and some mocked him, but some people also welcomed him, and he found a home, eventually meeting Mamá. The text is lyrical and infused with Spanish words. The illustrations are warm and cozy. A glossary of the Spanish phrases used in the book is included.

This moving picture book autobiography is told from the perspective of young Hmong refugee Kalia, who cannot force her voice to speak around what feels like a rock lodged in her throat. After watching a grocery store clerk ridicule her mother for being unable to find the right English word, Kalia decides to no longer speak English. She’s very lonely at school, yet even when other children ask to play, she finds herself unable to join in. In an author’s note, Yang describes why this book was important to her to write.

The child narrator in this picture book is proud of her immigrant heritage, and the stories her family tells of their birth countries. But her family also tells her of the times they’ve been discriminated against and been on the receiving end of hate crimes just for being a different color and from a different country. “Go home,” people have told them. The child wonders, “How could someone tell her to go home when she already was?” It’s a powerful story about belonging and hope, with luminous illustrations. The author was inspired by the poem “I, Too” by Langston Hughes.

Similar to The Rock in My Throat, this picture book explores language and the feeling of being caught between cultures as a child refugee, and is based on the author’s experiences. Ánh is a Vietnamese refugee living in a refugee camp in America. Ánh attends school with other refugees and is struggling to learn English in class. They decide not to speak in class, and notice that their grandmother is speaking less, too. But Ánh loves the school’s teacher and, with encouragement, says their first word. Bui gives more context in an author’s note.

This is a wonderful middle grade short story anthology telling the stories of multigenerational immigrant families who all live in the same apartment complex, Entrada Apartments. These slice-of-life stories describe tween experiences from a variety of backgrounds. Authors include Andrea Wang, Tracey Baptiste, Erin Entrada Kelly, and many more. There are twelve stories in the collection.