How can books help us understand the countries, cultures, and experiences that shape our international school community?
Embedded Files
Explore stories from countries our school community has called home, and discover how reading can challenge our assumptions, deepen our understanding of others, and inspire us to build a more peaceful world.
Mr. Erik Lutley
Secondary School Principal
Before Serbia, I lived in:
Iceland
Poland
the USA
Iceland
What happens when we try to escape a crisis instead of facing it?
Realistic Fiction 12+
The Casket of Time (2019 English translation; Icelandic original 2013) by Andri Snær Magnason follows Sigrún, a teenage girl whose family enters “TimeBoxes” to sleep through a global crisis, hoping to wake when the world is better. When Sigrún wakes too early, she finds society abandoned and nature taking over. Blending fantasy, science fiction, fairy tale, and environmental themes, the novel explores responsibility, climate crisis, greed, and courage.
Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic author from Reykjavík whose work includes children’s books, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and environmental writing. The Casket of Time won major Icelandic children’s literature awards and is published in English.
The USA
What happens when getting what we wish for changes what we thought we wanted?
Realistic Fiction 14+
When You Wish Upon a Lantern (2024) by Gloria Chao is a heartfelt young adult novel that blends romance, family expectations, and a touch of magic. The story follows Liya Huang, a Taiwanese American teenager whose family runs a bakery. When a magical lantern grants wishes, Liya and those around her begin experiencing unexpected consequences as dreams, relationships, and long-held expectations collide. As she navigates first love, friendship, and family pressures, Liya learns that what we wish for is not always what we truly need.
Gloria Chao is a Taiwanese-Americana and award-winning author known for her works that explore themes of identity, culture, and family. She resides in Chicago, Illinois, and has written several acclaimed novels for young adults.
Poland
What happens when intelligence and invention grow faster than wisdom?
Science Fiction / Satire 13+
The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem is a collection of linked science-fiction stories about Trurl and Klapaucius, two brilliant robotic inventors who travel through a bizarre universe creating machines, solving impossible problems, and often causing new ones. The stories mix science fiction, philosophy, mathematics, fairy-tale structure, and absurd humor, using robots and imaginary worlds to explore ambition, power, intelligence, technology, and human behavior. Clever and inventive, the book rewards readers who enjoy wordplay, strange ideas, and stories that are funny on the surface but intellectually challenging underneath.
Stanisław Lem was a Polish science-fiction writer, philosopher, and essayist and one of the most widely translated Polish authors of the twentieth century. Born in Lwów in 1921, he later settled in Kraków, where he lived for much of his adult life. His work often explores technology, artificial intelligence, communication, knowledge, and the limits of human understanding. Lem is best known internationally for Solaris, while The Cyberiad showcases his more playful and satirical side.
Serbia
Who gets to decide which version of history becomes the truth?
Experimental Historical Fantasy 16+
Hardcopy
Dictionary of the Khazars (1989 English edition), translated by Christina Pribićević-Zorić, is an unconventional novel by Serbian author Milorad Pavić. Presented as a fictional dictionary, it reconstructs the mysterious history of the Khazars through Christian, Islamic and Jewish sources. Readers can explore its interconnected entries in any order, moving between different periods, characters, dreams and legends. Combining history, fantasy, religion and mythology, the novel explores how truth changes according to who records it. Male and female editions were published, differing by seventeen lines.
Milorad Pavić (1929–2009) was a Serbian novelist, poet, literary historian and university professor. Born in Belgrade, he taught literature and cultural history and became a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His experimental approach challenged traditional ideas about how novels should be structured and read. His writing was translated into more than thirty languages, and Dictionary of the Khazars brought him international recognition.
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