How can books help us understand the countries, cultures, and experiences that shape our 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.
Mrs. Kristine RAGGIO
University & Careers Guidance Counselor
Before Serbia, I lived in:
India
Indonesia
Jordan
the Czech Republic
Poland
the USA
India
How do the stories others tell about us shape who we become?
Contemporary Fiction 14+
While You Were Dreaming (2024) by Alisha Rai is a contemporary young adult novel that blends romance, mystery, and social justice. Sonia Patil's quiet life changes overnight when she rescues a stranger during a public act of violence. Suddenly thrust into the spotlight, Sonia must navigate media attention, complicated friendships, first love, and difficult questions about identity, privilege, and belonging. As she uncovers hidden truths and learns to trust her own voice, Sonia discovers that courage is not only found in extraordinary moments but also in the choices we make every day. The novel explores themes of family, cultural identity, activism, resilience, and finding the confidence to shape your own future.
Alisha Rai is an American author of Indian heritage, best known for her bestselling contemporary romance novels. With While You Were Dreaming, she makes her young adult debut, bringing her trademark warmth, emotional depth, and diverse characters to a coming-of-age story. Rai's writing celebrates identity, relationships, and self-discovery while encouraging readers to embrace empathy, authenticity, and the power of speaking up for what matters.
Indonesia
How does hiding part of who we are affect the way we connect with others?
Young Adult Romantic Comedy 12+
Didn’t See That Coming (2023) by Jesse Q. Sutanto follows Kiki Siregar, a confident seventeen-year-old gamer living in Indonesia. Online, Kiki pretends to be a boy to avoid harassment from male players. Even her closest gaming friend, known only as Sourdawg, does not know her real identity. When Kiki transfers to an elite private school and discovers that Sourdawg is one of her new classmates, she must determine who he is while concealing her own secret. As an online friendship begins to turn into real-life romance, Kiki confronts sexism, bullying, family expectations, and the challenge of being herself. The novel explores identity, online safety, gender discrimination, friendship, honesty, courage, and first love.
Jesse Q. Sutanto is an Indonesian Chinese author known for writing bestselling novels for both young readers and adults. She enjoys blending humor, mystery, and fantasy while drawing inspiration from Asian cultures and folklore. Through stories like Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit, Sutanto introduces readers to rich mythological traditions while creating fun and relatable adventures.
Jordan
What happens to childhood when survival becomes the most important choice?
Contemporary / War Fiction 13+
Wild Poppies (2023 English translation) by Haya Saleh, translated from Arabic by Marcia Lynx Qualey, follows two Syrian brothers, Omar and Sufyan, whose family is forced to flee after their father is killed during the civil war. Fifteen-year-old Omar tries to keep the family together through cautious, practical choices, while twelve-year-old Sufyan becomes involved with a group that promises food and money in exchange for increasingly dangerous tasks. When Sufyan is taken away and drawn into armed extremism, Omar must find the courage to rescue him. Told through the alternating perspectives of the two brothers, the novel explores war, displacement, family responsibility, radicalization, survival, and the difficult choices young people face in conflict. Wild Poppies was shortlisted for the 2024 GLLI Translated Young Adult Book Prize.
Haya Saleh is a Jordanian author, journalist, and writer of children’s and young adult literature. Her work often addresses the experiences of young people living through conflict, displacement, and social change in the Arab world. Wild Poppies, originally published in Arabic in 2020, was translated into English by Marcia Lynx Qualey and brought her work to a wider international readership.
The Czech Republic
What happens to our sense of worth when we can no longer be useful to others?
Literary Fiction / Existential Classic 14+
Hardcopy
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka begins when Gregor Samsa wakes to find that he has been transformed into a giant insect. Unable to work or communicate as before, he becomes increasingly isolated from his family and from the life he once knew.
This unsettling, often darkly comic novella explores alienation, family responsibility, identity, shame, and the pressure to be useful to others. Its strange premise makes it memorable, while its questions about belonging and human dignity remain powerfully relevant.
Franz Kafka was born in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1883. A German-speaking Jewish writer, he is one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century. His fiction often portrays people facing confusing systems, impossible expectations, isolation, and anxiety; the word “Kafkaesque” is now used to describe such situations.
The USA
How can reconnecting with our community help us understand who we are?
Realistic Fiction 14+
Rain Is Not My Indian Name (2001) by Cynthia Leitich Smith follows Rain Berghoff, a Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee girl who is struggling with grief after the death of her best friend. As she begins photographing her community for the local newspaper, Rain reconnects with friends, family, and her Native heritage while learning to embrace her identity and look toward the future. The novel explores grief, healing, friendship, identity, community, and the importance of representation in contemporary Native life.
Cynthia Leitich Smith is a bestselling Muscogee Nation author and one of the leading voices in contemporary Indigenous children's and young adult literature. Her work often explores Native identity, community, and the experiences of Indigenous young people in modern society.
Poland
How do families hold on to identity and belonging when history is closing in around them?
Historical Fiction / Jewish Family / Interwar Poland 16+
My Name Is Stramer (Polish original 2019; English translation 2026) by Mikołaj Łoziński, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, follows the Stramers, a large Polish-Jewish family living in Tarnów in the years before the Second World War. Nathan and Rywka struggle to raise six children in a cramped apartment while each member of the family pursues different ambitions, relationships, and political ideals. As the children grow older, communism, nationalism, antisemitism, and economic hardship increasingly shape their lives, while the approach of Nazi occupation casts a growing shadow over the family. The novel blends intimate family drama with the wider political history of interwar Poland and explores identity, love, poverty, Jewish life, political radicalization, and belonging.
Mikołaj Łoziński is a contemporary Polish novelist, screenwriter, and photographer born in Warsaw in 1980. He has received major Polish literary honors including the Polityka Passport and the Kościelski Foundation Award. His novels include Reisefieber, The Book, and Stramer. My Name Is Stramer was shortlisted for Poland’s Nike Literary Award, has been translated into numerous languages, and was published in English by Pushkin Press in 2026. Łoziński lives in Warsaw.
Serbia
How do memories—especially incomplete ones—shape the story we tell about ourselves?
Illustrated Fiction / Memoir 15+
Hardcopy
Nine: An Illustrated Novel by Slavimir Stojanović Futro is a visually inventive novel that blends fiction, memory, autobiography, and graphic design. Built around fragments of childhood, identity, family, and the strange ways memory returns, the book uses illustrations and design as an essential part of the storytelling rather than as decoration. Personal, playful, and sometimes surreal, it explores how we construct a sense of self from incomplete memories, how childhood experiences shape adulthood, and how images can tell truths that words alone cannot.
Slavimir Stojanović Futro is a Serbian designer, illustrator, author, and creative director known for bold visual communication and distinctive graphic storytelling. His work spans branding, advertising, illustration, and publishing, and he is widely recognised for combining humour, strong visual ideas, and personal narrative. In Nine, Futro brings his background in design directly into the form of the book, creating a hybrid work that sits between novel, memoir, and visual art.
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