How can books help us understand the countries, cultures, and experiences that shape our school community?
Embedded Files
Books invite us to explore different perspectives, reflect on our own assumptions, and recognise our shared humanity. Discover stories by authors from countries where members of our school community have lived. As you read, consider how these texts deepen your understanding of others, encourage respect for differences, and inspire you to contribute to a more peaceful world.
Ms. Natalie RADZIEJEWSKI,
MYP/DP Math Teacher
Before Serbia, I lived in:
the United States
Colombia
Sudan
Australia
United States
How do other people’s expectations shape the way we see ourselves?
Realistic Fiction 12+
Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim (2023) by Patricia Park follows Alejandra Kim, a Korean American middle-school student who has always felt caught between expectations and reality. When she unexpectedly wins a scholarship to an elite private school in New York City, Alejandra begins to feel like she doesn't belong among her wealthy classmates. As she navigates friendship, family pressures, identity, and self-doubt, she learns that confidence and belonging come from embracing who she is rather than trying to meet everyone else's expectations.
Patricia Park is a Korean American author and educator whose writing often explores identity, family, culture, and the experiences of young people navigating multiple worlds. Her work is known for its humour, warmth, and authentic portrayal of contemporary adolescence.
Colombia
How can imagination help us understand and respond to difficult realities?
Picture Book / Social Issues 8+
eBook
Walk with Me (2017) by Jairo Buitrago, illustrated by Rafael Yockteng follows a young girl walking through her city while imagining that a large lion accompanies her. The lion becomes a silent companion as she moves through an urban landscape marked by hardship, absence, and uncertainty. The story is told largely through the relationship between text and illustration, leaving space for readers to interpret what the lion represents—protection, courage, imagination, or companionship. Gentle but emotionally powerful, the book explores loneliness, resilience, family, poverty, migration, and the ways imagination can help a child navigate a difficult world.
Jairo Buitrago is a Colombian author and illustrator known for picture books that address complex social and emotional themes with restraint and sensitivity. Rafael Yockteng is a Peruvian-born Colombian illustrator whose artwork frequently accompanies Buitrago’s stories. Together, they have created internationally acclaimed books that explore childhood, displacement, family, and social inequality through spare text and expressive images.
Sudan
How does memory shape our understanding of home and identity?
Poetry / Verse Novel 14+
eBook
Home Is Not a Country (2021) by Safia Elhillo is a lyrical novel in verse about Nima, a Sudanese American teenager who feels caught between the country where she lives and the homeland she knows mostly through family stories, music, and memory. Struggling with grief, isolation, and questions about who she might have been in another life, Nima becomes fascinated by Yasmeen, the imagined version of herself who might have existed if her parents had remained in Sudan. Blending poetry, memory, magical realism, and coming-of-age, the book explores identity, migration, belonging, family history, and the complicated meaning of “home.”
Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese American poet and writer whose work explores migration, identity, language, memory, and the experience of living between cultures. Born in the United States to Sudanese parents, she is the author of poetry collections including The January Children and Girls That Never Die, as well as the verse novel Home Is Not a Country. Her writing often blends personal experience with history and music, creating intimate reflections on displacement, inheritance, and belonging.
Who gets to define who we are—and what happens when their version becomes stronger than our own?
Realistic Fiction 12+
Hardcopy
Bright Red Fruit (2024) by Safia Elhillo follows Samira, a Sudanese American teenager who cannot escape the “bad girl” reputation imposed on her by her family and community. She hopes to spend the summer exploring Washington, D.C., attending parties and developing her talent as a slam poet. However, after a damaging rumour leaves her confined at home, Samira seeks comfort in an online poetry forum and attracts the attention of Horus, an older and charismatic poet. What initially feels like recognition and romance gradually becomes a secretive and dangerously unbalanced relationship. Told through poems, emails and messages, this powerful coming-of-age novel explores identity, family expectations, artistic expression, reputation, grooming and the struggle to reclaim one’s voice.
Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese American poet and author whose work explores migration, identity, language, womanhood and belonging. Her books include the poetry collections The January Children and Girls That Never Die, as well as the young-adult verse novel Home Is Not a Country. That novel was longlisted for the National Book Award and received both a Coretta Scott King Author Honor and an Arab American Book Award. Bright Red Fruit received a Michael L. Printz Honor in 2025. Elhillo has also received the Brunel International African Poetry Prize and fellowships from Cave Canem, the Howard Foundation and Stanford University.
Australia
How do the stories we inherit shape the way we understand ourselves?
Contemporary Fiction / Mystery Ages 15+
Hardcopy
Jellicoe Road (2006) by Melina Marchetta follows Taylor Markham, a student at an Australian boarding school. As the school’s leader in its yearly territory wars with local teenagers and visiting cadets, Taylor has plenty to manage. Then Hannah, the woman who has cared for her, disappears. An unfinished manuscript Hannah leaves behind tells the story of five young people who lived on Jellicoe Road years earlier. Searching for Hannah and for answers about her own childhood, Taylor begins to see how their story connects to hers. Friendship, first love, grief, and belonging run through this layered mystery.
Melina Marchetta is an Australian author who lives in Sydney. A former high school teacher, she writes fiction for young adults and adults, including Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca. Her books are known for their vivid teenage characters and complex relationships. Jellicoe Road won the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature.
Serbia
How can understanding the past change the way we see ourselves and others?
Contemporary Coming-of-Age Fiction 10+
The Summer I Learnt to Fly (2020 English edition) is a warm coming-of-age novel by Serbian author Jasminka Petrović. Twelve-year-old Sofia expects a boring summer when she travels with her grandmother to the Croatian island of Hvar. Unfamiliar with the local dialect and customs, she initially retreats into books, music and daydreams. As Sofia makes new friends and uncovers long-hidden family stories, she begins to understand identity, belonging and reconciliation. With humour and warmth, the novel explores growing up, connecting across generations and confronting the past.
Jasminka Petrović is an award-winning Serbian author who has written more than 30 books for children and young people. Her work has been translated into more than 25 languages, and several of her stories have been adapted for theatre and film. She draws inspiration from conversations with children and is actively involved in programmes that encourage young people’s imagination and creativity.
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