“True Son,” born John Butler in a frontier town, was captured by Lenni Lenape Indians when he was four years old, and adopted by a great warrior who re-named him and raised him as his own. When the Indians make a treaty and agree to return all white captives to their own people, True Son is sent away from his family and friends to live with the white men he has learned to hate. Uncomfortable with the ways of the white man and longing for home, he eventually returns to his tribe, only to find that he no longer thinks exactly like them either. Instead he discovers that he is an outcast in both worlds because he understands and defends both. Unlike the Disney film based on it, this book does not have a happy ending.
Reading level: age 10-13 years
Pearl Buck, the daughter of US American missionaries, grows up in China but when she spends a year in the States at age 10, she discovers that she is part of two worlds. Through writing stories of the people of China, she works to increase understanding between people from both of her worlds.
This is the true story of the American novelist Pearl Buck who is famous for writing The Good Earth and being the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. She was also a strong advocate for the rights of women and minority groups.
Reading level: age 9-12 years
This is a fictional story about a British MK attending elementary school at Chefoo School in Malaysia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It’s written as reflections of her school experiences and adventures in Malaysia since she is about to start a new boarding school in England.
Reading level: age 9-12
Adam knows that war is breaking out in the Middle East, where he lives in the fictional city of Abudai. But instead of fleeing back to Australia with his family, Adam slips away to look for his faithful dog Tara. Lost in the desert, he makes an unlikely friend in a camel boy running from his master. They must overcome cultural and language barriers (with plenty of misunderstandings of course) as they try to survive together and become true friends.
Reading level: age 10-13 years (with occasional swear words so parents be advised)
Based on the experiences of the author’s mother, this is the story of a Canadian MK who grew up in Taiwan in the early 1900s. The book follows her from her early childhood in Taiwan, to Canada where she grows up with her siblings and her mother’s relatives and afterwards her mother returns to Taiwan to rejoin her father in ministry. Her reentry experience is especially poignant, as she is given the responsibility to take care of her brother in a foreign world. But is there anyone to take care of her?
Reading level: age 10-14
Emily’s family moves from the US to Japan where her father is in charge of the small American school. In spite of her homesickness, she begins to make new friends and explore Japanese culture, and gradually she helps the other American kids in her school discover that it’s fun to learn about their overseas home, too. This book is set right after WWII and shows how Emily overcomes her fear of Japan and that people from both places can learn a lot about each other.
Reading level: age 8-12 years
