Books, videos, and websites for Third Culture Kids
The story of Wintere Ballesteros, a half English half Spanish heiress born in India but later raised in England, who dreams of returning to her childhood home, where she will finally belong. When she returns to India as a young woman betrothed to man she has never met during the Sepoy uprising, her life is in danger, but she continues to long for her childhood home.
A historical novel set in turn-of-the-century India, The Far Pavilions follows the life of Ash, a British child raised as an Indian by his foster mother, until he is returned to England as an adolescent. His subsequent struggles to recapture his sense of belonging when he returns to India as a British officer are woven into the saga with romance, war, princesses, misunderstandings and clashes of cultures in British-ruled India. The author M.M. Kaye grew up in India during the era of the British Raj and draws on her own experiences.
Channe Willis, daughter of a successful American novelist, enjoys her carefree childhood in France until her parents adopt a French boy exactly her age. Her resentment of him and cruel treatment of him makes their relationship turbulent. When her father’s illness causes the family return to the United States during her mid-teens, she and her brother struggle to find their places. It is not until adulthood that they learn to love and respect each other and Channe begins to confront the ghosts of that long-ago sibling rivalry.
Channe’s parents have a very liberal parenting style, and some of their responses to her behavior may offend some people (as may some of Channe’s behavior). However, many of Channe’s experiences as a child, and even as an adolescent searching for love in a new, unfamiliar country, will resonate with TCKs.
In this second book of the Anika Scott MK series, Anika faces reentering Canada. When her family takes an unscheduled furlough because of her father’s health, Anika misses Kenya but tries to fit in in Canada. But the one person close to her age who is supposed to help her to overcome this frightening new situation is just plain mean. But her cousin Tianna has her own issues. Anika gets caught up in the problems facing Tianna whose parents are on the verge of divorce.
Reading level: age 10-14 years
“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