Through an enchanted conversation with a young girl in a horse drawn coach, Hans Christian Andersen shares his life’s struggles, dreams, and triumphs whose threads can be found woven into his greatest stories. He tells her about the “fairy tale of his life” and how the son of a shoemaker became a celebrated writer.

Recounts the author’s experiences fleeing Iran as a young boy during the Iran-Iraq war, and making his way on his own in the unfamiliar city of Istanbul in hopes of attaining a visa in England.

“Two intertwining stories of Bogotá. One, a family of five children, left to live on their own. The other, a girl in an orphanage who will do anything to befriend the mysterious Immortal Boy”–

As far back as she can remember, Azadeh Moaveni has felt at odds with her tangled identity as an Iranian-American. In suburban America, Azadeh lived in two worlds. At home, she was the daughter of the Iranian exile community, serving tea, clinging to tradition, and dreaming of Tehran. Outside, she was a California girl who practiced yoga and listened to Madonna. For years, she ignored the tense standoff between her two cultures. But college magnified the clash between Iran and America, and after graduating, she moved to Iran as a journalist. This is the story of her search for identity, between two cultures cleaved apart by a violent history. It is also the story of Iran, a restive land lost in the twilight of its revolution. Moaveni’s homecoming falls in the heady days of the country’s reform movement, when young people demonstrated in the streets and shouted for the Islamic regime to end. In these tumultuous times, she struggles to build a life in a dark country, wholly unlike the luminous, saffron and turquoise-tinted Iran of her imagination. As she leads us through the drug-soaked, underground parties of Tehran, into the hedonistic lives of young people desperate for change, Moaveni paints a rare portrait of Iran’s rebellious next generation. The landscape of her Tehran — ski slopes, fashion shows, malls and cafes — is populated by a cast of young people whose exuberance and despair brings the modern reality of Iran to vivid life.

Twelve year old Lidia’s life is forever changed by the Nazi occupation of Poland, leading her to join the resistance movement to fight against the Nazis and aid Jewish people in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.

Ten year old Kinjal knows something strange is going on. But he does not expect his dog, Thums up, to disappear before his eyes in the middle of the night! Even stranger, two enormous flying horses appear and insist on taking Kinjal and his twin sister, Kiya, to a place they have never heard of: the Sky Kingdom. The twins have no choice but to go if they want to see their dog again, even if that isn’t why the winged pakkhiraj horses showed up in the first place. They have come to this dimension to seek help, bees are disappearing, along with the nectar the horses need to survive. Whisked away to a magical realm, the twins must use Kiya’s scientific skills and Kinjal’s love of books and language to help the horses. Once there, they discover that the disappearance of the bees is more nefarious than they thought, and the plot goes all the way to the top.

A girl’s grandpa and her neighbors help her grow an olive tree in a war torn land.

This bilingual picture book follows Camila, who learns about the Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead from her friend Mía after they celebrate Halloween at school, and her realization that even though she is Colombian she can create an altar to remember her mom, whom she misses terribly.

In this bilingual picture book, young Isabel recounts the story of her long but rewarding journey to visit with her grandmother in Cuba, including a painful tummy ache brought on by overeating and how her abuela used traditional healing methods to cure it!

Before that awful Saturday, Molly used to be inseparable from her brother, Hank, and his best friend, Tray. The indoor climbing accident that left Hank with a traumatic brain injury filled Molly with anger. While she knows the accident wasn’t Tray’s fault, she will never forgive him for being there and failing to stop the damage. But she can’t forgive herself for not being there either. Determined to go on the trio’s postgraduation hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, even without Hank, Molly packs her bag. But when her parents put Tray in charge of looking out for her, she is stuck backpacking with the person who incites her easy anger. Despite all her planning, the trail she’ll walk has a few more twists and turns ahead.