Book Shelf... The New Kids with I Heart Daily

If you've ever been the new kid, you know how rough those first days in an unfamiliar school can be. For the subjects of Brooke Hauser's The New Kids (Free Press), high school is even more of a challenge than usual. 

This book follows a year in the life of students who attend International High School in Brooklyn, and all of them are recent immigrants learning their way in a new country. They deal with homework, hallway gossip and the mysterious tradition of Prom, but they also face bigger issues.

Yasmeen is an orphaned Yemeni girl who wants to go to college, but feels duty-bound to get married so she can care for her younger siblings. Mohamed is a diamond miner's son from Sierra Leone who may or may not be in the country illegally; Ngawang spent a full day zipped up in a suitcase to escape from Tibet. The fascinating journeys of these and other students Hauser follows come to life in this work of detailed immersion reporting.

Read an excerpt about Chit Su's first day, and you'll be hooked on The New Kids, a fascinating narrative about high school students trying to find their own American Dream.

See more I Heart Daily YA book recommendations here.

Melissa @ I Heart Daily