Thunder Over Kandahar by Sharon McKay

Afghanistan - Teenage best friends Tamanna and Yasmine face arranged marriages and persecution by the Taliban in their Afghan village, so they flee through dangerous mountain passes with only one another to rely upon.

 

Wildlife by Fiona Wood

Australia - Two sixteen-year-old girls in Australia come together at an outdoor semester of school, before university--one thinking about boys and growing up, the other about death and grief, but somehow they must help each other to find themselves.

 

Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

Canada - Two teenagers who are living on the streets and barely getting by become involved in a complicated criminal plot, and make an unexpected connection with each other.

 

Nine Days by Fred Hiatt

China - Tenth-graders Ethan and Ti-Anna go to Hong Kong seeking her father, an exiled Chinese democracy activist who has disappeared, and follow his trail to Vietnam and back, also uncovering illegal activity along the way. Includes author's note and the history behind the novel written by the girl who inspired it.

 

The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez

Cuba - In 1961 after Castro has come to power in Cuba, fourteen-year-old Lucia and her seven-year-old brother are sent to the United States when her parents, who are not in favor of the new regime, fear that the children will be taken away from them as others have been.

 

Cleopatra Confesses by Carolyn Meyer

Egypt - Princess Cleopatra, the third (and favorite) daughter of King Ptolemy XII, comes of age in ancient Egypt, accumulating power and discovering love.

 

Circle of Stones by Catherine Fisher

Great Britain - The mysterious Circus--a circular street of thirty houses--in Bath, England, provides the hub for three intertwining stories about a contemporary girl with a terrible past, an eighteenth-century architect obsessed with druids, and a prehistoric king who learns to fly.

 

Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers

Iraq - Robin Perry, from Harlem, is sent to Iraq in 2003 as a member of the Civilian Affairs Battalion, and his time there profoundly changes him.

 

Tamar by Mal Peet

Netherlands - In England in 1995, fifteen-year-old Tamar, grief-stricken by the puzzling death of her beloved grandfather, slowly begins to uncover the secrets of his life in the Dutch resistance during the last year of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

 

Evil Star by Anthony Horowitz

Peru - Having locked the Raven's gate, fourteen-year-old Matt travels to Peru where he meets the second of the five gatekeepers and works with him to try to stop the opening of a second gate somehow related to the Nazca Lines.

 

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Poland - Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.

 

Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire

Russia - An impoverished Russian country girl Elena Rudina and the aristocratic Ekatrina meet and set in motion an escapade that includes mistaken identity, a monk locked in a tower, a prince traveling incognito, and the witch Baba Yaga.

 

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Russia - In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers by burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil. Based on the author's family, includes a historical note.

 

Lost Girls by Ann Kelley

Thailand - In 1974, fourteen-year-old Bonnie, eight other Amelia Earhart Cadets aged nine to seventeen, and their irresponsible young leader are stranded on a forbidden island off the coast of Thailand on the brink of a deadly storm and must fight to survive.

 

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Vietnam - Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.

 

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