by Rukhsanna Guidroz, pages, Grades 6 and up.

Samira and her family had to escape their homeland of Myanmar (previously Burma) and are living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Everyone in the family has to work to keep afloat; Samira’s job is to walk along the beach and sell hard-boiled eggs. Samira is smart and hardworking; she wishes she could attend school and surf like her brother, but that is forbidden by her family. One day her father becomes unable to work and the family is in an even more precarious financial situation, so Samira decides to secretly enter a surfing competition that offers a big prize. With her brother’s help she hopes she can win the prize money and use it to help her family, but no one can know what she is up to. Samira’s determination might be just the thing to show her family that girl children can also improve the family’s fortune. 

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If you are interested in books with characters who are refugees, you might also enjoy: Nowhere Boy, by Katherine Marsh, Return to Sender, by Julia Alvarez, or Refugee by Alan Gratz.

Tags: refugees, Rohingya Muslims, Myanmar, poverty, surfing, family problems, brothers and sisters, coming of age