First Chapter Friday: 6 Fantastic Books About Different Cultures

Books about different cultures than our own are one of the experiences we value most as readers. As teachers, we believe it is our obligation to create classroom libraries that mirror the diversity of the students on our campus, but we also feel it’s important to amplify voices that may be unfamiliar to the majority of our student population. Recently, the number of truly outstanding multicultural young adult books is skyrocketing.

Whether there has been a conscious shift in the publishing world, or the shift stems from our own personal journeys, some of the best books we’ve read in the last few months have been books about different cultures. We’re excited to have broadened our own experiences by reading about cultures we know very little about, but also to have taken a break from the snarky middle-class white teenagers that have long dominated the popular YA space.

The six engaging titles below would each make great First Chapter Friday selections (of course), but we also think they definitely belong on the shelves of all well-stocked classroom libraries. We’re pretty sure none of these YA books will be collecting dust in your classroom.

6 Books About Different Cultures for YA Readers

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

Shortly after their arranged marriage, Misbah and Toufiq move from Lahore, Pakistan, to the United States, where they open the Clouds’ Rest Inn Motel in the Southern California desert. Years later, Misbah’s health is failing, Toufiq is sunk deeply in alcoholism, and their teenage son Salahudin is doing everything he can to keep the family afloat. Meanwhile, he and his former best friend Noor (who has her own struggles trying to apply to college without her uncle finding out) are not speaking because of The Fight. Narrated from the alternating perspectives of Misbah, Salahudin, and Noor, All My Rage tells a beautiful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, family conflict, and the desperate places they lead us.

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Heartachingly relatable, Darius Kellner brings us into his experience as a Persian-American teenager who is dealing with depression, bullying, family relationships, and, ultimately, just trying to feel comfortable in his own skin. Because his grandfather has a brain tumor, he travels with his parents and sister to Iran for the first time, where he meets family he has never known and also Sohrab, who becomes his first best friend.

Darius’s experiences in Iran heighten the many tensions that had been ensnaring him at home, but also give him the sense of belonging he has long craved. Darius’s witty voice (and love of Star Trek and Lord of the Rings) had us falling in love with him by the end of the first chapter.

Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri

Speaking of charming narrators who made us fall head-over-heels in love, we meet Daniel, the narrator of Nayeri’s award-winning autobiographical novel, as he stands at the front of his middle school class, narrating the story of his family’s history in Iran and how he came to be a refugee living in Oklahoma.

Daniel is a born storyteller, weaving in Persian folklore and references galore to Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights. He is funny, real, charming, and his puzzled observations about the Americans who judge him so harshly made us pause to think. Even better, Daniel is in middle school, making this engaging novel an appropriate choice for both middle school and high school students.

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

While clearly written for a middle-grade audience, Front Desk is such an engaging read we think many middle and high school students would enjoy it. It’s one of a handful of middle-grade novels we’d happily recommend to our struggling readers without feeling like we were insulting them with a “kid’s book.” Yang’s novel tells the story of Mia Tang, the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents who, at much personal risk, use their jobs at the Calivista Motel to hide and house immigrants.

Despite their fear that the owner, the dominating Mr. Yao, will find out and they will lose their jobs, Mia’s parents offer refuge to those in need. In exchange for a place to live, and little else, Mia’s parents run the motel, cleaning rooms while their daughter runs the front desk and provides excellent customer service to the motel guests (all while dreaming about one day becoming a writer, though her mom would rather she focus on math). Mia is charming, feisty, and a natural-born leader. When challenges ensue, she pulls her new community together in unexpected ways.

Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy

Fahmy’s graphic novel, which begins with a charming reference to Pride and Prejudice and its family of five sisters, captures the all-too-relatable awkwardness of trying to find your identity and place as a high school freshman with the added component of figuring out what it means to be a Muslim-American young woman in a society that doesn’t quite understand or accept her.

Huda is awkward, yet charming, and we were rooting for her on each page; we know many students who would root for her, too.

It’s Trevor Noah: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

The original version of Noah’s memoir is one of our top autobiographical reads of all time: it’s hilarious, it’s chock full of South African history and culture, and the audiobook version greatly enhances the reading experience. The young adult adaptation hews closely to the original, mostly editing out some of the profanity and making the language more accessible for young readers, without losing the spirited personality that makes the memoir sing.

Noah grew up in South Africa during apartheid as the illegal son of an African mother and white father, and while he doesn’t shy away from sharing the difficulties of that experience, it’s the love he shows for his beloved mother (and the humor of his childhood shenanigans) that our students were most drawn to. When our school assigned this to students as an all-school read, it was probably one of our most successful in terms of the number of students who actually participated and enjoyed it.

What cultures do you wish were better represented in the YA space? What are your students’ favorite books about different cultures? Reach out to us at [email protected] or on Instagram @threeheads.works, and if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to our monthly First Chapter Friday Nearpods: we send out FIVE free quick and easy First Chapter Friday activities each month that we think you and your students will love.

Looking for other YA books to suggest to your students or use for your own FCF activity? Check out the YA book section of our website for all our recommendations.