2025: Book written by/about that includes perspectives of refugees and other migrants
Book recommendations/suggestions for the Read, Seed, Water, Feed 2025 book challenge. Find your next book!
read, seed, water, feed book challenge - about prompt support posts
about prompt support posts
All of the prompt support posts (those that begin with "2025: Book written by...", for example) are organized similar to each other.
Each of these posts was created to support the Read, Seed, Water Feed book challenge on Storygraph that I am hosting. They were also created to support learning outside of the university, collective educational efforts, finding new authors to read, finding books, and more.
For each book challenge prompt, I will share the following sections:
- one or more slides with books I have read or am currently reading that I recommend for the prompt
- a list of additional books from my TBR (to-be-read) list for the prompt
- a text listing of the books that I shared in the slides
I might share one or more of the following in addition, depending on capacity and other factors:
- other supportive text as appropriate, such as countries included
- some quotes, notes, and/or reflections about one or more of the books
- links to other posts on the site where I discuss the books or prompt in more detail
I did many things to minimize hierarchy within these posts, and there will still be some things that might feel odd, such as split galleries of slides, which was a choice made to address current limitations in how the galleries work.
If interested, find bingo cards, more background on the prompts, and other reflections, on the Reading Challenge page and if on Storygraph, join the challenge.
Mostly, my goal for prompt support posts is to share books for each prompt, as suggestions and as examples. This section will be first on every post and may be skipped.
Thank you for reading.
Recommended Books
Books I've read or am currently reading that I recommend for this prompt.
Read, Seed, Water, Feed 2025 reading challenge prompt and description, showing books recommended that I have read or am currently reading. All recommended books are listed lower in the post in the section “Recommended Books in a List.”
More Books from my TBR List
For some prompts, I’m trying to diversify what I read; for others, deepening my knowledge while also growing my perspective. For some prompts, there are definitely more books on my to-be-read (TBR) list than the ones I share that I have read or am currently reading. Here are some of those books:
Nonfiction
- Modern Migrations, Black Interrogations: Revisioning Migrants and Mobilities Through the Critique of Antiblackness (2024) by Philip Kretsedemas and Jamella Nefetari Gow
- Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation (2023) by David Correia
- We're Alone (2024) by Edwidge Danticat
Memoir
- The Barefoot Woman (2008) by Scholastique Mukasonga
- Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (2010) by Edwidge Danticat
- The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After (2018) by Clemantine Wamariya & Elizabeth Weil
- I Don't Want to Talk about Home: A Migrant’s Search for Belonging (2022) by Suad Aldarra
- Solito (2022) by Javier Zamora
- When Stars Are Scattered (2020) by Omar Mohamed and Victoria Jamieson, illustrated by Victoria Jamieson and Iman Geddy
Fiction
- No Land to Light On (2022) by Yara Zgheib
- Shatila Stories (2018) by Syrian and Palestinian refugees: Omar Khaled Ahmad, Nibal AlAlow, Safa Khaled Algharbawi, Omar Abdellatif Alndaf, Rayan Mohamad Sukkar, Safiya Badran, Fatima Omar Ghazawi, Samih Mahmoud, and Hiba Mareb, Translated by Nashwa Gowanlock
- Songs for the Dead and the Living (2023) by Sara M Saleh
- Too Soon (2025) by Betty Shamieh
Poetry
- The Body Family (2022) by Hope Wabuke
- The Lost Arabs (2020) by Omar Sakr
repeated and added notes..
The book can be fiction or nonfiction. This broad category includes internal and cross-border displacements of all types.
This category offers a way to select a book that deepens our empathy and understanding of the experiences of people who have fled violence, persecution, risk of harm from the family, targeting by the state, etc, who have migrated, and/or been forcibly displaced, and expands our awareness of the differences and similarities in the ways refugees and other migrants and forcibly displaced people, including many people who are homeless, are treated in different communities, by international and local organizations, vigilantes, government policies, etc, across the globe.
Many books that include or are written from experiences such as those described above may also be shared in other categories if not specifically listed here and are included as well.
Recommended Books in a List
As a list, books I've read or am currently reading that I recommend for this prompt:
Nonfiction
Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism (2021) by Harsha Walia
By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land (2024) by Rebecca Nagle
The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow (2020) by Elin Anna Labba
Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (2024) by Silky Shah
Short stories
Elsewhere, Home (2018) by Leila Aboulela
Everything Inside: Stories (2019) by Edwidge Danticat
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns (2019) by Dohra Ahmad, Edwidge Danticat
Poetry
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (2022) by Warsan Shire
Customs: Poems (2022) by Solmaz Sharif
Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. (2022) by Noor Hindi
Guillotine: Poems (2020) by Eduardo C. Corral
Rifqa (2021) by Mohammed El-Kurd
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (2011) by Warsan Shire
Memoir
My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a Revolutionary as Told to George Hajjar (1973) by Leila Khaled
Novels
Beasts of a Little Land (2021) by Juhea Kim
Exit West (2017) by Mohsin Hamid
How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (2022) by Angie Cruz
The Map of Salt and Stars (2018) by Zeyn Joukhadar
Martyr! (2024) by Kaveh Akbar
The Mountains Sing (2020) by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
None But the Righteous (2022) by Chantal James
Of Women and Salt (2021) by Gabriela Garcia
Wandering Stars: A Novel (2024) by Tommy Orange
Young adult novel
Behind the Mountains (2002) by Edwidge Danticat
Get any/all of these books wherever you get your books.
Please support libraries however you can. Find out many ways to get involved in supporting libraries at Libraries for the People.
Please consider purchasing books when they are available from Workshops 4 Gaza's bookstore: Customs: Poems (2022) by Solmaz Sharif, Rifqa (2021) by Mohammed El-Kurd. When I share books that are available for purchase there at the time of posting, I will list them here after the link.
Thank you for reading.
