Book Suggestions - Global Literature
Online Access to digital books
- International Digital Children's Library - A Library for the World's Children - Free online access to high-quality digital books from around the world. Browse by age, grade genre, book length, and character types.
- World Stories - World Stories is a growing collection of short stories including retold traditional tales and new short stories from around the world. The stories can be read and listened to online, or downloaded for free.
- Unite for Literacy - Unite for Literacy is a for-profit social enterprise, we partner with businesses to change the literacy landscape of their communities by introducing families to our free digital library.
- Required reading: The books that students read in 28 countries around the world
- American Indians in Children Literature - Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.
- Notable Books for a Global Society - The Notable Books for a Global Society (NBGS) list was developed to help students, teachers, and families identify books that promote understanding of and appreciation for the world's full range of diverse cultures and ethnic and racial groups.
- Africa Access - Expanding perspectives on Africa book by book. Includes Children's Africana Book Awards (CABA).
- Book Dragon: Books for the multi-cultural reader (Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center) - BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature.
- Cooperative Children's Book Center - Selected literature for children and teens set in other countries.
- Around the World in 80+ Children's Books - Even if your pilgrimage to a dream destination is entirely imaginary, these stories can offer an introduction to a wonderful world of armchair travel. (New York Public Library)
- The World Through Picture Books (IFLA) - Librarian's favorite books from their country.
- Africa Access: Expanding Perspectives on Africa, Book by Book - Founded in 1989 to help schools, public libraries, and parents improve the quality of their K-12 collections on Africa.
- Global Literature - Primary Source - Resources and Curriculum Guides
- Global Read Aloud: One Book to Connect the World - a global reading project that has connected more than 500,000 students on 6 continents since its inception in September 2010.
- List of Contemporary Global Literature Titles (Young Adult/Adult - focus is on some historically marginalized cultures)
- The Man Booker Prizes - Any novel originally written in English and published in the UK in the year of the prize, regardless of the nationality of their author. The novel must be an original work in English (not a translation) and must not be self-published.
- Fiction from Around the World - City Lights Booksellers and Publishers - a good resource for new fiction from around the world.
- Journey in Films -Journeys in Film believes that helping America’s youth develop a worldview with global understanding should be a primary 21st century educational goal.
- Global Voices - Global Voices offers intimate stories about everyday people. From India to Ethiopia, El Salvador to Iraq, Global Voices offers rare insights and firsthand perspectives from communities and individuals around the world.
- The Danger of a Single Story - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
- “Facing History Empowered Me” by Geraldine Mande - In her journey from childhood in a camp war-torn Congo to enrollment at Brandeis University, Geraldine struggled to find her way. Encouraged by her Facing History and Ourselves teacher at Brookline (MA) High School, Geraldine wrote an essay comparing and contrasting her experiences in The Congo with the Holocaust experiences Elie Wiesel recounts in Night; the essay was one of 50 winners in Oprah Winfrey's national essay contest.
- Global Literature Online Book Group (Global Studies Outreach at Harvard) - (for educators) The focus of the book group is crossing borders in time and place. It allows participants to discuss contemporary fiction that uses memory and travel to explore individual and social change. Site contains alignment with Common Core Standards.
- WWB Campus: Bringing International Literature into the Classroom - In 2014, Words Without Borders launched an education program: WWB Campus. Drawing from the magazine's rich archive of contemporary stories, essays, poems, and graphic literature in translation, WWB Campus connects students and educators to eye-opening contemporary writing from across the globe.
- Using Children's Literature with ESL - New Foundland Labrador Canada (slide presentation)
- A Guide to Selecting Multicultural Literature (Boston University) - This guide to selecting multicultural literature is intended to encourage broader use of this literature by offering guidelines for selecting titles. Guidelines are unfortunately still necessary, because culturally biased books continue to be published and even to receive awards.
- Book - Hadaway, Nancy L., and Marian J. McKenna. Breaking Boundaries with Global Literature: Celebrating Diversity in K-12 Classrooms. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2007. Print.
- A Year of Reading the World - I read my way around all the globe’s 196 independent countries – plus one extra territory chosen by blog visitors – sampling one book from every nation.
- Reading Interest Survey