Alice Mead

"After (Adem's) sister is killed during a peaceful demonstration and Serbian soldiers take over his grandmother's store, the 12-year-old is enraged by his elders' passivity. In an act of defiance, Adem breaks their rule of remaining inconspicuous and walks down a road alone. This apparently simple action puts him and his family in grave danger. Only after he is aided by a Gypsy with neutral views does Adem realize that his dreams and those of his enemies are remarkably similar." — Publisher's Weekly

Even after her father and brothers are killed and her leg is gravely injured in a Serb attack, 11-year-old Zana, the narrator, struggles to heed her father's advice: "Don't let them fill your heart with hate. Whatever happens." Zana's friendship with a Serbian girl, Lena, and her trip behind enemy lines to a hospital in Belgrade provide Zana with evidence of kindness to weigh against the brutality in the Serb faction, while her cowardly KLA uncle Vizar illuminates weaknesses among the Albanians. Mead puts the war into a context that young readers will understand.

Product Description: Linda Berati, an eighth grader in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, knows that her parents are Albanian and her little sister American. But what is she? And how did she get to New York? Her parents evade her questions, fueling Linda's uneasiness about her identity. Only Ramón, a Cuban immigrant her age, seems to understand. Together, they escape to their hideout. Then a strange, foreign man appears, and she soon discovers that immigrants come to the United States for many reasons. She determines to confront her mother, but will she find out the truth about herself at last?