Historical fiction immigrant stories for kids and teens
Discover captivating historical fiction books about immigrant experiences for kids and teens. Explore inspiring stories of courage, resilience, and cultural heritage in our curated collection of must-read novels.
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Hear My Sorrow
by Deborah Hopkinson
Forced to drop out of school at the age of fourteen to help support her family, Angela, an Italian immigrant, works long hours for low wages in a garment factory, and becomes a participant in the shirtwaist worker strikes of 1909.
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A Coal Miner's Bride
by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Sent from Poland to Pennsylvania to be married to a coal miner, thirteen-year-old Anetka lives a totally new life in a harsh environment she doesn't understand, in this latest addition to the Dear America series.
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Dreams in the Golden Country
by Kathryn Lasky
Zipporah Feldman, a 12-year-old Jewish immigrant from Russia, uses diary entries to chronicle her family's activities as they acclimate to life on New York City's Lower East Side.
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Hope in My Heart
by Kathryn Lasky
After her family immigrates to America from Italy in 1903, ten-year-old Sofia is quarantined at the Ellis Island Immigration Station, where she makes a good friend but endures nightmarish conditions. Includes historical notes.
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Nell Dunne, Ellis Island, 1904
by Kathleen Duey
In the 16th book in the "American Diaries" series, Nell Dunne is scared. This New Year's Day will be the most important day of her life. Her family desperately is trying to escape the poverty and hunger they knew in Ireland. Will a new century and new country bring them hope and a better life?
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Rachel
by Vivian Schurfranz
It is 1910 and 16 year-old Rachel Roth and her family are immigrants from Poland to America. When Rachel sees the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, she catches her breath. The magnificent statue seems to promise her a better life.
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Journey to America
by Clare Pastore
Now available in a digest-sized paperback format, Berkley Jam's Journey to America book series begins with this story of a young Irish girl who arrives in Boston in 1849 with her brother. In a series of letters to her parents back home, Fiona describes her life in America, how she searches for family members there, and her experience in making a new friend.
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The Journey of Emilie
by Marcia Hoehne
Based on true stories of immigrant families. Will Emilie ever see her brother again? "Nordamerika?" Twelve-year-old Emilie Borner jumped at her brother's shout. Karl leaped from his chair and towered over Pap. "You want to emigrate—auswandern? Well, I'm staying here!" The lure of "America letters" from New World settlers has reached the provinces of central Germany. August 1855 finds the Borners, a middle-class farm family struggling with crop failure, making plans to heed God's call leading them westward. Emilie is torn. America is just a dream to her, and she loves the rugged beauty of her native land. Besides, her best friend, Louise, must stay, while snoopy, snooty Rosamund Albrecht comes along! The Borners' journey from Germany to Wisconsin is filled with hardship and surprises. Hated by a fellow traveler, accused of theft aboard ship, and worried over the sadness of a little girl, Emilie finds that only faith and the help of new friends can carry her through. In the New World, the challenges only grow. Can the Borners meet their needs for shelter, clothing, and food for the winter? Can the heartbreaking split in their family be healed? And when Emilie and her younger brother are stranded in a blizzard, can they even survive? In The Journey of Emilie, Emilie Borner finds that God hears and answers our prayers—sometimes in unexpected ways. Marcia Hoehne has written several books for children. Many of the characters and events in The Journey of Emilie are based on the lives of the author's great-great-great grandparents who emigrated from Germany to Wisconsin in 1855. Mrs. Hoehne lives in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, with her husband and three children.
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Journey of Pieter and Anna
by Helen DenBoer
Based on true stories of an immigrant family. How can Pieter leave behind his dog and his best friend? "I just saw her again," Pieter said to Elizabeth. "The girl from the ship and --she's hiding up on the roof." He had first noticed her the morning they left Troy on the canal boat bound for Buffalo. She had followed a large family of Netherlanders onto the boat, then turned away clutching a bulging green traveler's bag. Who was she and --and why did she seem to be hiding? Pieter Dekker does not want to leave the Netherlands for America, but his father tells him the religious persecution is too great and --they want to worship God in their own way. So the family sets out for America. On the Erie Canal, they buy passage on a canal boat, where Pieter and his sister Elizabeth discover Anna, a ten-year-old girl trying to get to Michigan by herself. Why is Anna alone? Can Pieter talk his family into helping her? And can Pieter forgive his father for bringing him to this strange and unfamiliar land where he has to work so hard? In The Journey of Pieter and Anna, Pieter Dekker learns to trust God's direction in his life as he learns to be thankful for all that God has given him. Helen Denboer is a teacher and librarian whose Dutch ancestors settled in Wisconsin, bringing with them a rich Christian heritage. She lives in Germantown, Maryland, where, like her ancestors, she attends a Christian Reformed church.
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Nothing Here But Stones
by Nancy Oswald
In 1882, ten-year-old Emma and her family, along with other Russian Jewish immigrants, arrive in Cotopaxi, Colorado, where they face inhospitable conditions as they attempt to start an agricultural colony, and lonely Emma is comforted by the horse whose life she saved.
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Ashes of Roses
by Mary Jane Auch
Once at Ellis Island, seventeen-year-old Rose Nolan quickly realized that America was very different from what she had expected and so had to quickly adjust to the reality of hard work in the factory to keep food on the table for her and her young sister. Reprint.
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So Far from Home
by Barry Denenberg
In the diary account of her journey from Ireland in 1847 and of her work in a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, fourteen-year-old Mary reveals a great longing for her family.
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Pacific Odyssey to California, 1905
by Laurie Lawlor
Eleven-year-old Su-Na experiences a harsh lesson in racism when she and her family arrive in California seeking prosperity. As she struggles to retain her Korean heritage, she also tries to embrace American culture.
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Land of Hope
by Joan Lowery Nixon
Russian immigrant Rebekah Levinsky hopes desperately that her dream will come true in America. On the difficult ocean journey to the "land of opportunity" she meets two other girls--Kristin Swensen from Sweden and Rose Carney from Ireland. The three quickly become friends as they share their visions of the future and endure life on the overcrowded ship. Once they reach Ellis Island the girls must separate and Rebekah and her family settle in New York on the Lower East Side. Instead of finding streets paved with gold, they slave seven days a week in a sweatshop. Will Rebekah find the courage to conquer the odds and find happiness in the United States of America.
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Land of Promise
by Joan Lowery Nixon
Rose Carney, a young girl from Ireland, befriends Rebecca, from Russia, and Kristen, from Sweden, during the long journey to America. They part ways at Ellis Island and Rose continues onto a new life in Chicago.
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Land of Dreams
by Joan Lowery Nixon
As Kristin Swensen anxiously awaits her first glimpse of America, she is filled with a sense of the freedom that her new life promises. But she soon finds herself living on a farm in Minnesota where her parents and neighbors cling as closely as possible to the life they had known in Sweden. Kristin can't accept coming all this way only to re-create what she left behind. She longs to speak English and help the cause of women's rights. Her parents, however, want her to settle down and get married. Must Kristin give up her dream of independence and accept her parents' Old World values?
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A House of Tailors
by Patricia Reilly Giff
When thirteen-year-old Dina emigrates from Germany to America in 1871, her only wish is to return home as soon as she can, but as the months pass and she survives a multitude of hardships living with her uncle and his young wife and baby, she finds herself thinking of Brooklyn as her home.
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Meet Kirsten: An American Girl, 1854
by Janet Beeler Shaw
The Story of Kirsten, a pioneer girl of strength and spirit around the year 1854 who settles on the frontier.
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Letters from Rifka
by Karen Hesse
In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family's flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America.
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Sarah, Also Known as Hannah
by Lillian Hammer Ross
When twelve-year-old Sarah leaves the Ukraine for America in her sister's place, she must use her sister's passport and her sister's name, Hannah. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
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A Paradise Called Texas
by Janice Jordan Shefelman
Searching for a better life, Mina and her parents leave their German fatherland in 1845 and sail to Texas where they find hardship, tragedy, and adventure.
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The Journal of Otto Peltonen
by William Durbin
In 1905 fifteen-year-old Otto describes in his journal how he travels from Finland to America, joining his father in a dreary iron mining community in Minnesota and becoming involved in a union fight for better working conditions.
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Wildflower Girl
by Marita Conlon-McKenna
Left orphaned at thirteen Peggy O'Driscoll leaves Ireland to seek her fortune in America.
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Twist of Gold
by Michael Morpurgo
A mother and her two surviving children, Sean and Annie, can no longer hold out against the terrible famine in Ireland. Near to death, the mother sends the children out to America, to track down their father.
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An Ocean Apart
by Gillian Chan
With over 400,000 books already in print, the Dear Canada series has fast become the book series for children. Each fictional diary invites readers into the world of a girl living through a particular period in Canada's past. Gillian Chan's latest addition illustrates the effect the Chinese Head Tax has on one young girl and her family. Mei-ling and her father are struggling to pay the head tax that will allow her mother and brother, who are still living in China, to come to Canada. They must have that money before the impending Exclusion Act bars any more Chinese from immigrating. What will happen if they can't come up with enough in time to reunite their family?