Best Selling Books by Marina Budhos

Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and their parents leave Bangladesh for New York City, but the expiration of their visas and the events of September 11, 2001, bring frustration, sorrow, and terror for the whole family.

When a teenage girl’s single mom is taken by ICE, everything changes—all of her hopes and dreams for the future have turned into survival. Seventeen-year-old Rania is shaken awake in her family''s apartment in Brooklyn. ICE is at the door, taking her mother away. But Ammi has This was supposed to be Rania’s greatest summer: hanging out with her best friend, Fatima, and getting ready for college in the fall. But it’s 2019, and nothing is certain. Now, along with her younger brother, Kamal, and a new friend, Carlos, Rania must figure out how to survive. A road trip leads to searching for answers to questions she didn’t even think to ask. In this vivid exploration of what happens when the country you have put your hopes into is fast shutting down, award-winning author Marina Budhos shows us how one girl bursting with dreams navigates secrets, love, and the lure of the open road.

Jaya is from Trinidad, Maria is from Mexico, and Lola is from Slovakia. The girls couldn’t be more different, except for two things: They’re all the daughters of maids and nannies in their prosperous suburban town of Meadowbrook, and they all long to fit in and succeed among their more privileged peers. But when Jaya’s mother is accused of stealing some valuable jewelry from her employer, the seemingly liberal town of Meadowbrook becomes a place of ugly tensions and racism, and the girls’ friendship threatens to buckle under the strain. Once again, Marina Budhos has written a thoughtful and ambitious novel about class and the cultural differences that can both divide and unite.

An extraordinary and timely novel, a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book, examines what it’s like to grow up under surveillance in America. Be careful what you say and who you say it to. Anyone might be a watcher. Naeem is a Bangledeshi teenager living in Queens who thinks he can charm his way through anything. But then mistakes catch up with him. So do the cops, who offer him an impossible choice: spy on his Muslim neighbors and report back to them on shady goings-on, or face a police record. Naeem wants to be a hero—a protector. He wants his parents to be proud of him. But as time goes on, the line between informing and entrapping blurs. Is he saving or betraying his community? Inspired by actual surveillance practices in New York City and elsewhere, Marina Budhos’s extraordinary and timely novel examines what it’s like to grow up with Big Brother always watching. Naeem’s riveting story is as vivid and involving as today’s headlines. Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book, We Need Diverse Books Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Book YALSA Best YA Fiction for Young Adults “A fast-moving, gripping tale.” —SLJ, Starred

Marina Budhos, whose parents came from two different immigrant streams, always listens for the story within the story. Here, in fourteen intimate conversations and many short interviews, teenagers from all over the world reveal their most personal struggles and triumphs. Remix features Muslim girls from traditional families and Guyanese boys who know every hot new club, Hmong athletes, Russians in Disneyland, Central Americans sustained by community and tempted by gangs, Koreans facing extreme pressures to succeed, and many others. Filled with insights about American teenage culture and moving stories about the special challenges immigrants face, Remix shows all the voices of the new America.

In the tumult of 1970s New York City, seventh graders are bussed from their neighborhood in Queens to integrate a new school in South Jamaica. Jamila Clarke. Josie Rivera. Francesca George. Three mixed-race girls, close friends whose immigrant parents worked hard to settle their families in a neighborhood with the best schools. The three girls are outsiders there, but they have each other. Now, at the start seventh grade, they are told they will be part of an experiment, taking a long bus ride to a brand-new school built to "mix up the black and white kids." Their parents don''t want them to be experiments. Francesca''s send her to a private school, leaving Jamila and Josie to take the bus ride without her. While Francesca is testing her limits, Josie and Jamila find themselves outsiders again at the new school. As the year goes on, the Spanish girls welcome Josie, while Jamila develops a tender friendship with a boy--but it''s a relationship that can exist only at school.

Packed with dramatic photos, posters, and maps, this compelling book captures the fascinating story of photojournalism in modern times.