Librarians Love: Books by Non-US Authors

by Flickr user Kenneth Lu
by Flickr user Kenneth Lu
YALSA-bk is a listserv with lively discussions among librarians, educators, and beyond about all things YA lit. Sometimes one listserv member will ask for help finding books around a certain theme or readalikes for a particular title. This post is a compilation of responses for one such request.

The original request
Does anyone have some suggestions of teen lit by foreign authors? I’m looking for modern authors, with less emphasis on European countries (although, I would still like to hear your European suggestions if you really like the book). Trying to build some diversity here!

Suggested titles

  • Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
  • Ruby Red trilogy by Kerstin Gier
  • Why We Took the Car by Wolfgang Herrndorf
  • Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
  • The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis
  • Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth
  • Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

Suggested authors

  • Randa Abdel-Fattah
  • Laura Buzo
  • Cath Crowley
  • Tellulah Darling
  • Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
  • John Flanaghan
  • Karen Foxlee
  • Karen Healey
  • Margo Lanagan
  • Derek Landy
  • Melina Marchetta
  • Juliet Marillier
  • Neesha Meminger
  • Miyuki Miyabe
  • Jaclyn Moriarty
  • Garth Nix
  • Nnedi Okorafor
  • Mitali Perkins
  • Shyam Selvadurai
  • Kashmira Sheth
  • Padma Venkatraman
  • Markus Zusak

Additional suggested resources

Have more titles you think should belong on these lists? Add them on the YALSA wiki or leave a comment! Looking for more compiled booklists? Check out the YALSA wiki or other booklists here at The Hub.

— Gretchen Kolderup, currently reading The Glass Sentence by S.E. Grove

2 thoughts on “Librarians Love: Books by Non-US Authors”

  1. Marcus Sedgwick. Anything by him. While most of his stuff is horror (which I usually can’t stand), I just find him to draw me in like crazy! Especially his focus on mixing old folktales with more recent times.

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