Best Fiction for Third Culture Kids

Jim is a pre-teen settler who runs away from home and is taken in by Native Americans after he is mauled by a bear. Living for many years among the Indians, Jim learns their ways and becomes accepted by the tribe, learning their language, style of dress, and customs.

Then he receives word that his parents have died and his brother and sister need his help to save the family farm. He returns to white civilization but faces great challenges in the transition. His identity comes under close scrutiny by others and even by himself as he struggles to make choices between two ways of life.

Jim's conflict between his original culture and adopted culture is exactly what TCKs face. TCKs will easily grasp the anguish of Jim's choices, the pain of being judged, and the sacrifices he must make to fit in.

I chose this book as part of the Amazon Vine program, not knowing how perfectly it would fit into the TCK experience. 

Fredle is a house mouse who leaves his "culture" and explores the world outside. He encounters cellar mice as well as field mice. As he adjusts to new mice communities, he questions the way things were done back at home. When we finally returns home, he sees that his adventures have radically changed who he is and his perspective on life.

Fredle finds ways to accept what is good about the various cultures he encounters while maintaining his identity as a house mouse. Fredle is a third culture mouse.

Of course, the bulk of the story is an adventure of survival for Fredle, but the moments of insight that Fredle has will resonate clearly to a TCK reader.

This book is excellent for many different TCK experiences because the "cultures" are within mice society. Using animals as her characters, Voigt has created a story that can apply to any nationality or TCK situation.

Esperanza grows up as a pampered daughter of wealthy land owners in Mexico. But her life is turned upside down at age 13 when her father is murdered and the family home is burned. Esperanza and her mother flee to America to work in the agriculture industry and build a new life.

Basic life skills such as how to sweep, cook a meal, and change a baby's diaper are all new to Esperanza who always had people to serve her in the past. In America, she is faced with a new social structure -- one where she is at a disadvantage because of her lack of practical skills.

Esperanza slowly comes to grips with the new culture around her and grows in the process.

There is a strong theme of family and friendship in this hopeful and often poetic book. It is those close relationships that give Esperanza the hope to keep working when life is so difficult.

Many TCKs experience this kind of role reversal when they travel between cultures. Maybe they are rich in one country and poor in the other. Possibly they are welcomed almost as celebrity in one country and ignored or ridiculed in another. These sudden shifts are part of a TCK's life, and Esperanza Rising addresses them beautifully.